The pianist who can play anything perfectly on sight has one work in mind that gives him nightmares.
Busoni? Schoenberg? Beelzebub?
It’s….
… oh, read for yourselves here in a fascinating VAN interview with Jeffrey Arlo Brown.
The US jazz bassist Barre Phillips, resident in…
Colorado will never sound the same without Margaret…
We’re hearing that the Vienna State Opera has…
Message from the Vienna-based Russian soprano: “I am…
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Is he really able to read perfectly at sight (everything, or almost?) or is there a little hyperbole there. Does anyone know any top-class pianists well enough to know if many of them can really do this? It seems as though John Ogdon really could (from various sources), and Christopher Nupen said that Ashkenazy could/can.
Andy: Finnish Olli Mustonen too.
Trifonov’s Carnegie Hall recording of the Liszt Sonata definitely sounds like he’s sight-reading.
IMHO, of course; many people seem to be more than fine with it.
Some of George Gershwin’s close associates spoke as if he could do this, for recreation. (Two-piano transcriptions.) He played only his own works in public.
Rachmaninoff and Horowitz .
Ironically, his own concerto has a couple of really good episodes in the orchestra but as soon as the piano breaks-in, the music sinks down to drunk Rachmaninoff-kitsch.
Composers who are also pianists, as in the 18th and 19th century, are another species than pianists who also compose. As with plumbing and dentistry, it is better to leave the really difficult thing to the professionals.
Friedrich Gulda and Alma deutscher spring to mind…….
Plumbing and dentistry, and then Fritz Gulda and Alma Deutscher come to your mind… You need help. 🙂
As JB said, “ ironically “
You don’t get irony…..
Marc-André Hamelin played the Schnittke Concerto with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta in December. In fact he played it 5 times in 8 days on tour with then, also playing a Haydn concerto in the 2nd half! I caught the Amsterdam performance which was quite astounding.
Hamelin played Schnittke’s Concerto for piano and strings (1979), which is not the same as his Concerto for piano (1960).
This is the concerto Trifonov means: https://youtu.be/xy2SY5H4AFQ
This is the concerto that Hamelin played: https://youtu.be/5vyCc_jFidw
No, Trifonov meant Schnittke’s Concerto for piano and strings. As far as I know he never played his concerto for piano, and given his confused use of their names it’s likely that he isn’t even aware the 1960 concerto exists. There used to be a video of him playing the concerto for piano and strings on YouTube. He played the same concerto in Berlin this year. https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/concerts/calendar/details/51884/
C’est magnifique!
“The pianist who can play anything perfectly on sight…” Hahahahahaha! I love mythomaniacs.
If that were a fact, then why this in the interview:
“There’s some great music that takes a very long time just to read. For example, the Ligeti Piano Concerto. It’s wonderful, one of my favorite piano concertos from the second half of the 20th century. Currently I simply don’t have time to learn it.”
But sight-reading is a wonderful thing. I once spent two full days recording the “Three posthumous Piano Pieces” by Grieg with the established Grieg expert of the times. It was hard going, very hard going, and extremely time-consuming, but we got it done.
Then, just after, I had my first recording with Christian Lindberg and Roland Pöntinen. In a pause, Christian was bragging about Roland’s amazing sight-reading skill. So I took out the Grieg music, which Roland had neither seen or heard, and put it on the piano stand.
Roland sat down and played them, in tempo, at least as good as the recording. I was completely flabbergasted. it is a talent, it really is.
Just about everything Grieg wrote is sight-readable. Besides, you don’t know for a fact that Roland had neither seen nor heard these pieces before, you only have his word for it.
Sort of like the word “platonic” means nothing because we don’t REALLY know what Plato was up to, we only have his word for it.
Your referencing platonism is the most logically fallacious laughable argument I’ve come across in a while. You essentially negate all credible academic research on Platonism over the history of 2000 years, not to mention critical theory, postmodernist deconstruction and literary analysis. You really should research and think more carefully before you open your mouth/type.