Technique and/or soul? (Pollini et al.)

[richardfinegold]

I think I read somewhere that DG tweaked the audio in Pollini's recordings to emphasise the upper mid-range thus amplifying that steeliness, in order to differentiate his piano sound from that of label stablemates such as Gilels and Michelangeli, whose discs of Grieg Lyric Pieces and Debussy Images of similar vintage remain touchstones of sonic excellence IMHO, at least in their vinyl incarnations. DG has a bit of a mixed reputation for the Original Image Bit-Processing re-masterings of the 90s, which attracted criticism from some in the pro audio community, esp. here in the UK. Tony Faulkner wrote a debunking article for Studio Sound sometime in the late 90s.

Having said that, I love Pollini's DG Schumann C maj Fantasy coupled with Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, which doesn't have quite the brittle sound quality of the Chopin Etudes.

Sorry to be off-topic again....maybe a move to a new thread would be in order, hosts ?

My one chance to hear Pollini live was nixed due to the shutdown so I have no ability to comment on what he “really” sounds like, if indeed he currently sounds like he did 50 years ago. The Schumann Fantasy demands a different type of approach to harmony than the Chopin Etudesso hard to make a comparison. In general I am not a fan of DG recording of the Piano from the sixties/seventies, and I will grant that they may have tweaked a few knobs for the Pollini Etudes, but the result justifies the means if that occurred

[smittims]

Yes, you can have both:Fritz Kreisler springs to mind, and for pianists I'd suggest Walter Gieseking. But Pollini does divide opinions. The Gramophone famously said 'now Gileles is gone , Pollini is king'. Yet here's the Penguin Guide as early as the mid-70s , on his Beethoven opp. 109 and 110:

'Masterly pianism... in terms of keyboard control,not to mention commanding intelligence, his art silences criticism' (my italics!) '...every phrase is moulded with marmoreal perfection... but somehow one is left strangely unmoved. Pollini does not scale the heights or plumb the depths as did Schnabel... and in op.110 both Brendel and Bishop-Kovacevich (as he was then called) are to be preferred.'

That's very much of its time, not least the citing of Schnabel's 1932 recording as a lodestone (or is it a 'benchmark'?). But such opinions survive today.

[Maclintick]

I heard Giltburg in recital playing early Beethoven recitals and thought he was excellent. OTOH I haven’t liked any of his recordings. Maybe he is just uneven?

I downloaded Giltburg's Rachmaninov Preludes and Shostakovich piano concerto recordings from Presto and really enjoyed them.

[Roslynmuse]

I have never heard Pollini live, but knew the 70s recordings of Chopin Etudes, Preludes and Polonaises well. The Polonaises disc was my introduction to most of the pieces and I learned a lot about Chopin from it; nevertheless, I still found Barenboim's recording of the Polonaise-fantasie, which I bought around the same time, warmer and less aloof. I knew other recordings of Op 53 which were more exciting - Katchen on his 'encores' LP for example. I was awestruck by the Etudes, but enjoyed Ashkenazy more. As time has gone on, I have appreciated many of the older, 'flawed' recordings (Cortot etc) infinitely more than the soulless perfection we hear so often nowadays. Pollini was perhaps one of the first to display that incredible technical control so objectively. I never really liked his interpretation of the Preludes, but I got to know them via other quite different pianists. His more recent Chopin discs have left me cold.

I think one difficulty we have as listeners is that our first hearings of composers as susceptible to 'individual' interpretations as Chopin (Schumann and Brahms too) provide a blueprint in our minds that is difficult to erase. I enjoy Kissin's Chopin very much, admire his Liszt and Prokofiev, but dislike his Schumann and Beethoven. Another difficulty is that the piano is such a difficult instrument to record and the sort of sound that - subjectively - does not go as we'd like with the repertoire can get in the way of appreciating the performances themselves. I love the Gieseking Debussy Preludes, for example, because the piano sound - despite its age - is soft-grained and beautiful; but I have no way of knowing whether Gieseking live sounded anything like that, or indeed whether he heard himself in the same way!

I must also admit that I have found the praise Perahia's Chopin has received mystifying; I bought the much-admired disc of the Ballades when it came out and had a strong negative reaction to it; I heard him play them live a few years later and disliked them all over again then. My loss, I'm sure. Ditto hearing Zimerman playing Beethoven a few years back. Incredible players and technicians, but somehow their musicality passes me by.

Finally, re Giltburg, I heard him play what I considered a wonderful expressive, non barnstorming Rach 3 some years back; a friend sitting in a different part of the Bridgewater Hall complained about the relentless bashing of the piano, so acoustics certainly play a role in the experience (that sounds an obvious thing to say; what I mean is that the same performance from two different seats in a good hall can give completely different impressions of that performance).

[smittims]

Yes, the Gieseking Debussy Preludes were always an excellent recording. The Record Guide gave book one two stars (there were only two in their system) and called it 'about the most flawless issue of recent years. The pianist seems to be in the room with us. ' It was of course, helped by the EMI engineers having over twenty years recording in Studio Three at Abbey road, an ideal room for solo piano.

