As if the title -- The #1 Piano Album -- wasn't enough of a claim, the subtitle goes even further: "The best-loved piano works of all time." Of course it seems impossible to deliver on that statement even with two 75-minute-plus compact discs. But as the discs go rolling by -- as Uchida's elegantly turned interpretation of the opening Allegro of ...
Of the volumes issued by Philips in its Artist's Choice series dedicated to pianist Alfred Brendel, by far the most interesting volume is this set of five Schubert sonatas. The Beethoven and Haydn/Mozart volumes had largely consisted of previously issued studio recording, but this volume consists entirely of previously unavailable live recordings. ...
Alfred Brendel's career as a pianist could be divided into three periods. There's his early virtuoso period that began with his 1955 coupling of Mussorgsky's Pictures and Stravinsky's three movements from Petrushka and climaxed with his 1961 recording of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. There's his middle intellectual period that began with his ...
Although Alfred Brendel goes on at length about the textural improvements in his liner notes to his cycle of Beethoven's piano concertos with James Levine conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the real reason to get this recording is to hear the acoustical improvements in the sound. In the original 1983 edition, Philips' early digital sound ...
A compilation of this kind is at its best when it passes three basic tests. It shouldn't scrawl on the Mona Lisa. It should offer skillful, exciting performances, not stuff that tanked when first released. And ideally, it should make musical sense as a whole. The #1 Bach Album easily passes the first two tests, but seems only dimly aware of the ...
Unless the audience is made up of sentimentalists or modernists, Mozart recitals don't get any better than this. Alfred Brendel's Mozart is clear and objective, absolutely translucent, and technically impeccable. But everyone prays differently and Brendel's devotion to the integrity of the music is his path to the sublime. The radiant trill in the ...
Why is this the disc to hear if you want to hear Beethoven's Bagatelles?First, Philips' sound is magnificent, as clear and realistic a piano recording as has ever been made, a recording that puts the piano in the same room as the listener. Second, there are hardly any truly great performances of Beethoven's three sets of Bagatelles; the only ...
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