Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Richard Clayderman

I didn't know who he was, and ordered a DVD of his playing from Netflix. I didn't enjoy the music very much.

According to his website, he "won a conservatory competition" at age 16, or something. Anyway, he was playing entirely easy music, stuff that an average player with several years experience can play (presumably). What's his deal, is he technically deficient or does he intentionally play simpler pieces so as not to challenge his audience, or what? He was even playing a simplified version of the slow Moonlight sonata movement, which is pretty easy in its original version. Watching him play, his body language was not that of someone who's in full control of the piano. Hard to explain, but he was watching his hands in a certain way, it didn't seem as effortless as any technically skilled pianist I've seen play.

He carved out a niche that he can make good money off of playing piano. He wrote/orchestrated a lot of the music he plays. So at least he is original. When you really think about it, even if you consider his pieces easy, not too many pianists have both the talent and the temperament to do that, and even fewer have the business sense to actually make money doing that.

I remember this guy from the 80's. In '84, I was surprised to see a bunch of Germans listening to him on a kibbutz, because I had seen his cheesy commercials in the US and I had assumed he was a no-name goof trying to make a quick buck.

I just checked out some samples on Amazon, and my take is that he's really awful. He makes pleasant, relaxing sounds, but you can barely hear the piano for the synths and drums, and it sounds like all he's doing is binking along with two-note chords.

I wouldn't even compare him to Liberace, who was a geek, but a geek who could play a little.

the Yanni of France.

That's true. I didn't mean to sound disrespectful of him; I'm mostly just curious if he plays easy stuff by choice or by necessity. I kept waiting for him to break out something even faintly virtuosic, but he never did. I must admit that I was put off by the fact that he was playing pieces written for solo piano that were pared down in difficulty and then set against the backdrop of an orchestra to make up for it. To my mind, that's not what a "pianist" does, yet he sells himself as a pianist.

Pleasant and relaxing, yet awful!
(Yeah, I know what you mean.)

A pianist is by definition a person who plays the piano. Clayderman is a legitimate pianist.

I vaguely remember he was once billed as the "Prince of Piano." That, I thought was too much.

Never heard of this guy, but I'd just like to express my.... gratitude to all these pianists who put their poorly played recordings in every grocery store they can in a desperate attempt to make a hit. I once bought a CD from my local Safeway, done by some guy I had never heard of, and almost had an aneurism. He played the Moonlight Sonata (first movement, of course), and accidentaly went to E minor again after the return of the main theme (he was supposed to stay in E major), making the piece about 10 minutes long. Then he plays Mozart's Sonata K 331 in A major, and skips the last few variations (which happen to be my favorite). Thanks for wasting my time and money, communist.

I guess it's a matter of what you like from Piano. I, personally got into piano only because of Clayderman; I guess I don't have quite enough knowledge about piano technique as to say if he plays well or not, but do can tell you I love the pieces he plays.

I just started playing piano like 2-3 months ago, but have already heard a bunch of different pieces on recording, ranging from the easiest Bartok miniature to those Super Hiper Mega Virtuoso Freak songs. And, to tell you the truth, most of the times I prefer to hear the easier ones.

It's the same as when I was into electric guitar. I had cd's by both Satriani and Vai. Vai plays freaking virtuosic music, while Satriani plays some kinda slow, easy songs. After all this time, I ended up with 4 cd's by Satriani, 1 by Vai.

As I said, it's just a matter of what you like; so I wouldn't say Clayderman plays 'easy' songs coz he's not capable of playing anything harder. I bet he can play a bunch of those 1000-notes-a-second songs, but he sticks with slow, melodic, rather simple pieces, just like me.

Just my $0.02

-John

Well, you take my meaning, I'm sure. This did have some minor real-world consequences, in that I wasted a position on my Netflix queue for his DVD, under the assumption that he was a world class pianist, as the DVD said. Yes, I know, he can be accurately termed that. But not in quite the same way as the other pianist who's DVDs I've rented, such as Gould, Kissin, and Kempff.

Anyway, my intent wasn't to bash him. I'm really just curious whether he's capable of playing more "virtuosic" pieces. I can imagine that he might simplify and orchestrate his music not to make it easier to play, but to make it more marketable.

