Recommend me some Mozart

[Gordon Steadman]

Oooo - I'd like to hear Argerich in the piano sonata!

I have her playing the piano concerto #20 - stunning!

I've been listening to the Argerich and whilst her playing is obviously brilliant, the music just doesn't do it for me. I think I have to face the fact that my tastes have polarised back to where they started out. Guitar music, baroque and jazz with smatterings of blues, rock and pop mixed in when the mood takes me.

I have a few classical composers in the collection but only dip in and out occasionally. Bach remains god!!

[jandl100]

I've been listening to the Argerich and whilst her playing is obviously brilliant, the music just doesn't do it for me. I think I have to face the fact that my tastes have polarised back to where they started out. Guitar music, baroque and jazz with smatterings of blues, rock and pop mixed in when the mood takes me.

I have a few classical composers in the collection but only dip in and out occasionally. Bach remains god!!

Fair enough, Gordon, kudos for giving it another try.
Classical is my main listening fare - 95%+, I guess. The only classical genre I can't get into at all is grand opera.
Played well, the Mozart piano sonatas are things of utter perfection for me.
Vive la difference!

[jandl100]

Martino Tirimo is good in most of the piano sonatas. I have the versions by Uchida and Perahi, but I hardly ever listen to them.

Try Jando on Naxos, Dave - I hear very few recordings of anything that get close to perfection, but Jando does it for me in the Mozart piano sonatas. They are very difficult pieces indeed to pull off, despite their apparent and mis-leading simplicity, and I've never heard anyone do them as well as Jando.

[jandl100]

Piano concertos - 9 (Brendel), most of 17-27. If you can find Malcolm Bilson's set that's good. Stephen (Bishop) Kovacevich is excellent in most of the later ones, as is also Richard Goode. Ingrid Haebler is another possibility for some. There's a recording of no. 23 with Horowitz - brilliant. Brendel is good in no. 27. There are some total duds. I have a recording of Michelangeli which is awful - though I think with some conductors he was OK. There are a few really cheap downloads (if anyone can stand the compressed sound - I find it bearable) - I'll come back later with details.

Yes, spot on, Dave. Bishop Kovacevich is amazingly good. Desert Island Disc material for me.
E.g. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mozart-Piano...art+kovacevich
Brendel is hit and miss for me, mostly miss.
I can't stand Richard Goode!

[dave2010]

Try Jando on Naxos, Dave - I hear very few recordings of anything that get close to perfection, but Jando does it for me in the Mozart piano sonatas. They are very difficult pieces indeed to pull off, despite their apparent and mis-leading simplicity, and I've never heard anyone do them as well as Jando.

Thanks for the suggestion. Certainly good - though I have played (or at least tried to) some of the piano sonatas, and I actually feel that some, including the so-called "easy" one, can go quite a bit faster, and with very strong dynamics. Pianists like Uchida put me to sleep - IIRC. I have vague recollections of hearing one pianist's recordings which get closer to what I imagine they should sound like - and of course with much better technique than I can manage - perhaps it was Eschenbach.

Here is Jando in the F major sonata which I occasionally murder - he's on the right lines - http://open.spotify.com/track/0529b0EV7eZE1oVmLIIiK9

Also in the C major sonata he gets much closer to the "snaps" on the ornamented notes - these should be really quick to give a sharp effect.

I accept that these pieces can be played in different ways, and a "pretty" or "pure" way may sometimes work, but often I think it is just turgid. I notice the same in Haydn. One pianist recently made me sit up - Christian Zimmermann - he plays Haydn sonatas with absolutely stunning bravura - though unfortunately I don't think he's recorded (m)any. I managed to salvage some of his performances from a radio broadcast. If he's done Mozart too I'd expect the performances to be excellent. [I still can't find much Mozart by him, though.]

Schnabel is also worth hearing - though I can't remember whether he's really good in Mozart - but he certainly made me listen. http://open.spotify.com/track/0aputgRMKvoEaZuEcI1z1u

It's no good just listening to one pianist in piano sonatas (by almost any composer), there can be very significant differences between the effects they produce, and also the emotional effects on the listener. This may be different for different people, however.

[dave2010]

Yes, spot on, Dave. Bishop Kovacevich is amazingly good. Desert Island Disc material for me.
E.g. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mozart-Piano...art+kovacevich
Brendel is hit and miss for me, mostly miss.
I can't stand Richard Goode!

