Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Review of Murray Perahia recital at Carnegie Hall

Thanks for sharing this. I'm a big fan. I would have loved to have been there.

Ditto !!! Perahia played in Phoenix a few weeks ago and I truly regret that I wasn't able to attend.

I have always been a strong Perahia fan.

One of my most enduring and fondest musical memories is of his wonderful "return" recital in Carnegie Hall in April, 1994. This was after several years off the concert stage due to a hand injury, and the pre-concert concern among his admirers was whether or not he would live up to his past reputation.

What I remember most about the recital, apart from the Beethoven sonata and the Brahms Rhapsodies he played was a shimmering, evanescent Chopin "Berceuse". There was not the vaguest thought that he had lost one iota of his "elegant technique" (Bernard Holland, in NYT, 11 April, 1994) in anything on the program.

I believe that his late 1970's / early 1980's recordings of the Mozart piano concerti have never been surpassed.

I'm heartened - and not at all surprised - that he is still "going strong."

Regards,

Perahia, definitely a superb musician, one of the few pianists of wide reknown whom I'd go hear for well-known music, he seems humble before the music and transmits his admiration. I heard him at the Halle aux grains in Toulouse, France in the year 2000 I believe. The Goldberg Varations, a lovely reading.

yes he is a good pianist but very ordinary nothing special about him he is just a "good" pianist nothing more.

had the pleasure of auditing a master class he held at NU a couple years ago. what he brought to each student was awe-inspiring.

he is one of my favorite pianists, due in part to the following conversation i had with my teacher a couple weeks ago, who said that we are waiters delivering the food to the customer; we don't add our own spices, it's our job to deliver exactly as the chef has prepared the dish. for me, perahia does this precisely -- a conduit thru which the composers' wishes pass to the audience without affectation, in its essential form.

"very ordinary" , "nothing special" ... youtube level comment right there.

Not even by Ashkenazy?

Ashkenazy plays everything well, but it's all a bit generic. It's clear to me that Perahia has lavished great care on each concerto.

It's my great priviledge to have heard him live twice, and my sadness that it's been only twice. His recording activity seems to have slown to a crawl - although I've heard he had a new Brahms Intermezzi CD due out this summer.

I've been a great fan of Ashkenazy for decades; his early recordings of many Chopin works seem ideal to me, and I have admired his Rachmaninoff as well.

I confess to not having heard his Mozart concerti. With Perahia's recordings of the concerti, I feel there is a youthful freshness combined with refinement and elegance that I have not heard in other recordings and that many critics have praised. Whether or not these recordings have been surpassed may be open to more critical examination than I have given the question. That said, the Perahia recordings of the Mozart concerti will never have to be replaced in my collection because, after repeated hearings over the years, they remain fresh and vibrant.

Regards,

If we're talking Mozart piano concerti, I don't think there's any pianist that can encompass them all (nos. 9 onwards) with equal success.

I find Perahia too 'safe' too often, and generally prefer Uchida, Pletnev, Gulda (with VPO/Abbado, not his other more extreme versions where he also plays 'continuo' and interpolates his own improv), Barenboim, Curzon, Pires, Pollini....and yes, Ashkenazy.

This exactly describes my relationship with Perahia's recordings of the Mozart concerti, which I've been listening to for decades.

-J