Whose solo piano music floats your boat?

[BBMmk2]

I will be buying!

[Beef Oven!]

I will be buying!

Trifonov? I'm sure you'll be delighted. This set has not only completely renewed my interest in Liszt's piano music, but has made it such an enjoyable experience.

I remember when I saw Trifonov live in 2015 performing Rachmaniniv's 3rd pc - I knew the name, but little else. I was with ferney & Caliban and I fear no contradiction when I say all three of us were astonished by Trifonov's performance

"............Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 3 in D minor, performed by the young lion, Daniil Trifonov. What a performance this was, managing to combine delicacy, power, passion, spontaneity and rhythmic precision in a miraculous way. This is a piece that lives or dies on the commitment of its soloist. If played with classical restraint it sounds like any other late romantic concerto warhorse, but given this level of uninhibited élan, it becomes an overwhelming experience. With Ashkenazy securely steering proceedings with his pianists’ deep understanding of how to make the work shine, Trifonov was able to relax into his performance in a way that I haven’t heard for decades"

[Jonathan]

Dinars Klinton's Transcendental etudes recording is excellent as well. Ill post more on this later, I suspect!

[BBMmk2]

Beefy, wish I waswith you there!

[Beef Oven!]

Beefy, wish I waswith you there!

Just finished breakfast and I've a lot of chores to do this morning - I don't think that I'd be good company. But nice sentiment all the same, thanks.

[Pianorak]

Dinara Klinton's Transcendental etudes . . .

Here she is. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDHZC7b4u4I A superb Ricordanza. Brief video breakup at 24'.

[Nick Armstrong]

Trifonov? I'm sure you'll be delighted. This set has not only completely renewed my interest in Liszt's piano music, but has made it such an enjoyable experience.

I remember when I saw Trifonov live in 2015 performing Rachmaniniv's 3rd pc - I knew the name, but little else. I was with ferney & Caliban and I fear no contradiction when I say all three of us were astonished by Trifonov's performance

"............Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 3 in D minor, performed by the young lion, Daniil Trifonov. What a performance this was, managing to combine delicacy, power, passion, spontaneity and rhythmic precision in a miraculous way. This is a piece that lives or dies on the commitment of its soloist. If played with classical restraint it sounds like any other late romantic concerto warhorse, but given this level of uninhibited élan, it becomes an overwhelming experience. With Ashkenazy securely steering proceedings with his pianists’ deep understanding of how to make the work shine, Trifonov was able to relax into his performance in a way that I haven’t heard for decades"

Mind you I heard DT's performance of Ravel's Concerto in G recently, and it was one of the most bizarre and disappointing performances of anything I've heard in a long time.

Horses for courses, I suspect....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

From me, too. And whilst much of Liszt (including the Etudes Transcendentales) is a sunk ship for me, the Trifonov recording are a sort of life raft - in his astonishing hands, I almost like listening to them.


(The biggest exception is the B minor Sonata which I adore - and a recent Live recital including the work given by Tamila Salimdjanova reminded me just how marvellous in every respect it is.)

[Serial_Apologist]

From me, too. And whilst much of Liszt (including the Etudes Transcendentales) is a sunk ship for me, the Trifonov recording are a sort of life raft - in his astonishing hands, I almost like listening to them.

Hearing Liszt piano music for the first time inspired me to experiment with simultaneous pedalled effects at the top and bottom of the keyboard. This was at about the age of ten, when I first was big enough to reach that far; but for me, at any rate, it ilustrates that Liszt was at his best as an effects person - trying, and succeeding, for instance, in reproducing the power and weight of full orchestra on the pianoforte, but rarely applying his fascination for either that or expanded harmonies to matters of formal integrity. I'm trying to remember who it was who described Liszt's methods of form-building as "wallpaper pattern", pointing out that imitators of this approach included otherwise great Russian composers such as Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov. In an age, now hopefully gone (but cave Trump!), of rhetoric, I think he wanted to go one further than Beethoven, but either failed to do so because he lacked the talent, or failed to see that Beethoven had himself seen the dead end after completing the Hammerklavier.

(The biggest exception is the B minor Sonata which I adore - and a recent Live recital including the work given by Tamila Salimdjanova reminded me just how marvellous in every respect it is.)