Sorry you don't like Goode. You've hit the nail on the head with Brendel and Mozart. He has a few really good recorded performances and quite a number of merely OK ones. His recordings of early piano concertos - I think 9 and 12 - is really good, and I did enjoy an older recording (Vox) of 27. I also enjoyed his early recordings of Beethoven - such as the Waldstein sonata. Here is a more recent recording which I don't know - http://open.spotify.com/track/6gpspSLGVesV7AnmJyDzPx

I heard him play live in some Schubert sonatas - lovely.

I met SBK once at a party, but unfortunately I didn't realise who he was. I think I'd been introduced to him specifically because the hostess knew of my interest in music, and also in his playing.

More or less as follows ...

"Hi - I'm Steve" ... "I'm Dave".
D:"What do you do?" "Oh, I play piano a bit?"
D:"Can you make a living out of that?"
"I get by."
D:"What sort of music do you play?"
"Classical mostly - Mozart, Beethoven, Bartok"
"I try to play some of that stuff."
D:"What sort of places do you play in?"
"Oh - just a few halls around ..."

... He probably also asked me what I did, and other general stuff.
...
Eventually we went on to talk about other things - such as American football.
It was only afterwards that I realised that I'd been talking to one of my favourite pianists, and of course
he played in halls such as the RAH, RFH and many similar places in other countries.

Some musicians (most) do have off days. I'm still sorry you have a problem with Goode.

[jandl100]

Sorry you don't like Goode. You've hit the nail on the head with Brendel and Mozart. He has a few really good recorded performances and quite a number of merely OK ones. His recordings of early piano concertos - I think 9 and 12 - is really good, and I did enjoy an older recording (Vox) of 27. I also enjoyed his early recordings of Beethoven - such as the Waldstein sonata. Here is a more recent recording which I don't know - http://open.spotify.com/track/6gpspSLGVesV7AnmJyDzPx

I heard him play live in some Schubert sonatas - lovely.

I met SBK once at a party, but unfortunately I didn't realise who he was. I think I'd been introduced to him specifically because the hostess knew of my interest in music, and also in his playing.

More or less as follows ...

"Hi - I'm Steve" ... "I'm Dave".
D:"What do you do?" "Oh, I play piano a bit?"
D:"Can you make a living out of that?"
"I get by."
D:"What sort of music do you play?"
"Classical mostly - Mozart, Beethoven, Bartok"
"I try to play some of that stuff."
D:"What sort of places do you play in?"
"Oh - just a few halls around ..."

... He probably also asked me what I did, and other general stuff.
...
Eventually we went on to talk about other things - such as American football.
It was only afterwards that I realised that I'd been talking to one of my favourite pianists, and of course
he played in halls such as the RAH, RFH and many similar places in other countries.

Some musicians (most) do have off days. I'm still sorry you have a problem with Goode.

Nice story!

Goode -- ah, you think I'm missing something?
I think I had the misfortune that the first ever thing I heard Richard Goode play was a Bach disc ... Oh - My - God ... I've never heard anything so appallingly inappropriate style-wise. He seemed totally clueless to me. Not, of course, that there is only one way to play Bach, but (as Captain Corcoran says in HMS Pinafore) you have to draw the line somewhere!
Perhaps everything after that was tainted by expectation bias.
I did buy some Mozart piano concertos and I failed to hear any merit.
Ah well - go on, Dave - recommend me some Goode recordings to try!

[jandl100]

D:"What do you do?"
S: "Oh, I play piano a bit?"
D:"Can you make a living out of that?"
S: "I get by."

[SLS]

My sympathies are with Gordon, I think I've moved on and would prefer to listen to Haydn's quartets, trios or late piano sonatas, probably also his later symphonies.

I would agree the Bohm Requiem - suggested Harnoncourt as a good more recent recording. The Bohm from the early 70s is superbly recorded from my recollection.

I would agree with some of the piano concertos, the latter the better, I would suggest 503, 491, 488, 467, 466 (Barenboim / ECO)

My preference is for Perahia and Uchida, mainly influenced by concert performance. I recall Perahia performances of Mozart piano concertos from many years ago. For me Argerich is for the Romantics.

[SLS]

As a non-M footnote, recently acquired the SBK Beethoven Concertos vinyl box set, minty mint. Sublime. Have them on CD, but truly wonderful on the black stuff.

On the subject of pianists exhibiting a certain amount of reserve, I read in a recent biography that John Ogdon from ages 10 to 16 had a school teacher who was a keen pianist, but only found out Ogdon played the piano when he read in the papers 10 years later that he had won the Tchaikovsky competition. Not sure I believe that one.