In my view the the temptation in modern piano recordings is to position the microphones too close, revealing a more percussive sound than one would hear even in a small recital room. This would be a disservice to Pollini, as it was, I think, to Gary Graffman, whom CBS chose to promote as a steely-fingered lion of the keyboard, when in fact he was a much more senstitve pianist than this implied.

One of the best piano recordings I have heard in recent years was a Radio Three broadcast of Ravel (virtually his complete solo works) from the Royal Northern College, played by Stephen Osborne. The engineers seem to have taken pains to get the microphones at the right distance, so we had the ambience of the hall.

[rauschwerk]

I must also admit that I have found the praise Perahia's Chopin has received mystifying; I bought the much-admired disc of the Ballades when it came out and had a strong negative reaction to it; I heard him play them live a few years later and disliked them all over again then. My loss, I'm sure. Ditto hearing Zimerman playing Beethoven a few years back. Incredible players and technicians, but somehow their musicality passes me by.

I bought Perahia's set of the Ballades soon after it came out but in the 30 years since then I have hardly played them. Perhaps I should try again, since his versions of the Etudes (2002) and Preludes (1975) are, to my ears, quite another matter and I often return to them.

[Barbirollians]

I had Pollini's Polonaises - really didn't like them for that hard percussive sound- sent me straight back to Rubinstein.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I have never heard Pollini live, but knew the 70s recordings of Chopin Etudes, Preludes and Polonaises well. The Polonaises disc was my introduction to most of the pieces and I learned a lot about Chopin from it; nevertheless, I still found Barenboim's recording of the Polonaise-fantasie, which I bought around the same time, warmer and less aloof. I knew other recordings of Op 53 which were more exciting - Katchen on his 'encores' LP for example. I was awestruck by the Etudes, but enjoyed Ashkenazy more. As time has gone on, I have appreciated many of the older, 'flawed' recordings (Cortot etc) infinitely more than the soulless perfection we hear so often nowadays. Pollini was perhaps one of the first to display that incredible technical control so objectively. I never really liked his interpretation of the Preludes, but I got to know them via other quite different pianists. His more recent Chopin discs have left me cold.

I think one difficulty we have as listeners is that our first hearings of composers as susceptible to 'individual' interpretations as Chopin (Schumann and Brahms too) provide a blueprint in our minds that is difficult to erase. I enjoy Kissin's Chopin very much, admire his Liszt and Prokofiev, but dislike his Schumann and Beethoven. Another difficulty is that the piano is such a difficult instrument to record and the sort of sound that - subjectively - does not go as we'd like with the repertoire can get in the way of appreciating the performances themselves. I love the Gieseking Debussy Preludes, for example, because the piano sound - despite its age - is soft-grained and beautiful; but I have no way of knowing whether Gieseking live sounded anything like that, or indeed whether he heard himself in the same way!

I must also admit that I have found the praise Perahia's Chopin has received mystifying; I bought the much-admired disc of the Ballades when it came out and had a strong negative reaction to it; I heard him play them live a few years later and disliked them all over again then. My loss, I'm sure. Ditto hearing Zimerman playing Beethoven a few years back. Incredible players and technicians, but somehow their musicality passes me by.

Finally, re Giltburg, I heard him play what I considered a wonderful expressive, non barnstorming Rach 3 some years back; a friend sitting in a different part of the Bridgewater Hall complained about the relentless bashing of the piano, so acoustics certainly play a role in the experience (that sounds an obvious thing to say; what I mean is that the same performance from two different seats in a good hall can give completely different impressions of that performance).

All good points - although I’m a big Perahia fan and his Sony Ballades has one of the best recorded piano songs I’ve ever heard. You are right it is difficult to record a piano well. Part of the problem is that the pianists themselves gets one of the worst sound pictures of anyone in the hall. Far too loud and close to the hammers.
One of the first radio training sessions I ever did was placing a series of mono mikes in an arc from in line with the keyboard to in line with the heel of the piano . I reckon they were about 6 foot from the piano maybe up to 10 and in a relatively big studio . There was no doubt that the best sound was that at 90 deg to the curve of the grand - the bit where old fashioned Leider singers used to lean on. That place , of course , is precisely where most piano audiences (including me ) choose not to buy tickets as you can’t see the keyboard and indeed much of the pianist! It’s also the sound the pianist never hears unless they are listening to another pianist.

