Artur Rubinstein - Piano Recital

Advantages: Cherkassky playing at his best in wide range of solo works
Disadvantages: No Godowsky included

...on the piano, if at all. It is actually a selection of five pieces by Lully, not originally published as a suite, but subsequently assembled into a suite, and reordered by Cherkassky. Cherkassky articulates these early pieces beautifully, bringing out the various voices of the counterpoint with great delicacy and beautiful phrasing. His playing of the ornaments (trills, mordents etc) is especially captivating. He then plays a short piece by Mendelssohn with the light fantasy touch which is required. Here is Mendelssohn back in the same world as the fairies in his famous Midsummer Night's Dream. The centrepiece of this recital is Tchaikovsky's rarely performed Grand Sonata. Cherkassky is one of a small number of pianists who bring this sonata to life (Pletnev is another) and make it sound like a masterpiece. This piece has often been... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Unparalleled playing, Unbelievably good bargain for 6 CDs!
Disadvantages: Um, paper sleeves? No, seriously, it's great

...This box set comprises recordings from 1985-89, when Horowitz was 81 years old! In 1986 Horowitz returned to Russia after 60 years away to give his monumental Moscow recital of which the live recording is included in this set. I personally find this performance of Liszt's Sonetto 104 del Petrarca to be the finest ever recorded. Alongside this is Scarlatti, Mozart, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Schumann, Chopin, Moszkowski, and Schubert. Accompanying this recital is 5 other discs of outstandingly unique playing. As he got older, Horowitz's playing became a sort of caricature of itself in the nicest possible way. By this I mean, his dynamics became more extreme, he became more expressive than ever, and his sense of style was heightened to new levels. Horowitz's Mozart playing has been criticized for being too free and not in Mozart... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Haunting, passionate music to get lost in.
Disadvantages: It's classical and this puts people off before they even try it.

...interrupt it - particularly something as mundane as housework. Floon and I are obviously not alone in finding the quintet special. This music has aroused the passions of many and the notes say” Many musicians have spoken in awe of its spiritual Elysianism, including the pianist Artur Rubinstein (who requested the slow movement be played at his funeral), the great nineteenth-century cellist Alfredo Piatti (who asked for it to be played during his dying hours to send him into the next world), and the renowned quartet leader John Saunders who had the opening seven bars of the first movement’s second subject inscribed on his tombstone above the following Shakespearian quotation (Sonnet XVIII): So long as man can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. String Quintet in C Major, D956 (1828) The title conveys... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful