Godowsky's Grand Guignol

[snyprrr]

STAT

[staxomega]

Bumping this thread; Godowsky's music has always escaped me though some of this is because Godowsky's own recordings are nearly unlistenable with the music buried well under the surface noise. I listened to the Passacaglia played by Marc-Andre Hamelin and I didn't mind it, this probably just requires some digesting to fully grasp what I just heard

[North Star]

Bumping this thread; Godowsky's music has always escaped me though some of this is because Godowsky's own recordings are nearly unlistenable with the music buried well under the surface noise. I listened to the Passacaglia played by Marc-Andre Hamelin and I didn't mind it, this probably just requires some digesting to fully grasp what I just heard

A masterpiece for sure. Antti Siirala's recording, presented on Ashish Xiangyi Kumar's YT channel with the score and helpful notes is also very much worth hearing (blows Hamelin clean out of the water, undoubtedly fine as his recording is, according to Kumar).

https://www.youtube.com/v/f0nlJXooIVc

[staxomega]

A masterpiece for sure. Antti Siirala's recording, presented on Ashish Xiangyi Kumar's YT channel with the score and helpful notes is also very much worth hearing (blows Hamelin clean out of the water, undoubtedly fine as his recording is, according to Kumar).

https://www.youtube.com/v/f0nlJXooIVc

Thank you North Star, I will give that a listen. What makes this better than Hamelin? I was extremely impressed with his playing, quite a few times I had that Jackie Chan meme expression where he is holding his hands up to his head, this is like some Sorabji where you start to wonder how the hands can make some of these movements At the same time I found this far more musically satisfying than many Godowsky pieces. Any other suggestions for Godowsky pieces in that vein?

I see there is also a recording by Rian de Waal that comes in at 16:45, quickest of the three.