Tchaikovsky Trio

[kishnevi]

Haha, you got some of my most despised artists all bunched together. Argerich, Kremer, Zuckerman and Barenboim. All names that make me cringe.

Except for du Pre. She was actually cool. The only cellist i know that actually managed to interpret the Chopin sonata correctly.

I've got it!  I seem to like all the artists you dislike.  So maybe the performance of the trio I dislike will turn out to be the one you like best.   Accordingly I will direct your attention to:
[asin]B002NACY2C[/asin]

[Josquin des Prez]

I love the expression on the face of Maisky, as if to say "what the hell am i doing here".

Lang Lang, mmmmh, one of the many creatures that need to be killed with fire. Still, he looks so innocent in that picture. Perhaps that was before the onset of acute schizophrenia.

[Scion7]

Instead of killing him with fire, perhaps just not buy his records?

[zamyrabyrd]

I think it is significant in light in what you said that some of the best recordings of the late Rubinstein were those he did as a chamber musician (vis, his recordings with the Guarnieri quartet, which are great indeed). I'm saying this as one who wasn't as fond of the aged pianist as a lot of people seem to be. Indeed, give me something like the recordings of the mazurkas he did in the late 30s over all the Chopin he recorded after that, any day.

Interesting what you say, I think I will check those out.
As for Argerich, she tends towards the bombastic.

ZB

[Karl Henning]

Gosh, and I hear frequent gossamer delicacy in her recordings, generally, and think she puts in a particularly sensitive performance in the a minor Trio, specifically.

[zamyrabyrd]

Gosh, and I hear frequent gossamer delicacy in her recordings, generally, and think she puts in a particularly sensitive performance in the a minor Trio, specifically.

...about as gossamer as a Mac Truck in her last recording of the Schumann Concerto, not to mention the shrill tin pan banging of Mozart two piano works with another steely fingered Japanese matron...
The Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concerto suited her well then as now.

ZB

[Karl Henning]

Well, I've not heard either the Schumann nor the Mozart recordings which have invoked thy wrath, ZB. I stand by my "gossamer" descriptor with recordings by Argerich of (e.g.) JS Bach, Chopin, Liszt, de Falla … and Tchaikovsky.

[kishnevi]

Well, I've not heard either the Schumann nor the Mozart recordings which have invoked thy wrath, ZB. I stand by my "gossamer" descriptor with recordings by Argerich of (e.g.) JS Bach, Chopin, Liszt, de Falla ... and Tchaikovsky.

I've heard the recordings he speaks of, and "Mac truck" is about the last thing I would use to describe them it.

I have the Argerich/Maisky/Kremer recording of the Tchaikovsky, and think it's a winner.

ETA:  I don't have both,  just the Schumann.

[Odnoposoff]

IMO, no better version exists than Gilels-Kogan-Rostropovich live in the 50s.

[Scion7]

...about as gossamer as a Mac Truck in her last recording of the Schumann Concerto...............

ZB

Haven't heard that one.  However, her classic playing in Chopin shows all the delicacy required of those pieces.
And no issues with this 1978 LP -

[Scion7]

The only cellist i know that actually managed to interpret the Chopin sonata correctly.

We don't have the proper emoticon set for such statements.   

[Josquin des Prez]

Instead of killing him with fire, perhaps just not buy his records?

That's like saying, instead then punishing murderers, just ignore them! 

This is me murdering all the Lang Langs of this world:



Fire, its the only way to be sure next to nuking things from orbit.

[Josquin des Prez]

The only cellist i know that actually managed to interpret the Chopin sonata correctly.

We don't have the proper emoticon set for such statements.   

Well, all other recordings i tried made little sense to me. At one point i started to even doubt there was something wrong with the sonata itself. Barenboim is adequate in that recording, but that's what he usually is. Surprisingly, this works rather well in chamber music, where too many pianists generally try to be creative and individual, and make a confused mess in the process. This is particularly true with chamber music from the romantic era, where the piano part is often an incomprehensible jumble.

[Scion7]

This is particularly true with chamber music from the romantic era, where the piano part is often an incomprehensible jumble.

Uh-huh.

[Josquin des Prez]

Ok. A seemingly incomprehensible jumble. Is that better? What i was trying at getting at is that the piano part in a romantic chamber composition is very easy to mess up. And if a performer does indeed messes it up, you may end up with a piece that sounds like a composition for strings with a basso continuo piano part, filling in scales and harmonies but having no clear interplay with the rest of the ensemble. This is particularly bad on composers like Brahms, for obvious reasons. Lesser complex artists may get a pass if the playing is energetic enough, but you may still wonder why there is a piano part in the first place.

[Karl Henning]

Examples?

[Scion7]

Yes ... that should be entertaining.

[Que]

Lyubov Timofeyeva, Maxim Fedotov and Kirill Rodin (Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga, 1990)

As promised, I've uploaded the 1st part of the trio as a sample: Pezzo elegiaco

Q

[mszczuj]

Lyubov Timofeyeva, Maxim Fedotov and Kirill Rodin (Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga, 1990)

Nice, but I listen to it using only one mind. To listen to the Naxos recording I must use at least four minds and I allways feel they are unsufficient.

The difference in the way of listening between all the other recordings I heave heard so far and the Naxos one is for me similiar to the difference in listening to Alyabyev and listening to Sorabji.

[Holden]

Anyone mentioned Kogan/Gutman/Richter? Another fine performance in the Russian tradition