That Jazzy Feeling

Goode with BFO

2009-09-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

Breaking news: I have got my dirty paws on the Budapest Festival Orchestra series with Richard Goode (a present from my favourite member of the orchestra, a.k.a. Evi). Haven't listened to it yet, but will do so, and notes will come here.

(I had a quick trip back Budapest over weekend, the objectives being to listen to Mahler's sixth. One of the side-effects, and not a bad one, was that I could also listen to Giovanni Solima's "Folktales for Cello and Orchestra". I recommend looking this guy up, for to say that he is talented would be an understatement. I'm already looking forward to having his CD come out and do the music and paint game with the boys using it. The Mahler on the other hand, was a bit of a disappointment, despite it being one of the favourites of Ivan Fischer. Maybe I was not in the mood for the 80 minutes of this Viennese housewife going mad with neurotic frigidity. I was so hoping for her to have a quick death...)

HAPPY TRACKS:

2009-08-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

Of course, for us living in Oxford, Barenboim will be always amongst other things lovely Jacqueline du Pré's husband, a pairing many thought similar to that between Robert and Clara Schumann.

Tip top idea, Tamas, do count me in, even if it's good clean fun I'm keen to be involved in this plot anyway. It's a sonorous (spinning?) side plate for thesis writing, and my dullard fingers at their keyboard will be duly chastened and chivvied along.

As far as online resources I've just stumbled across for us, in terms of the concertos, Aimard's One through Five, Schiff's Third, Fourth and Fifth, Novaes's Fourth, and Rubinstein's Fourth and Fifth all come available for free listening on Spotify. From Tamas's list below, Gould (No. 1 and No. 5), Kempff (No. 2 (II), No. 4 (III)), Ashkenazy (No. 5 (III)), Brendel No. 3) and Barenboim (Nos. 1 and 2) are on Youtube.

A bit afield, I did just run across Youtube clips of Ashkenazy on playing Beethoven, and András Schiff giving a lecture recital on the last three of the sonatas. And returning to Barenboim, his BBC Reith Lectures from 2006 (on the theme, 'In The Beginning Was Sound' and Harvard Charles Eliot Norton Lectures from 2008 ('Music Quickens Time' - the link is to an accompanying radio appearance) may also be listened to online. There's also a recent New York Times profile, making much both of his cultural breadth, and skill in 'forever making old works sound new'.

More of an internet bibliography from me anon, meine Freundin, once I've skipped off to a free dinner, mine if I can get to it.

2009-08-20T04:07:00.001-07:00

The list so far:

Kempff ("the" baseline?)
Rubinstein
Brendel
Steven Lubin
Melvyn Tan
Ashkenazy
Radu Lupu
Serkin
Goode
Perahia
Glenn Gould
Kissin
Pollini

and then there are also these one:

Barenboim
and an other one... (the same combination)

and plus there are the non-complete series, that we might not want to leave out:
Annie Fischer (Evi said that we do not want to miss out on this one.)
Gieseking (I do not know this, but I would be interested in his version)
Horowitz

This is a lot, probably too many. Please reveal your preferences.

Daniel and Ludwig

2009-08-18T02:05:00.000-07:00

This blog is the long promised space to allow our communal prepare for Barenboim's London Beethoven piano concerto series January and February 2010.

The idea is to pick particular interpretations of Beethoven's piano concertos, listen them more or less at the same time, and then discuss them here. I think this would be a very good fun.

The idea comes from my earlier experience on Daniel Barenboim reinterpreting a classic piece. A few years back he went to Budapest to play one of Bartok's piano concertos. To play Bartok in Budapest, a piano concerto at that, could be seen as somewhat risk taking... To say that the audience was sceptical would be an understatement. Barenboim's solution to this problem was to completely reinterpret the whole thing. Instead of following the classical line, say in line with that iconic Kocsis-Fischer recording, he chose to play the concerto in a 1950's jazz style. It was Earth-shattering. It not only shed a new light on Bartok's piece, but also was a revelation about jazz. It was just incredible. (I must admit though, that not everyone in the audience shared my enthusiasm: the people seemed to be evenly divided into two emotionally charged groups. A lot of raised voices in the foyer.) I suspect that we could hear a similar reinterpretation in London, and if so, preparing for it might just raise our joy level.

YOUR JOB 1. So, if you want to chat here, please say so, so everyone else would know that you are here. Then I can give you rights to post blogposts here.

YOUR JOB 2. If you know particular recordings that would be useful to include (maybe we should aim at ten or so altogether?) please say so.

I would put forward Rubinstein's and Alfred Brendel's (I think 1984 recording, but can't find the cd case now -- the curse of putting your music on itunes...). (On the B-List, perhaps Schiff's 1997, but I doubt that we will run out of A list stuff.) Does anyone know the 1994 Abbado - Pollini - Berliner Philharmoniker recording, btw?

YOUR JOB 3. Comment if you want this site to be open to others or closed and thus limited to invitees.

(NB. If you are trying to buy tickets now, the series is four concerts on four different days.)