I agree with you (and Boulez, who singled the Sonata out as the first work of musical modernism) inasmuch that here, for once, Liszt achieved novelty while at the same time latching onto the means of organic growth - even though there are also flaws in it of that crass rhetorical excess that one wishes Liszt had not indulged in - the problem being that in the arts he was the ultimate showman of his time - as much a rock star progenitor as anybody of his time, and had one committed him to brain surgery or drug therapy we would have probably lost those aspects of his thinking that would drive more fruitful areas of investigation in the hands of his more musically gifted successors, too many to name, and not having the benefit of the genuinely fascinating, forward-looking music of Liszt's final years.

[vinteuil]

From me, too. And whilst much of Liszt (including the Etudes Transcendentales) is a sunk ship for me, the Trifonov recording are a sort of life raft - in his astonishing hands, I almost like listening to them.


(The biggest exception is the B minor Sonata which I adore - and a recent Live recital including the work given by Tamila Salimdjanova reminded me just how marvellous in every respect it is.)

... I suspect you might almost like listening to this one too - the marvellous Danl: Grimwood on an 1851 Érard in the Années de Pèlerinage -

http://amzn.eu/hHW6GeK

It certainly converted this Liszt-sceptic ...

[Pianorak]

... I suspect you might almost like listening to this one too - the marvellous Danl: Grimwood on an 1851 Érard in the Années de Pèlerinage -

http://amzn.eu/hHW6GeK

It certainly converted this Liszt-sceptic ...

[Beef Oven!]

Charles-Valentin Alkan - 12 Études dans les tons mineurs, Op. 39: Nos. 8 - 12 Concerto, Overture & Le festin d'Ésope
Vicenzo Maltempo. Brilliant Classics download.

I really was in two minds (for about 20 seconds) about buying this set after Bryn flagged it up on another thread. I already have a 2 CD Jack Gibbons set that I bought more than 20 years ago following a 2 hour JG Alkan concert at the RFH.

Did I need another set?

Yes!

I've been dipping in and out of this set since downloading it last night and I've been surprised at how much I enjoy the playing and sound of Vicenzo Maltempo, Mark Viner et al. In fact I keep getting drawn back to listen more and more, something that never really happened with the JG set, no matter how good it is. By comparison I find JG a tad aggressive and mechanical. VM, for example, is a much better listen for me. I wonder if the recording has much to do with it. The JG set on ASV is quite in yer face (?).

Does anyone have the JB set and this one? Any views?

Afterthought: I love the Jack Gibbons set, and would not be without it, but I think I find it fatiguing. I've only just realised this after so many years!

[Alison]

Interesting comments Beefy. You never hear of Jack Gibbons now.

[Beef Oven!]

Interesting comments Beefy. You never hear of Jack Gibbons now.

True, one doesn't. He had a bad accident a while back, don't know if that's got anything to do with it.

[EdgeleyRob]

Charles-Valentin Alkan - 12 Études dans les tons mineurs, Op. 39: Nos. 8 - 12 Concerto, Overture & Le festin d'Ésope
Vicenzo Maltempo. Brilliant Classics download.

I really was in two minds (for about 20 seconds) about buying this set after Bryn flagged it up on another thread. I already have a 2 CD Jack Gibbons set that I bought more than 20 years ago following a 2 hour JG Alkan concert at the RFH.

Did I need another set?

Yes!

I've been dipping in and out of this set since downloading it last night and I've been surprised at how much I enjoy the playing and sound of Vicenzo Maltempo, Mark Viner et al. In fact I keep getting drawn back to listen more and more, something that never really happened with the JG set, no matter how good it is. By comparison I find JG a tad aggressive and mechanical. VM, for example, is a much better listen for me. I wonder if the recording has much to do with it. The JG set on ASV is quite in yer face (?).

Does anyone have the JB set and this one? Any views?

Afterthought: I love the Jack Gibbons set, and would not be without it, but I think I find it fatiguing. I've only just realised this after so many years!

Evening BeefO
Surely you need Ronald Smith in the complete Op 39?
Hamelin has only recorded the Symphony and Concerto and No 12 from Op 39 AFAIK but they are fab and his Festin is the best ever IMO.
I don't find Gibbons the least bit fatiguing and Maltempo (great name)is superb
I can never make my mind up which is my favourite,we are blessed to have so many great Alkan recordings available.
According to his website Jack Gibbons was performing in July of this year,he may also be busy composing too.
Jonathan of this parish may have some more enlightening views and news if he is around.
CVA is my favourite composer for the piano by a mile