Skybird
12-30-07, 11:53 AM
Admitted, this post is highly subjective and personal! :D
My christmas presents included a recording that I planned to get since a long time: a CD that by many is considered to be the benchmark performance for Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concert, both regarding the orchestra and the pianbo player: Martha Argerich in the Philharmonia in Berlin 1982, with the DSO (back then still nammed RSO) Berlin conducted by Riccardo Chailly.
This is some special memory for me:
First, the concert itself is fantastic and one of the most emotional, dramatic, fast-paced and melodic pieces of classical music I know off. I love it since half my life, and it both carries me away completely and often moves me to tears at the end - not because it is so sad, but so triumphant and simply more than I can emotionally bear.
second, my Mum and me were sitting in the audience, while my Dad was perfoming with the orchestra on stage. Afterwards we both boasted with pride what a wonderful job my Dad was able to do. He like many of his colleagues of that time consideres this evening to be one of the top ten events in his whole career.
Third: the concert ranks amongst the five or six top challenges for classical piano. It is ridiculously difficult to play, not only because of the lunatic speed at which rachmaninoff wanted it to be played, but because of the extremely difficult inner structure of the piano composition as well.
And last but not least: Martha Argerich. I see her as one of the greatest of all time in her realms, playing most others against the wall, if pushing for it. Only Horowitz I once heared in a recording, and playing parts of it even faster - but at the price of making very many mistakes and stumbles. Argerich, on the other hand, plays it with maximum risk - but with almost no mistake. I must admit I have problems with Horowitz anyway - i almost never like his play. Argerich plays in some parts like a rabid demon, with devil chasing her himself, but still with more variation and emotional expression than most others. She has been gifted an extremely precious and rare talent, without doubt.
The orchestra performance also is very, very good, and pinted out by many critics. chailly back then was seen as a good conductor, but not amongst the best, but he was extremely well-liked my musicians m becasue different to many other conductors he was close to the orchestra, and was behaving very much okay and kind towards musicians. Often conductors suffer from primadonna syndrom. while Chailly liked show, he never did it at the cost of the orchestra. That's what earned him much respect and sympathy over here. In his realm - Italian music, opera, triumphant fanfare-styled effect-music, you need to look long to find somebody better, the problem with him is that EVERYTHING is at risk to sound like Itlaian opera when he is doing it. :lol: Similiar sympathies for his way to handle inter-humane relations were only earned by Kent Nagano over here.
And today I found out that that concert in parts is on youtube.
Bam-slam-hit-the-wall-falling-flat-laughing-loud!
You can see the first movement in two parts here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY4kojG0tQk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERsC0oMIKNg&feature=related
And the second half of the last movement and the final here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=547I9gMDamo&feature=related
All in all you get 25-30 minutes of the whole program.
A special moment it was for all participants. This is arts at its very best!
My christmas presents included a recording that I planned to get since a long time: a CD that by many is considered to be the benchmark performance for Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concert, both regarding the orchestra and the pianbo player: Martha Argerich in the Philharmonia in Berlin 1982, with the DSO (back then still nammed RSO) Berlin conducted by Riccardo Chailly.
This is some special memory for me:
First, the concert itself is fantastic and one of the most emotional, dramatic, fast-paced and melodic pieces of classical music I know off. I love it since half my life, and it both carries me away completely and often moves me to tears at the end - not because it is so sad, but so triumphant and simply more than I can emotionally bear.
second, my Mum and me were sitting in the audience, while my Dad was perfoming with the orchestra on stage. Afterwards we both boasted with pride what a wonderful job my Dad was able to do. He like many of his colleagues of that time consideres this evening to be one of the top ten events in his whole career.
Third: the concert ranks amongst the five or six top challenges for classical piano. It is ridiculously difficult to play, not only because of the lunatic speed at which rachmaninoff wanted it to be played, but because of the extremely difficult inner structure of the piano composition as well.
And last but not least: Martha Argerich. I see her as one of the greatest of all time in her realms, playing most others against the wall, if pushing for it. Only Horowitz I once heared in a recording, and playing parts of it even faster - but at the price of making very many mistakes and stumbles. Argerich, on the other hand, plays it with maximum risk - but with almost no mistake. I must admit I have problems with Horowitz anyway - i almost never like his play. Argerich plays in some parts like a rabid demon, with devil chasing her himself, but still with more variation and emotional expression than most others. She has been gifted an extremely precious and rare talent, without doubt.
The orchestra performance also is very, very good, and pinted out by many critics. chailly back then was seen as a good conductor, but not amongst the best, but he was extremely well-liked my musicians m becasue different to many other conductors he was close to the orchestra, and was behaving very much okay and kind towards musicians. Often conductors suffer from primadonna syndrom. while Chailly liked show, he never did it at the cost of the orchestra. That's what earned him much respect and sympathy over here. In his realm - Italian music, opera, triumphant fanfare-styled effect-music, you need to look long to find somebody better, the problem with him is that EVERYTHING is at risk to sound like Itlaian opera when he is doing it. :lol: Similiar sympathies for his way to handle inter-humane relations were only earned by Kent Nagano over here.
And today I found out that that concert in parts is on youtube.
Bam-slam-hit-the-wall-falling-flat-laughing-loud!
You can see the first movement in two parts here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY4kojG0tQk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERsC0oMIKNg&feature=related
And the second half of the last movement and the final here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=547I9gMDamo&feature=related
All in all you get 25-30 minutes of the whole program.
A special moment it was for all participants. This is arts at its very best!