What are you listening to NOW?

[buttslinger]

[bryanferryfan2]

Limbo by Bryan Ferry of course.

[bryanferryfan2]

Pyjamarama by Roxy Music

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Sweet Love-Anita Baker

[Stavros]

Yesterday I compared seven different recordings on YouTube of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No 27, op 90. It is one of only two sonatas Beethoven wrote that have two movements, and the first is typical of Beethoven: a restless, even conflict driven statement with a soothing, gentle melody that Schubert would copy to great effect in his sonata D784.

The point of interest is the stark difference in the playing if one compares Barenboim to Ivo Pogorelich, though to me Pogorelich takes liberties that ruin the flow of the music. Even if you don't like Beethove, born 250 years ago this week, it won't take too long for you to hear two such radically different interpretations of the same piece of music.

[sukumvit boy]

The Barenboim link does not work here in the USA so here is another that might work for some folks in the USA.

I've heard a lot about the young pianist Igor Levit and I was wondering about your opinion of him. I like the music of Busoni so here is a clip of Levit playing Busoni.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Levit

[Stavros]

The Barenboim link does not work here in the USA so here is another that might work for some folks in the USA.

I've heard a lot about the young pianist Igor Levit and I was wondering about your opinion of him. I like the music of Busoni so here is a clip of Levit playing Busoni.

I have heard Levit on the radio, and he is one of many fine pianists we are blessed with these days. Of the younger group, I have seen a lot of Daniil Trifomov on YouTube and he is a very special player, as you can see from the link, I hope! I recently soldiered through parts of the film Hustlers, which for an unknown reason features the Etude in the link and more Chopin in the film. On the basis of recent revelations, it might be the case that Chopin was first attracted to the writer George Sand because she dressed as a boy. It is also alleged that he once told her that he could not compose after they had had sex, and that he probably preferred composing to sex for that reason. Or maybe she didn't have all the right 'equiment' to satisfy this egocentric, Jew-hating louche?

Busoni is an example of someone who was a powerhouse in his day -performer, composer, writer- whose music was much admired that is now mostly neglected. Years ago in London I saw a concert performance of his opera, Doktor Faust and the best one can say is that it is 'interesting'. and as with your clip, his piano transcriptions of other composer's works seems to be his enduring legacy. I have a collection of essays and articles in called The Essence of Music, which was first published in 1957, I think, and they are certainly interesting to read. In particular the essays on Beethoven, whom he called 'the first great democrat in music' -while he also makes pertinent remarks about where Beethovem fails in comparison to Bach and Mozart, so that there is no pseudo-religious worship of Ludwig, who like Chopin and Schubert had problems with women, or in Schubert's case 'the Peacocks of Benvenuti Cellini'...

Enjoy!

[sukumvit boy]

Pyjamarama by Roxy Music

I love anything by Roxy Music

[sukumvit boy]

Yesterday I compared seven different recordings on YouTube of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No 27, op 90. It is one of only two sonatas Beethoven wrote that have two movements, and the first is typical of Beethoven: a restless, even conflict driven statement with a soothing, gentle melody that Schubert would copy to great effect in his sonata D784.

The point of interest is the stark difference in the playing if one compares Barenboim to Ivo Pogorelich, though to me Pogorelich takes liberties that ruin the flow of the music. Even if you don't like Beethove, born 250 years ago this week, it won't take too long for you to hear two such radically different interpretations of the same piece of music.

I prefer the Barenboim interpretation,seems more 'musical' vs the more 'academic' Pogorelich.

[Stavros]

I prefer the Barenboim interpretation,seems more 'musical' vs the more 'academic' Pogorelich.

Hmmm...if anything it is Barenboim who, by staying close to the score is 'academic', where Pogorelich is just eccentric. Mitsuko Uchida in some of her recordings of the Schubert sonatas speeds up or slows down tempi, often stretching pauses as Pogorelich does in the first movement of the Beethoven, but she manages to pull it off, though in a recital I went to I think two years ago, her fiddling with tempi and pauses was too personal, like she was playing for herself, not to an audience, and I was relieved to leave the concert hall at the end, and quite disappointed with her as a musician.