"Perfect Pianists at the BBC" - Friday 4 March 20:00, BBC Four

[Barbirollians]

Maybe not a fashionable response but the snippet that did it for me was Murray Perahia's Scarlatti.

But overall, a reminder that we really are feeding off scraps these days where music TV is concerned.

Agree about Perahia - dazzling stuff , the Leeds Piano Competition doesn't quite attract talent like Perahia and Lupu nowadays !

[Richard Tarleton]

Maybe not a fashionable response but the snippet that did it for me was Murray Perahia's Scarlatti.

I loved his little dig about Scarlatti and keyboards

An hour of (almost) undiluted joy. The aperçus on technique were fascinating. I remember Barenboim talking about Rubinstein's extraordinary hands, how the fingers all seemed to be the same length.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I loved his little dig about Scarlatti and keyboards

An hour of (almost) undiluted joy. The aperçus on technique were fascinating. I remember Barenboim talking about Rubinstein's extraordinary hands, how the fingers all seemed to be the same length.

I wish that they'd shown a bit of the conversation with Rubinstein made a few months before his death where he described how he used tom practise scales when a small boy. (He'd put a box of chocolates on one side of the piano, a box of cherries on the other, and a story book on the Music stand: whilst working on right hand exercises, he'd pick out cherries and turn pages with his left hand; and eat chocolates and turn pages with his right hand whilst practising his Left Hand exercises.) In this conversation, he also revealed how some of his greatest Musical pleasures recently had been provided by listening to Kathleen Ferrier's folksong recordings. (I've liked Rubinstein ever since!)

[aeolium]

I also enjoyed this a lot, particularly the Perahia and Rubinstein clips. Richter in that second extract, shown from overhead, seemed to be almost wrestling the piano - incredible to watch. I'd never seen footage of Solomon playing, which was moving to see. I only wish the programme had been longer, to include others like Gilels, Curzon, Ashkenazy, Pollini etc.

[teamsaint]

I wish that they'd shown a bit of the conversation with Rubinstein made a few months before his death where he described how he used tom practise scales when a small boy. (He'd put a box of chocolates on one side of the piano, a box of cherries on the other, and a story book on the Music stand: whilst working on right hand exercises, he'd pick out cherries and turn pages with his left hand; and eat chocolates and turn pages with his right hand whilst practising his Left Hand exercises.) In this conversation, he also revealed how some of his greatest Musical pleasures recently had been provided by listening to Kathleen Ferrier's folksong recordings. (I've liked Rubinstein ever since!)

there is a nice section in a biog of Rachmaninov, where he describes how he decided to work on his weakest fingers ,( when he was already a professional performer, )and ended up having to do this on all ten, as ( presumably) the weakest overtook those that were initially strongest.

[oddoneout]

it wasn't Finchcocks (if that's what you meant) - though I've forgotten where he said it was. edit - it was Hatchlands in Surrey (which may or may not be closing, I don't know)

http://www.cobbecollection.co.uk/ - that's a great website, you can listen to each instrument being played

Thanks mercia, yes it was Finchcocks I meant. I missed what DON said about where he was, hence my query, and glad it's not another case of seeing something that no longer exists.

[Barbirollians]

I wish that they'd shown a bit of the conversation with Rubinstein made a few months before his death where he described how he used tom practise scales when a small boy. (He'd put a box of chocolates on one side of the piano, a box of cherries on the other, and a story book on the Music stand: whilst working on right hand exercises, he'd pick out cherries and turn pages with his left hand; and eat chocolates and turn pages with his right hand whilst practising his Left Hand exercises.) In this conversation, he also revealed how some of his greatest Musical pleasures recently had been provided by listening to Kathleen Ferrier's folksong recordings. (I've liked Rubinstein ever since!)

In that tribute to John Amis on Radio 3 a couple of years back there was an interview with Walter Legge who said that Rubinstein asked him to send him all the piano records HMV made to listen to and he always sent them back - except Lipatti's he always kept those .

[oddoneout]

I only wish the programme had been longer, to include others like Gilels, Curzon, Ashkenazy, Pollini etc.

I wouldn't have wanted a longer programme - there was quite a lot to absorb in the hour we did get - but I would have liked more than one. Welcome as next week's violin offering may be it will suffer from the same drawback of being no more than a brief glimpse of all the interesting, inspiring, thought-provoking, heated-debate-initiating material that is there but never sees the light of day.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In that tribute to John Amis on Radio 3 a couple of years back there was an interview with Walter Legge who said that Rubinstein asked him to send him all the piano records HMV made to listen to and he always sent them back - except Lipatti's he always kept those .

- good choice: but surprised if he sent back Solomon, too!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I wouldn't have wanted a longer programme - there was quite a lot to absorb in the hour we did get - but I would have liked more than one.

YES! A series of six hour-long programmes with DON using the clips to illustrate technical matters, and then an uninterrupted performance of a complete work or two.

Welcome as next week's violin offering may be it will suffer from the same drawback of being no more than a brief glimpse of all the interesting, inspiring, thought-provoking, heated-debate-initiating material that is there but never sees the light of day.

This is how I suspect the programme will turn out, too.

[oddoneout]

What's the best way of making views known to the 'senior management' about such matters? I tried to make a comment about last night's programme but after a timewasting and confusing trip around the mess that is the Beeb website I had to settle for just whatever feedback mechanism seemed least inappropriate.
I am a letter writer by inclination anyway so that is always an option, but there are occasions when speed is the priority and some form of online communication should be the solution....

[mercia]

I thought the Solomon extract we saw was very metronomic - almost no 'give' in it at all, but I guess fashions change in these things

[Nick Armstrong]

I wish that they'd shown a bit of the conversation with Rubinstein made a few months before his death where he described how he used tom practise scales when a small boy. (He'd put a box of chocolates on one side of the piano, a box of cherries on the other, and a story book on the Music stand: whilst working on right hand exercises, he'd pick out cherries and turn pages with his left hand; and eat chocolates and turn pages with his right hand whilst practising his Left Hand exercises.) In this conversation, he also revealed how some of his greatest Musical pleasures recently had been provided by listening to Kathleen Ferrier's folksong recordings. (I've liked Rubinstein ever since!)

... I just had a quick burrow on YouTube, found a few interviews with him there, but didn't pin-point that one. Might be worth having a hunt around, if you recall something about the look of the one you mention. Would love to see it.

[gradus]

Was it Rubinstein who recorded almost everything of Chopin's except the studies?

[ardcarp]

I couldn't believe an hour had passed at the end. I was completely absorbed by it all. (I remember Solomon 78s from my childhood home.) DON could have used up a lot of the hour talking, but he didn't, and just introduced each clip briefly but with insight. Grown up TV at last...the shape of things to come?

I just have one query. I thought square pianos were really domestic instruments, yet DON said early concertos were played on them with a small number of string-players. I always assumed, though stand to be corrected, that the fortepiano (i.e. still a harpsichord sort of shape) was the first to be invented and presumably the first to be used for early piano concertos.