Then as you say your get into the acoustic problem. I once walked into the RFH when Andre Previn was trying out no fewer that three Steinways . Admittedly they were with the keyboard facing the auditorium and the heel facing toward the choir. He was playing a Mozart Piano concerto and I was on the walkway half way back. The piano sounded awful and I thought that’s strange because Previn has a wonderful piano sound . It was the acoustic of course. There are similar problems at the QEH . Halfway back is a terrible acoustic spot.
The weird thing about the Giltburg experience was that at the Wigmore in recital he was far too loud ( I was in row 6 ) whereas at the Exeter Great Hall (not that big really) playing the same piano (Fazioli) in a big concerto he sounded fine (I was in row 6). Maybe the Fazioli is too “big” for the Wigmore . Maybe he should have scaled down for the size. I wonder if he had an agent or Wigmore person to actually sit in the stalls in rehearsal and feedback - that’s what should happen.

No lack of soul in either performance though. A tremendous artist.

[silvestrione]

DG's recordings of Pollini vary widely of course. Two I particularly enjoy ( from overall sound picture, I mean) are the 2013 disc of Beethoven Sonatas 0pp. 7, 14 and 22, recorded in the 'Concert Hall of KKL Luzern', (considered a 'masterpiece of acoustics', according to the booklet), where you are some distance away from the piano, for once; and the other, the marvellous live recording of Brahms PC2 with Abbado, from the Philharmonie in 1995.

'Integrity' would be my word for Pollini at his best, or even not! More recently, he can be charmless, e.g. in Beethoven Op 90 or 78.

Soul...tricky! I would nominate the playing of the second subject (if you like, even more precisely, the ending of the second subject) in Schubert D. 959, and, in the youtube version of the RFH concert I was present at (I'm not responsible for the youtube posting!), the moment in the D. 959 Rondo where the tune comes back in fragments. But all through really, of course.

[smittims]

Yes, I think Pollini is better in Schubert than in Beethoven. A parallel, perhaps, with Clifford Curzon, who was famously 'soul' in Schubert, but , apart from the fourth and fifth concertos , hardly touched Beethoven (or Chopin either, for that matter) .

[gradus]

Momentarily aside from great pianists but on the same tack, doesn't Kennedy express disdain for many of the graduates of the high-powered US conservatories precisely because in obsessing over technique they have ended up sounding alike and by comparison with Menuhin who became technically fallible, they have no musical soul. I think he has a point.

[akiralx]

In my view the the temptation in modern piano recordings is to position the microphones too close, revealing a more percussive sound than one would hear even in a small recital room. This would be a disservice to Pollini, as it was, I think, to Gary Graffman, whom CBS chose to promote as a steely-fingered lion of the keyboard, when in fact he was a much more senstitve pianist than this implied.

One of the best piano recordings I have heard in recent years was a Radio Three broadcast of Ravel (virtually his complete solo works) from the Royal Northern College, played by Stephen Osborne. The engineers seem to have taken pains to get the microphones at the right distance, so we had the ambience of the hall.

Yes, Osborne's recordings are favourites of mine, for performance and sound. I too dislike the piano to be too immediate, maybe because I generally listen on headphones.

Another Hyperion artist whose recordings I never like (apart from his Brahms late pieces) is Stephen Hough - because he always seems to be playing too loudly (in Chopin, Grieg, the Schumann/Dvorak concertos etc), which I have wondered was owing to the engineers, but the Brahms recording is different for some reason so maybe he just likes playing like that generally.

[akiralx]

Pollini is curious for me because some of his recordings have phenomenal sweep and spontaneity (like the first Brahms Second Concerto with VPO/Abbado) while their later collaboration in the Beethoven Concertos in Berlin left me unmoved.

Even recordings as part of the same series differ like this: the Schubert Sonata D.959 I find excellent, full of humanity, while the D.960 is just cold to me - I'm not sure how close together they were recorded.

[smittims]

Pollini's D959 was recorded in the Musikvereinsaal in December 1983 and D960 in the Herkulessaal in June 1987, both oddly large rooms for solo piano works (a world away from Studio 3 at Abbey Road!. So make of that what you will. I think Erik Smith recorded Mitsuko Uchida's Schubert in the Musikvereinsaal too.

[richardfinegold]

Pollini is often described as Apollonian, which I take to mean as he is on a throne in Mt. Olympus, viewed the petty emotions of mere humans with disdain and when playing seeking a god like level of technical perfection unsoiled by human considerations.
It’s more complicated than that. Surely he won’t he be confused with Rubinstein or Arrau, 2 of my favorites who also had very distinct sound. Pollini’s Chopin Ballades are not a soulless demonstration in technique-there is definitely an epic, bardic quality to them, if not the same voice as other bards.
Not every thing he plays moves me. His 2 recorded go around of the last 3 Beethoven Sonatas, particularly Op.111, have left me cold (those sonatas were the intended program for the Covid canceled program that I missed). I also was massively disappointed with his Chopin Preludes upon first encounter (it was one of my first CDs , purchased with funds that were dear after my LPs had been destroyed in a house flood and before the days of budget CDs and streaming), but kept playing it out of necessity for years. Now I have a plethora of choice but I frequently listen to the Pollini, as I gradually was won over to his vantage point.
So I get the the view that he is a soulless technician, but I think that massively under values a magnificent Artist.