Justin Ayers
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I created a light-hearted gimmicky format for sharing music and have decided it's not worth the time to try to shoehorn things into categories. So, here are some classical music links of some interest and variety, generally with a smidgen of commentary. Feel free to share other classical, or similar, if you wish. A plus for obscure music that's interesting.
• first movement of Scriabin's first piano sonata, played by Elena Richter. Fiorentino is also recommended, particularly for the entire piece. I have only listened to Richter's sonata performances once all the way through but only the first movement of the first sonata truly impressed me. I remain impressed, hearing it again. I have heard many renditions, too.
• second Roslavets sonata, played by Irina Emeliantseva.
• Protopopov's second sonata, played by Steffen Schleiermacher (the only recorded performance I know of). Scriabin may be the father of jazz but Protopopov is the father of goth. Did I mention I absolutely adore arpeggios?
• second Miaskovsky sonata, played by İdil Biret. Boris Lvov is great (completely different interpretation) with this one but is not on Youtube. It took me some time to warm up to Biret's brash 'cubist' interpretation but it certainly grew on me. Interpretative differences may be largely due to there being two versions of the piece (a revised and an original).
• 1st and 2nd movements (3rd is also fine but first two are best) of Rachmaninov second sonata (original, non-butchered, version), played by Vladimir Ashkenazy. It wouldn't be a classical list without Rach, would it? This piece has been played so many times at competitions that it's practically a joke in the young pianists' world. Nevertheless, they persist.
• Composition No. 3 by Ustvolskaya. A polarizing composer. Some of her work is great (in particular the 'symphonies' 2–5). Reinbert de Leeuw is on piano here. Her music is more deserving of the "minimalism" moniker than Philip Glass' is. That is a misnomer for much of his work.
• Beethoven piano concerto 4, played by Artur Rubinstein. It's hard to get more "core repertoire" than this composer, this piece, and this pianist. Love it anyway. I didn't like the 4th until I heard Rubinstein play it. I was always a big aficionado of the 5th. Now that I'm older I prefer the 4th's greater subtlety, I suppose. The piece reminds me of Dvořák slightly. Hard to imagine he was 88 years old here.
• A. Tcherepnin concerto 5, played by the composer himself. He wasn't a virtuoso pianist and therefore it took him years of practice to manage to be able to play this concerto at all. Noriko Ogawa and the Singapore Symphony under Lan Shui is better (get ahold of the CD, as the Youtube versions are really low rate, even for Youtube) but it's fascinating to hear a composer play his own composition. This is, in my view, an excellent concerto. However, very few appreciate its dryness.
• Ornstein concerto, performed by Alan Feinberg. A huge amount of recent classical avant-garde piano music sounds like Ornstein. That also includes a few hacks from some time ago, like Sorabji. This concerto is not particularly impressive as a stand-alone piece but it is impressive in terms of how its ideas (and the rest of Ornstein's output) became the sound that continues to dominate.
• first movement of Scriabin's first piano sonata, played by Elena Richter. Fiorentino is also recommended, particularly for the entire piece. I have only listened to Richter's sonata performances once all the way through but only the first movement of the first sonata truly impressed me. I remain impressed, hearing it again. I have heard many renditions, too.
• second Roslavets sonata, played by Irina Emeliantseva.
• Protopopov's second sonata, played by Steffen Schleiermacher (the only recorded performance I know of). Scriabin may be the father of jazz but Protopopov is the father of goth. Did I mention I absolutely adore arpeggios?
• second Miaskovsky sonata, played by İdil Biret. Boris Lvov is great (completely different interpretation) with this one but is not on Youtube. It took me some time to warm up to Biret's brash 'cubist' interpretation but it certainly grew on me. Interpretative differences may be largely due to there being two versions of the piece (a revised and an original).
• 1st and 2nd movements (3rd is also fine but first two are best) of Rachmaninov second sonata (original, non-butchered, version), played by Vladimir Ashkenazy. It wouldn't be a classical list without Rach, would it? This piece has been played so many times at competitions that it's practically a joke in the young pianists' world. Nevertheless, they persist.
• Composition No. 3 by Ustvolskaya. A polarizing composer. Some of her work is great (in particular the 'symphonies' 2–5). Reinbert de Leeuw is on piano here. Her music is more deserving of the "minimalism" moniker than Philip Glass' is. That is a misnomer for much of his work.
• Beethoven piano concerto 4, played by Artur Rubinstein. It's hard to get more "core repertoire" than this composer, this piece, and this pianist. Love it anyway. I didn't like the 4th until I heard Rubinstein play it. I was always a big aficionado of the 5th. Now that I'm older I prefer the 4th's greater subtlety, I suppose. The piece reminds me of Dvořák slightly. Hard to imagine he was 88 years old here.
• A. Tcherepnin concerto 5, played by the composer himself. He wasn't a virtuoso pianist and therefore it took him years of practice to manage to be able to play this concerto at all. Noriko Ogawa and the Singapore Symphony under Lan Shui is better (get ahold of the CD, as the Youtube versions are really low rate, even for Youtube) but it's fascinating to hear a composer play his own composition. This is, in my view, an excellent concerto. However, very few appreciate its dryness.
• Ornstein concerto, performed by Alan Feinberg. A huge amount of recent classical avant-garde piano music sounds like Ornstein. That also includes a few hacks from some time ago, like Sorabji. This concerto is not particularly impressive as a stand-alone piece but it is impressive in terms of how its ideas (and the rest of Ornstein's output) became the sound that continues to dominate.
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