Record Review: non-BaL discs reviewed, etc.

[amateur51]

Followed your lead here, Caliban, and downloaded the 'Hammerklavier', and marvelled at it, especially the endless imaginative detail in the first movement.
Also downloaded the Haydn Sonata E Flat they excerpted, from Rozhukhin, a pianist I'd not heard of. He plays Haydn on the piano with the naturalness and spontaneity that Colin Davies brings to the symphonies....lovely.

I agree with you about Vignoles.

I wonder how does Bax's Hammerklavier compare with the much-praised recent Levit recording?

[Nick Armstrong]

Looks like I'm going to have to add a studio master download of E. Gardner's 'Mendelssohn in Birmingham Vol 2' to the same of Vol 1... which has been one of my most-listened-to and most-enjoyed recordings in the car! That music and that recording just works on the road!

[Alison]

Yes, good Mendelssohn slot with Stephen Johnson. The Birmingham CD is a must have for me too.

Did I spot yet another poke at Karajan from SJ?!

[amateur51]

Looks like I'm going to have to add a studio master download of E. Gardner's 'Mendelssohn in Birmingham Vol 2' to the same of Vol 1... which has been one of my most-listened-to and most-enjoyed recordings in the car! That music and that recording just works on the road!

Vorsprung mit Chandos?

[Nick Armstrong]

Vorsprung mit Chandos?

Vorsprung durch Felix!

[Nick Armstrong]

Very much looking forward to this tomorrow:

10.45am New Releases
David Owen Norris joins Andrew live in the studio to discuss recent recordings of piano repertoire by Schumann & Chopin performed by Daniel Grimwood, Ingrid Fliter, David Wilde, Andrew Tyson, Valentina Lisitsa and Andreas Staier

[Nick Armstrong]

Well the discussion trailed above was a disappointment I thought - too much aimless 'I like' / 'I don't like' (plus some annoyingly random anecdotising - "It makes me think of....." - by DON), plus a glaring bungle, the wretched 'fireside chat' format making it almost impossible for DON to apply his brand of enlightening and amusing close focus to the music and the playing... though he managed to get some of it in towards the end.

Worth hearing notwithstanding for the interest of the performances, positive and negative - some hair-raisingly mechanical 'fast and loud' stuff from Lisitsa and Wilde, I thought (though some sensitive playing from both too), an odd-sounding disc from Staier, and some rather over-analytical Fauré from Daniel Grimwood (who must have been surprised to see himself billed as playing Schumann and Chopin). Pick of the crop for me were the extracts from the ZigZag Territoires Chopin recording by Andrew Tyson, not a name known to me. Going to explore that one further.

[Alison]

Rather against my expectations the disc I just might purchase is the Lisitsa. A beautifully warm and deep piano sound, so it seemed, with playing that certainly did command attention and which the lads dismissed a bit too easily for my money. I need a new disc of Etudes and they just might have it at the local HMV!

[Nick Armstrong]

Rather against my expectations the disc I just might purchase is the Lisitsa. A beautifully warm and deep piano sound, so it seemed, with playing that certainly did command attention and which the lads dismissed a bit too easily for my money. I need a new disc of Etudes and they just might have it at the local HMV!

Alison I do recommend you consider this disc before you do so:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chopin-Études-Jan-Lisiecki/dp/B00BCCE3VM

It's top drawer, I think.

[Alison]

Thanks Cali, must confess I'd missed that one. This guy has been awesome on the couple of occasions he's come my way

Yes DON a shade disappointing today.

[Nick Armstrong]

This guy has been awesome on the couple of occasions he's come my way

I went to hear him play the Etudes at the Wigmore Hall last year - it was fantastic.

[Barbirollians]

Although they are not new in one sense Alison do you have the Testament release of Pollini's first set of Etudes recorded for EMI at the same time or just about as the legendary Piano Concerto No 1 with Kletzki ( I think he refused to pass them at the time ). They are absolutely stunning and with a warmth and tenderness missing from much of his DG Chopin of the 1970s and 1980s to my ears .

[Nick Armstrong]

I found the extended extract from the Barenboim 'Heldenleben' at the end of CD Review yesterday really involving, with the exception of a sour horn solo. Anyone else heard it? I loved the pacing of the sections after the battle, and the layering and characterisation of all the self-quotations. Best thing I've heard from Barenboim in a long while. Maybe has something to do with the fact that I listened first not knowing who was performing!

[Zucchini]

Best thing I've heard from Barenboim in a long while.

OK not the same thing but you haven't heard Argerich/Barenboim's live Rite of Spring then. The score is a revelation and the precision and palette of tone colours almost beyond belief

[DublinJimbo]

OK not the same thing but you haven't heard Argerich/Barenboim's live Rite of Spring then. The score is a revelation and the precision and palette of tone colours almost beyond belief

Yes, astonishing stuff. Oh to have been there ...