Chopin Recordings

[AnotherSpin]

In fact, what Yunchan said in that booklet prompted me to listen to Egerov's etudes - I think what he does is a bit special actually - powerful. I only heard op 10, but I noticed a concert with op 25 has been released so I'll check it soon.

In his book about Richter, etc. Andrei Gavrilov gives Egorov the highest praise, which sounds unusual because Gavrilov normally has a low opinion of other musicians. Perhaps because Egorov had already died by the time the book was published.

[Mandryka]

One of the best performances of Piano Sonata 3 I've heard:



I liked his op. 28 but this has surpassed even that. Impressive.

I've been meaning to say this for a whole year,  but yes, this is a fabulous performance of op 58. He really can control tone colour and it's well caught on the recording. And he has a wonderful sense of cantabile, legato. Very long timescales in the first movement and the largo - that's quite bold. It doesn't feel unnatural or forced or even slow, but I am conscious that it's a long haul.

Intimations of Tipo? I think so. I haven't heard the op 28 in fact, I'll try to find it.

[Mandryka]

I've been meaning to say this for a whole year,  but yes, this is a fabulous performance of op 58. He really can control tone colour and it's well caught on the recording. And he has a wonderful sense of cantabile, legato. Very long timescales in the first movement and the largo - that's quite bold. It doesn't feel unnatural or forced or even slow, but I am conscious that it's a long haul.

Intimations of Michelangeli? I think so. I haven't heard the op 28 in fact, I'll try to find it.

listening to the sonata again this morning - I want to say he is the ultimate smoothy. What we used to call a "silk underpants pianist" - everything is just so refined, so polished, so smooth, so nuanced, so gorgeous. I can take it better in Chopin than in Beethoven for some reason - maybe I should go back to the Beethoven.

[Atriod]

I've been meaning to say this for a whole year,  but yes, this is a fabulous performance of op 58. He really can control tone colour and it's well caught on the recording. And he has a wonderful sense of cantabile, legato. Very long timescales in the first movement and the largo - that's quite bold. It doesn't feel unnatural or forced or even slow, but I am conscious that it's a long haul.

Intimations of Tipo? I think so. I haven't heard the op 28 in fact, I'll try to find it.

The Chopin I have heard from Tipo (Nocturnes, Ballades) are rather different from the pieces that Lucchesini recorded so it is difficult for me to say if there are intimations of Tipo. The Lucchesini Piano Sonata 3 does have some ruminations of his Preludes in how dark it can be in places. In a similar vein of that darkness it's why my other two favorite interpretations are from Ugorskaja and Sokolov. Though I do find lighter ones from Arrau (Philips, APR) also quite enjoyable.

It is extremely rare for me to change my opinion on a piece of music just based off performances, Lucchesini's Piano Sonata 3 went from a piece I find good but something I seldom listen to one that now I listen to often (the entire CD is just as good, maybe the Scherzo not quite at the levels of Richter or Pogorelic). I find there are a lot of generic or good interpretations of Piano Sonata 3, in the past I typically only listened to Horowitz's late in life live recordings, mistakes and all, as he had some of that depth of Lucchesini in getting beneath its surface.

Is there more Chopin from Tipo than just those recordings I named?

[Mandryka]

The Chopin I have heard from Tipo (Nocturnes, Ballades) are rather different from the pieces that Lucchesini recorded so it is difficult for me to say if there are intimations of Tipo. The Lucchesini Piano Sonata 3 does have some ruminations of his Preludes in how dark it can be in places. In a similar vein of that darkness it's why my other two favorite interpretations are from Ugorskaja and Sokolov. Though I do find lighter ones from Arrau (Philips, APR) also quite enjoyable.

It is extremely rare for me to change my opinion on a piece of music just based off performances, Lucchesini's Piano Sonata 3 went from a piece I find good but something I seldom listen to one that now I listen to often (the entire CD is just as good, maybe the Scherzo not quite at the levels of Richter or Pogorelic). I find there are a lot of generic or good interpretations of Piano Sonata 3, in the past I typically only listened to Horowitz's late in life live recordings, mistakes and all, as he had some of that depth of Lucchesini in getting beneath its surface.

Is there more Chopin from Tipo than just those recordings I named?

Yes there's actually an op 58 on record from Tipo - a radio concert (RAI) - it's nothing like Lucchesini though! I'll send it to you to tomorrow. 

I just noticed that Pletnev on DG (which is very special for me) takes about as long in the first movement as Lucchesini.

[Mandryka]

I was so impressed by Andsnes's Janacek that I thought I'd hear some other early recordings. The only solo one I can find is the one above, his first recording I think, made when he was 16, for the wonderfully named "Troll Series."

And whaddayaknow. It's a real fiery life-affirming Chopin op 58 sonata - well worth hearing.

[Mandryka]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XxFrIOGxfI

Bit of old style charm here -- Jakob Gimpel plays op 62/2

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Enjoying mazurkas etc. by Meiko Miyazawa.

[Florestan]

Cross-post from the WAYLTN thread.



First listen to this set. EXCEPTIONAL! THE most melancholy and bittersweet Mazurkas I've ever heard. The only one I can imagine playing them better is Chopin himself. From now on, my reference set of Mazurkas.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

What would be a softest and/or most quiet playing of Nocturnes (other than Moravec)?

[Holden]

What would be a softest and/or most quiet playing of Nocturnes (other than Moravec)?

I wouldn't necessarily describe Moravec's Nocturnes as soft as, to my ears, he uses quite a wide dynamic range.