It's very nice music, for what it is. My problem was that I was expecting something else from the DVD. There's only so much shin-deep stage fog and soulful gazes into the camera that I can stand.

Have you ever been to a hotel where you pay let's say min. 500$ for a room? Well, just try. Once you get in lift you hear.....Claydermann. You walk the corridor, you hear claydermann, you get in your room and put off Claydermann, you go down to the gala room to have dinner and there's a Claydermann revival band playing, you go back to your room and Claydermann seems to sleep next door, the suit with the baby Steinway...

Anyway. That's what his music is about. Easy listening. Some pling-ploing, Bridge over troubled water on digital panflute.
But it sells! Restaurants, Hotels and rich people with absolutely NO musicality buy it. Not to listen to, but to listen through.

To paraphrase Liberace, he's crying all the way to the bank

Yes it's cheesy. I mean really, truely, awful bilge.....but if I'm honest I'd take the career and run!

Yes he was classically trained. He is some sort of today's Liberace, making tons of money. Many young piano students are tinkering his 'songs' on their pianos. Parents like the youngsters achievments by playing Clayderman. What more do you want?

Actually I have a book of his 'songs', and transcriptions, mostly written by French movie score writers. They are sickenly saccharine, but I have had more requests this song "Lady Di (or Diana)". His transcriptions are sweet and spare, and you know..... to each his own.

I checked out some Liberace samples after comparing him to this Clayderman character. He did a respectable job with Liszt. I think Clayderman's head would explode if he tried to play Liszt.

I was mortified to see that Liberace played Chopin nocturne "medleys."

I listen to Clayderman for 20 minutes every day before I practice. It makes me feel better about myself .

Poor Mr. Clayderman. Oooh, some of us are being pretty brutal here! He's not a favorite of mine, but I give him credit for what he has accomplished.

Who is your favorite pianist/composer? Mine is Kostia - has anyone here heard his music? He is awesome but unfortunately not well known. He has 2 cd's of his own piano compositions (St. Petersburg Suite and the other is called 10 Pebbles). You can hear clips from his cd's on amazon.com. (I hope the link I'm patching below works.) His cd's are solo piano.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...541422?v=glance&s=music&n=507846

Also Keiko Matsui has one solo piano cd. Most of her other cds are real new age-y with lots of accompaniment - nice, but I prefer solo piano. Keiko has one wonderful wonderful cd that is solo piano called (surprisingly enough) "Piano".

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...72/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/103-0414232-2541422

I wonder if anyone else here will care for these pianists music??? Please let me know!!!

Jeanne W

Me again.

I think the clips on Amazon.com of Kostia's music don't go on along enough to demonstrate the full breadth of his talent and his compositions. But I think you'll be able to tell this is not "background music"!?

Here's the link to his other cd on amazon.com called 10 Pebbles. On the liner notes, Kostia remarks the piano he is playing on this cd is one of the best pianos he's ever had the opportunity to play (it's a Steinway and sounds breathtakingly beautiful to me.)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...103-0414232-2541422?v=glance&s=music

Jeanne W

P.S. It's 12:50 a.m. What am I doing posing at this time? I'm turning into a Pianoworld junkie.

Hi Jeanne do you know where can I find free music sheet download for the song "Holding all my love for you" by Julianna Raye composed by Michael Kamen for the movie "Open Range" by Kevin Costner. Its a beautiful song so simple yet very powerful.

Regards Jeanne

Ramel

Play a little? You don't seem to realize that even from just a technical standpoint Liberace had a technique that less than 1 out of 500(probably a much smaller %) people will ever have.
I'm sure his brand of piano playing doesn't appeal to that many people on this board(and I'm not a big fan either), but as a beginning piano student, I think you should be far less prone to criticize.

Well said. At first, I thought Liberace was just another one of those pianists who learns a few easy tunes that he can improvise to death, but was surprised to see pieces like cheyecoughski's Piano concerto No.1 in his repertoire. I don't particularily care for his playing, but I'll give him credit; I'd be thankful to become half as famous as he was.