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Sorry, but many musicians didn't respect Gieseking for that reason and rightly so.
Whatever, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own "facts". Gieseking was not a Nazi - that was verified by the US military after their investigation of him. He did collaborate to some extent with the Nazi regime, though, which is undisputed. Make of that what you will, but to fill out the picture a bit, you might want to read the chapter about studying piano with Gieseking in Germany immediately after the war, in this book by a Jewish survivor of Buchenwald.
Also, the piano has no glissando in the third movement of the 2nd concerto. The closest thing to it is a striking flourish that is marked "quasi-glissando", but it is fingered. Just out of curiosity, do you see the entire Concertgebouw orchestra in that recording as being Nazi collaborators?
And finally, back to the topic of the thread - there are various reports that Rachmaninoff was very admiring of Gieseking's way with the 3rd concerto. I've not been able to track down an exact cite, but I doubt people like the musicologist Patrick Piggott, who mentioned it in his book on the composer, simply made it up out of thin air.
I'll be hearing a live performance Friday evening by Nikolai Lugansky with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He's also playing the Rhapsody that evening. Quite an ambitious program!
ARRGGGHHH I wanted to go but I have a rehearsal that starts at 8:15. Please report back on how it was!
Don't forget to stay afterwards. I think Lugansky is going to play some Rach preludes for those that stick around for the post-concert conversation. I'm seriously considering just zipping downtown after rehearsal and just hearing that part!
Lugansky was superb! I hope to have more to say later.
Couldn't stay around for the post-concert program; the wife wanted to get home.
Gee, I didn't want to open up a can of worms. Ok I will agree with him being a collaborator, (tell that to Horowitz and Rubinstein). My favorite all around pianist is Alfred Cortot and he was definitely an anti-Semite which shocks me. You are correct as I know there is no glissando in the third movement as it is fingered but I figured people knew that and understood the part I was addressing. Certainly there Gieseking flies. As a pianist and musician he had extraordinary talent. I wish I could learn a difficult piece by just reading the score. Rachmaninov was certainly a big fan of Benno Moiseiwitsch as well but I've never heard him in the 3rd.
My favorite all around pianist is Alfred Cortot and he was definitely an anti-Semite which shocks me.
I think it is a little more nuanced than that. Antisemitism has always casually filtered through European culture, and I think Cortot may have been victim to that, but after all, his wife was of Jewish origin. So there we are.
More damning -in a sense- was that Cortot supported the Vichy government. Perhaps easy in hindsight to frown upon, but maybe he was simply trying to save his arse? You can say that for many German musicians who elected to remain in the Reich, although it can be difficult to sort out (a) those who secretly hated the Nazis but remained for expediency (b) those who may not have loved the Nazis, but thought they would win the war anyway, and (c) those who 'sucked up' to it all.
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Rachmaninov was certainly a big fan of Benno Moiseiwitsch as well but I've never heard him in the 3rd.
Alas, no Moiseiwitsch in the 3rd. Can you imagine? I am trying to be careful here, but perhaps in some respects Moiseiwitsch may have been the greater pianist. There is a certain velvety tone and a con amore which I don't always hear in the take-no-prisoners recordings of Rachmaninov.
I always liked Moiseiwitch and of course Ignais Friedman both had great style and a beautiful tone that unfortunately is lost on present players. We need another Leschetizky to guide our new crop. With regards to technique I suspect that Rachmaninov's was even greater than Horowitz. Compare the final descending octave run at the end of the third movement. Horowitz with Coates is the fastest and he was just 27 at the height of his technique but Rachmaninov was 66 and his are just a hair slower and certainly faster than Horowitz's later recordings as well as any other modern one. Just a thought. Moiseiwitch had a completely natural technique and he played with ease. He didn't have to practice much probably played cards more than he practiced but because everything was so easy for him it didn't matter.
He didn't have to practice much probably played cards more than he practiced but because everything was so easy for him it didn't matter.
Lucky that! Gieseking, mentioned earlier, is a good example of this freak of musical genius, though to be honest (besides Debussy) there is little in his recorded legacy which appeals to me. Certainly NOT his Beethoven. No way.
And on the subject of 'easy talents', Hans Pfitzner once said that he found composing extraordinarily challenging. To which the ever facile Richard Strauss mused: well then, why does he bother?
Oh man, Lazar's recording is orgasmic. If I ever hear another Ashmenazy recording of this work, I'll throw up. But Lazar Berman is bloody marvelous. The BEST!
Oh man, Lazar's recording is orgasmic. If I ever hear another Ashmenazy recording of this work, I'll throw up. But Lazar Berman is bloody marvelous. The BEST!
One of my favorite versions of it is by Ashkenazy.
As conductor.
The pianist is Garrick Ohlsson, and the orchestra is the Sydney Symphony. The recording isn't a commercial one, unfortunately - it was something that showed up on BBC Radio 3 late night program a few years ago.
I guess it's about time I linked my second favorite recording of Rach 3 (it was my favorite for a long time, but I wore out my cassette tape of it, and no CD version ever appeared........ ). Note the distinctive sound of the pre-perestroika Russian orchestra (before they became 'Westernized') with woodwind vibrato, blaring no-holds-barred brass etc....
