BaL 24.02.24 - Ravel: Mother Goose [complete ballet]

[gradus]

I recall listening to a Pollini version of op111 and thinking it feels wrong, very slow and to my ears inexpressive; just an impression recalled. I can also recall seeing him on the cover of the Gramophone in the 1960's, just having won the Chopin Competition and being feted and acclaimed.

[richardfinegold]

Re Iberia compare Hamelin with that recent historic Alicia De Larrocha historic recital . He has all the notes but she lives and breathes the music . Absolutely staggering playing - beyond virtuosity. Hamelin is a tremendous player but like Pollini not a single bar he’s played has ever moved me.

To each their own. I find Pollini DG Etudes thrilling in their steely brilliance, and who couldn’t appreciate the torrents of passion in the last of the Op.25 set? My current favorite alternative is Beatrice Rana

[Nick Armstrong]

To each their own. I find Pollini DG Etudes thrilling in their steely brilliance, and who couldn’t appreciate the torrents of passion in the last of the Op.25 set? My current favorite alternative is Beatrice Rana

I’m with you on both counts.

In my mind Pollini is in a completely different category from Hamelin. What about Pollini’s late Beethoven and Schubert sonatas - he brings his own unique insights and depths, to my ears. (Mind you, that Chopin PC1 with Kletzki always left me totally cold - allegedly a ‘classic of the gramophone’ but I could never hear why )

But we digress…

[Ein Heldenleben]

I recall listening to a Pollini version of op111 and thinking it feels wrong, very slow and to my ears inexpressive; just an impression recalled. I can also recall seeing him on the cover of the Gramophone in the 1960's, just having won the Chopin Competition and being feted and acclaimed.

I heard him do the final 3 Beethoven sonatas at the RFH - without a break as it happens - and completely agree with you. He did not play a single wrong note as far as I could make out - just slightly smudged a chord. An incredible technique though.

[Maclintick]

To each their own. I find Pollini DG Etudes thrilling in their steely brilliance, and who couldn’t appreciate the torrents of passion in the last of the Op.25 set? My current favorite alternative is Beatrice Rana

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 ?

[silvestrione]

I heard him do the final 3 Beethoven sonatas at the RFH - without a break as it happens - and completely agree with you. He did not play a single wrong note as far as I could make out - just slightly smudged a chord. An incredible technique though.

I find this much exaggerated. I've heard wrong notes (Schumann Fantasie in C at RFH) and things threatening to go off the rails (Liszt Sonata, RFH). At his peerless best in the 70s perhaps. Of Michelangeli, now, I'd believe it , that he never played a wrong note.

[Maclintick]

Of Michelangeli, now, I'd believe it , that he never played a wrong note.

He did. 4th April 1982 RFH in Les Collines d'Anacapri ...an otherwise flawless recital. I heard him in the 2nd book of Debussy Préludes a couple of years later in the Barbican. Feux d'Artifice was unforgettable -- a scintillating, almost synaesthetic wave of sound, points of light dancing before your eyes..impossible to imagine coming from a box full of metal wires and hammers...

[gradus]

He did. 4th April 1982 RFH in Les Collines d'Anacapri ...an otherwise flawless recital. I heard him in the 2nd book of Debussy Préludes a couple of years later in the Barbican. Feux d'Artifice was unforgettable -- a scintillating, almost synaesthetic wave of sound, points of light dancing before your eyes..impossible to imagine coming from a box full of metal wires and hammers...

Feux d'Artifice reminds me of the spectacular recital of the Preludes by Cedric Thebergien a few years back - one of those occasions when you hear live what seems like a definitive performance of a work. I get the impression that he does less solo work and more chamber music these days.
I should love to have heard Michelangeli live especially in Debussy and more particularly in the Anacapri prelude, a personal favourite.

[silvestrione]

He did. 4th April 1982 RFH in Les Collines d'Anacapri ...an otherwise flawless recital. I heard him in the 2nd book of Debussy Préludes a couple of years later in the Barbican. Feux d'Artifice was unforgettable -- a scintillating, almost synaesthetic wave of sound, points of light dancing before your eyes..impossible to imagine coming from a box full of metal wires and hammers...

(Had the chance to go to that Barbican recital, and turned it down. Stupid!)