CyberGene
YouTubeBach - Prelude in Fm, BWV 857 [Played by Evgeni Kumanov]Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Prelude No.12 in F minor.Played on a Yamaha N1X controlling Garritan CFX virtual piano.This is an amateur recording. I'm a self...
That's wonderful!
I love Richter's recording -especially Book 1. He played a Bösendorfer.
Johnstaf Richter’s WTC is indeed great 👍🏻
Surprisingly, Richter recorded the WTC more than once. There's a non-churchy, non-reverberant recording by him of Book 1 out there somewhere, probably available on YT.
I am probably way way late to this conversation, but wanted to drop a note with a link (just in case it wasn't already mentioned before). This is one of the excellent Goldberg Variations I have heard (probably second only to 1981 Gould recording).
Another recent version of Goldberg that I have enjoyed is by Yunchan Lim at Carnegie Hall. Quite different than Gould or Koroliov but interesting in its own way. And an original idea for an Encore, I must say!
oshogg I initiated this discussion about Koroliov, and since then, I haven’t stopped listening to his records, including WTC, Goldberg, French Suites, and The Art of Fugue. He’s undoubtedly become my top choice for Bach. Thanks for the Goldberg link and for Yunchan Lim as well.
Has anyone listened to the "Open Goldberg Variations", recorded by Kimiko Ishizaka? To my knowledge she is the only top level weightlifter to ever record the set.
QuasiUnaFantasia Open Goldberg is a really cool project and I like the recording quite a bit. I have a friend that went the other direction, he began as a professional musician and later in life became national champ in weightlifting.
johanibraaten he began as a professional musician and later in life became national champ in weightlifting.
I guess the way to go about it is starting early: as a little child with a toy piano you start every practice session by lifting your piano up over your head, and put it softly down again. Now repeat this every time you practice for the rest of your life, and you'll be the strongest person on Earth before hitting adulthood. 😉
I happen to like Kimiko’s Bach, too…..
I’ll probably listen to Yunchan’s Goldbergs at some point, but considering his bang-me-hard, romantic, overly-expressive background I’m not sure if I’ll like it.
Lang’s Goldbergs are simply too fast and superficial; it’s as if he’s trying to summon Glenn, but he completely misses the point: whilst Glenn could play them Goldbergs “fast,” he could also maintain a level of clarity that was just uncanny, and his timing/phrasing was also unique; as if Art Tatum suddenly became a Bach interpreter….IMHO!
This is one of the greatest performances I've ever heard of anything by anyone.
QuasiUnaFantasia I guess the way to go about it is starting early: as a little child with a toy piano you start every practice session by lifting your piano up over your head, and put it softly down again. Now repeat this every time you practice for the rest of your life, and you'll be the strongest person on Earth before hitting adulthood. 😉
Do we have an award for best post ever?
Btw, and along the same topic, I remember a YT channel by a Korean lady that was a competing weightlifter and an accomplished pianist, and the YT nick was "PianoLifter"…
Johnstaf Thanks for sharing!
QuasiUnaFantasia guess the way to go about it is starting early: as a little child with a toy piano you start every practice session by lifting your piano up over your head, and put it softly down again. Now repeat this every time you practice for the rest of your life, and you'll be the strongest person on Earth before hitting adulthood. 😉
This is the same idea some people have about increasing the metronome tempo slightly every day to become a virtuoso. It leaves out the fact that a piece becomes incrementally more difficult every day if it's beyond the pianist's level of technical development.
Johnstaf the greatest performances I've ever heard of anything by anyone.
That's the same feeling I got when I heard Sokolov performed Brahms concerto no.1 back in 1996. I still feel the same about that concert.
QuasiUnaFantasia I guess the way to go about it is starting early: as a little child with a toy piano you start every practice session by lifting your piano up over your head, and put it softly down again. Now repeat this every time you practice for the rest of your life, and you'll be the strongest person on Earth before hitting adulthood. 😉
Great idea indeed, it seems that pianists have an opportunity here that other musicians might be missing😊
As it relates to playing the piano, too much emphasis has been placed on strengthening “the fingers,” and this has in turn sent many pianists to the emergency room with fingers that have been pushed to their limits and beyond….
Evolution did not factor piano-playing into its selective process, so, whilst the opposable thumb emerged out of necessity in order to preserve the species, and further propel us onto bigger and greater things, it was meant mainly for “gripping” to/onto things, grasping & handling, but not for piano-playing. So you see, the emphasis should be on figuring out how these things called fingers can better adapt to a machine that is inherently out of context, and, in the process it could turn out that evolution will take this effort into account so as to develop hands/fingers that can be better equipped for the piano, and not mostly meant for gripping/holding onto things; in the meantime I advise you to concentrate on how to go about this lapse in evolution and try to better adapt your hands around this conundrum.
In a nutshell, the piano was forced upon us rather than something carefully selected for the preservation of the species, so don’t overly-exercise your fingers under the false notion that this will in turn make you a better pianist….in other words, use your brain in figuring out a workaround that involves very little in the way of “strengthening.”
Pete14 As it relates to playing the piano, too much emphasis has been placed on strengthening “the fingers,”
That's just bad teaching.
And to this day I still hear some of these “teachers” vouching for the eight-hour regime with an emphasis on, you guessed it, strength!
Treat your fingers gently, and let the upper muscles do all the heavy lifting, for the fingers are fragile strands that were never meant for rigorous work, but rather for pointing, holding, grabbing, etc…
When was the last time you gave your fingers a well-deserved vacation?
Have you treated them aching fingers to a massage lately?
……but I digress…….
I don't know if she's mentioned in this thread but one pianist that I have listened to quite a lot recently is Beatrice Rana. I think her playing is lovely and refreshingly absent of superficialness and effect seeking. I'm particularly fond of her recordings of the Bach concertos but I think she handles a lot of other music and composers brilliantly. She has also recorded the Goldberg variations but that one isn't my favorite, not bad by any means, just not my favorite.
johanibraaten I have only listened to her Goldberg Variations and I was very fond of them for a while. My only gripe with it is the playing is almost an exact copy of Glenn Gould's famous recordings. But she's fantastic anyway, thanks 🙂
