Must watch: Pollini plays the Beatles
mainWatch now, before somebody gets this taken down.
Karl Böhm, it is said, was a secret fan of George Harrison.
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For an official but utterly brilliant Beatles concerto (the first recording was produced by George Martin), you have to hear John Rutter’s fabulous Beatles double piano concerto of 1977, written for Peter Rostal and Paul Schaefer and subsequently performed with the London Symphony, Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic and more orchestras besides.
You can hear the first movement on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqFKL3YsCgg – John demonstrates once again that he is one of the finest orchestrators of our age: his tongue-in-cheek yet brilliantly crafted scoring, seamlessly crossing between Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Hollywood films and much more, also giving the two pianists bucketloads of notes to play, will bring a smile to even the greyest of days.
Gosh, this is wonderful!
… the 3rd Movement, also on YouTube, filters Can’t Buy Me Love and The Long and Winding Road through Sergei Rachmaninoff, quite shamelessly.
The Hong Kong Philharmonic performed the Beatles Concerto with Rostal and Schaefer as soloists back in the mid-1980s. Amazing audience reaction.
Fingers do not match the music. Looks like one of those YT music hoaxes.
Dear Boom,
It is a hoax.
And it’s the kind of kitsch so beloved of Paul McCartney’s own ‘classical music’ fans!
well yes. The bowing should have given that away in seconds, even if you hadn’t realised it before hitting ‘play’.
Mozart was much ahead of his time.
Sometimes Böhm was spotted sneaking-into a London concert with the Beatles, disguised with wig, moustache and dark glasses.
Yes, definitely a hoax. I see someone noticed this before 🙂
Well, it certainly makes more sense when one has followed the link to the original YouTube page, identified that this is based on a song called ‘Michelle’ by Paul McCartney (and to some extent John Lennon), listened to a recording of that song, and then listened to the piano and orchestra piece again and recognised the similarities.
Your comment rather suggests that Pollini and the orchestra are actually playing what you are hearing. Far from it, and it’s a strange thing to post on YT, for Pollini’s fingers and the violin bows are barely synchronised with the music you hear — quite simply an arrangement of Michelle replacing whatever the musicians were actually playing.
Certainly not, and my apologies if that is what I seemed to suggest. I had already read in a comment above that it is a hoax. I was just pointing out that it only begins to make sense if one actually knows what the song is. Those of us whose knowledge of The Beatles’ output extends only to Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields will have been left a little puzzled.
Very understandable, Alexander. I recognized Michelle, but I don’t even know Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields myself. I think the ones we may know are those that come at us from TV, Radio, etc., whether it’s what we want to hear or not. (–:
Does anyone actually find these embarrassing montages funny?
I notice nobody has attempted to speculate on what the piece actually is that is being played.
Not true: Alexander said so at 3:30.
I think holly meant to ask what was the piece that Pollini was *really* playing in that video…
Mozart No. 19. Here’s the original:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeemIt-u23w
Pollini and Böhm would never ever even think about playing something like that. The source of the images are surely edited from concertos filmed in the late 1970’s. I suppose many readers of SD know those recordings that have been available without interruption in vinyl discs, CD, VHS and DVDs. Check this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Maurizio-Pollini-Piano-Concertos-DVD/dp/B000A3VTTI/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1480058094&sr=1-2&keywords=pollini
The repertoire (Beethoven 3&5, Mozart 19&23, and Brahms 2, the latest with Abbado) and the performances are wonderful.
Well, I don’t. It is childish, and demeaning for both the classical musicians and the Beatles song, which is one of their best, in the ballad tradition and pleasantly nostalgic. Putting such a simple but beautiful gem into the garb of ‘classical music’ suddenly makes it sound kitschy-pretentious and the classical musicians look ridiculous.
1. Karl bohm, it was said was also “secretly’ a fan of Hitler’s
2. All credits should go to Belgian pianist François Glorieux who played the Beatles a la Beethoven, Chopin etc as an improvisor.
They all took his idea
Hardly secretly! He pretty well ordered the Vienna Philharmonic members to sign a document hailing the Austrian Anschluss and happily gave the ‘Sieg Heil’ salute. The mystery is how he pretty well got off scot-free after the end of the War, at the same time that Furtwangler was being pilloried, though he had always refused to join the Nazi Party. There were patently obvious Nazi supporters among musicians, e.g., Elly Ney. But I’ve always suspected that Bohm and Schwarzkopf were very enthusiastic Nazis indeed. Karajan? Just an egomaniacal opportunist who always had a finger raised to the wind.
I heard Glorieux’s Mozartian Ob-la-di Ob-la-da on the radio more than 30 years ago, and remember it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZjk5eEKC80
I find this one much more amusing, and it’s cleverly done (though Gould groupies will feel insulted): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Fr1MlnpSk
Ragazzi, si tratta di un video goliardico senza particolari pretese se non quella di divertire facendo apparentemente eseguire a Pollini dei brani che lui non suonerebbe mai nemmeno sotto tortura, come Michelle, Popoff e una tarantella napoletana accompagnata dai “claps” del pubblico (!) … per non parlare dei cori finali del pubblico 😀 Inoltre c’è scritto persino tra le informazioni sul canale: tutti i video realizzati dall’autore sono dei “fake”! 🙂