Gavrilov's Philadelphia recording, made 10 years later, obviously has a much more refined orchestra and better (digital) recording, but lacks the raw excitement of this Russian recording.
With regards to Lazar Berman, it is certainly a fine reading and he does a wonderful job with the cadenza in the first movement, I just hoped he would have let all out in the third. There is a recording of him playing the Chopin octave etude and no one comes even close. You wouldn't think it was possible to play octaves that fast yet he takes the ending octaves in the third at a rate I could do. Even Rachmaninov himself let them fly. I think he got the Bolet syndrome whereas he was widely known as a technician and toward the latter half of his life he played everything slow to prove he was more than 'just' a technician. I saw Berman play the Rach third and it appeared as if it was child's play for him.
I like the Bronfman as well. There are so many fine performances of this great piece. To be honest I'm jealous. When G-d was handing out the talent he let me sniff the beaker but let others drink abundantly.
Oh, a Rach 3 thread! Nice. Without making comments with regards to greatness, I'd say that the most oddball interpretation I've ever heard comes from Toradze, and I have heard him live once and twice in bootlegs, recorded about ten years apart (one in the 90's and one in the 2000's, I think). I will spare certain details from the story since I happen to know him personally and spent a fair amount of time with him in the days prior to the recent live performance.
All these performances were quite different in many ways, but there were also similarities. The first is undoubtedly the best, the pianism is of high calibre and the tone is penetrating. There are hints of odd quirks, but not extremely much so - he sometimes slows down unexpectedly much, enjoys every ritard as much as he can, and takes some lyrical passages at a speed most would find odd. In the later performances, these tendencies would become more and more extreme. In the live performance I heard a few years back, he'd play the opening theme so quietly that not even those of us sitting on the first rows (myself included) could really hear what was played. The tempo was insanely slow - nearly half of what we normally hear. Only later did I find out that he had been complaining that the concert grand of the hall "projected too much" and that he wanted an instrument that was more mellow. So, what does he do? On the dress rehearsal earlier in the day he suddenly spots the "orchestra piano" (which was to be used in the Lutoslawski concerto for orchestra in the second half), and he asks the staff: Could I try that one instead? They try to refuse and explain that it hasn't been used for a concerto performance for several decades, but he insisted. So he ended up playing the concert on a piano that truly was not suited for the occasion, save for its ability to do more pianississimos than the concert grand of the hall. So, after the initial, slow opening, the tempo went up a tiny bit, but again fell back into this introverted pianissimos in the secondary theme. His mode of playing tended to be to stay introverted and slow for long periods of time, and then suddenly burst into insane fortissimos. Which, again, the piano could not really project that much. His physical presence created the impression of volume more than the playing did, in some regards. Another interesting aspect I noticed was that he did ALL ossias in the piece, including some incredibly demanding double-notes (which didn't really work) and the 8-note ending (instead of triplets). For some reason, he had the idea that "once you enter ossia territory, you do all ossias". I have never quite understood the logic there, but fine.
The reception was mixed, but some were extremely positive. A reviewer wrote a glowing article, described it as a Rach 3 he would certainly not forget, and I chatted afterwards with Toradze and one of Finland's best-known composers, Magnus Lindberg, who loved the pianissimos and everything. So there you go. I certainly won't forget any of his performances of the piece, but can't be sure whether it's a good thing or not. If nothing else, it's nice that there's a Rach 3 that clearly sticks out, because I feel that most Rach 3's I hear sound fairly similar.
Time to link yet another fabulous performance, which I heard last night on good ol' BBC Radio 3. Actually, I heard it before, when it was broadcast live from the BBC Proms last year, but I'd forgotten how good it was (my memory in my old age isn't what it used to be when I was in middle age, which was worse than it was when.....).
Behzod Abduraimov has been mentioned before in Pianist Corner, but as a super-virtuoso for whom difficulties don't exist, this surpasses the solo recordings I'd heard previously from him (Brahms-Pag etc):
Just watched the Abduraimov on youtube and I enjoyed it immensely. Overall a very fine and well proportioned performance. Damn good fingers this young lad has.
I guess it's about time I linked my second favorite recording of Rach 3 (it was my favorite for a long time, but I wore out my cassette tape of it, and no CD version ever appeared........ ). Note the distinctive sound of the pre-perestroika Russian orchestra (before they became 'Westernized') with woodwind vibrato, blaring no-holds-barred brass etc....
Interesting that we share second favorites (second-favorite twins?? ). So, yeah, obviously I agree on all counts. Gavrilov's "accompaniment" (for want of a better word) to the second iteration of the opening theme is so beautifully voiced and phrased it's almost painful. And throughout the entire performance, there's never a hint that he's experiencing any technical stress whatsoever. Genius.
). Note the distinctive sound of the pre-perestroika Russian orchestra (before they became 'Westernized') with woodwind vibrato, blaring no-holds-barred brass etc....
). So, yeah, obviously I agree on all counts. Gavrilov's "accompaniment" (for want of a better word) to the second iteration of the opening theme is so beautifully voiced and phrased it's almost painful. And throughout the entire performance, there's never a hint that he's experiencing any technical stress whatsoever. Genius.