[Mandryka]

What would be a softest and/or most quiet playing of Nocturnes (other than Moravec)?

Valery Afanassiev on Denon

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I wouldn't necessarily describe Moravec's Nocturnes as soft as, to my ears, he uses quite a wide dynamic range.

Yes, that's right!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Valery Afanassiev on Denon

I would like a little softer playing. Thank you.

[Mandryka]

I would like a little softer playing. Thank you.

Pletnev? Wasowsky?

The problem is that the nocturnes are loud, or very often are. They have loud hymn like sections, sections of political music, imitations of canon fire  and such like.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Pletnev? Wasowsky?

The problem is that the nocturnes are loud, or very often are. They have loud hymn like sections, sections of political music, imitations of canon fire  and such like.

😄

[AnotherSpin]

Pletnev? Wasowsky?

The problem is that the nocturnes are loud, or very often are. They have loud hymn like sections, sections of political music, imitations of canon fire  and such like.

Cannon fire at night — a nocturne is night music, wouldn't they say? — is all too familiar to those of us now living in Ukraine...

Yet, I have always regarded Chopin's nocturnes as inherently soft, dreamy pieces, regardless of how they might be interpreted.

[Mandryka]

Cannon fire at night — a nocturne is night music, wouldn't they say? — is all too familiar to those of us now living in Ukraine...

Yet, I have always regarded Chopin's nocturnes as inherently soft, dreamy pieces, regardless of how they might be interpreted.

I don't think that people saw night music as soft and dreamy in the Chopin's day. There was a tradition of drama and torment  in depictions of the night.



Franz Ludwig Catel Night Scene, the Concluding Scene in Chateaubriand's "René"




Novalis Hymns to the Night I


Before all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what living, sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light -- with its colors, its rays and undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the wakening Day? The giant-world of the unresting constellations inhales it as the innermost soul of life, and floats dancing in its blue flood -- the sparkling, ever-tranquil stone, the thoughtful, imbibing plant, and the wild, burning multiform beast inhales it -- but more than all, the lordly stranger with the sense-filled eyes, the swaying walk, and the sweetly closed, melodious lips. Like a king over earthly nature, it rouses every force to countless transformations, binds and unbinds innumerable alliances, hangs its heavenly form around every earthly substance. -- Its presence alone reveals the marvelous splendor of the kingdoms of the world.

Aside I turn to the holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night. Afar lies the world -- sunk in a deep grave -- waste and lonely is its place. In the chords of the bosom blows a deep sadness. I am ready to sink away in drops of dew, and mingle with the ashes. -- The distances of memory, the wishes of youth, the dreams of childhood, the brief joys and vain hopes of a whole long life, arise in gray garments, like an evening vapor after the sunset. In other regions the light has pitched its joyous tents. What if it should never return to its children, who wait for it with the faith of innocence?

What springs up all at once so sweetly boding in my heart, and stills the soft air of sadness? Dost thou also take a pleasure in us, dark Night? What holdest thou under thy mantle, that with hidden power affects my soul? Precious balm drips from thy hand out of its bundle of poppies. Thou upliftest the heavy-laden wings of the soul. Darkly and inexpressibly are we moved -- joy-startled, I see a grave face that, tender and worshipful, inclines toward me, and, amid manifold entangled locks, reveals the youthful loveliness of the Mother. How poor and childish a thing seems to me now the Light -- how joyous and welcome the departure of the day -- because the Night turns away from thee thy servants, you now strew in the gulfs of space those flashing globes, to proclaim thy omnipotence -- thy return -- in seasons of thy absence. More heavenly than those glittering stars we hold the eternal eyes which the Night hath opened within us. Farther they see than the palest of those countless hosts -- needing no aid from the light, they penetrate the depths of a loving soul -- that fills a loftier region with bliss ineffable. Glory to the queen of the world, to the great prophet of the holier worlds, to the guardian of blissful love -- she sends thee to me -- thou tenderly beloved -- the gracious sun of the Night, -- now am I awake -- for now am I thine and mine -- thou hast made me know the Night -- made of me a man -- consume with spirit-fire my body, that I, turned to finer air, may mingle more closely with thee, and then our bridal night endure forever.



Caspar David Friedrich, Two Men Contemplating the Moon




Henri Fuseli, The Nightmare

[AnotherSpin]

I don't think that people saw night music as soft and dreamy in the Chopin's day. There was a tradition of drama and torment  in depictions of the night.


[..]

In Chopin's time, night wasn't always about torment and high drama, though, of course, some composers did love a good stormy midnight chase, as Liszt. But there was also a long-standing tradition of the night as a time for quiet reflection and dreamy contemplation, championed by John Field, the father of the nocturne, and carried on by Chopin himself. While some of Chopin's nocturnes do have their tempestuous moments, on the whole, they lean more toward moonlit reveries than existential crises. And let's not forget that 19th-century literature and painting also depicted night in many ways, not just as a setting for turmoil, but also for gentle melancholy, romance, and peace. So, the idea that people of the time only saw night as a theater of suffering is, well, a bit dramatic in itself, don't you think?

[Holden]

My way of thinking is that possibly an interpretation that relies quite heavily on rubato might be what you are looking for. Someone like Maria Joao Pires or Arrau might suit but I'm still puzzled about 'quiet' or 'soft'. In many of the nocturnes Chopin adopts an ABA approach in which the B is often very dramatic and anyone who plays those quietly or softly is going to be very boring. Another choice might be Maria Tipo.