Wednesday 2 September 2009

Wednesday 2nd September 2009

Hello! Here are today's ears.

In the car, for a couple of short trips to the bus stop and back:
Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum (first few tracks).

Other than that, all listening has been at my desk, in my study. It has been a day devoted to music for the piano. Just the piano.

Chopin - Ballades 1-4, Scherzi Opp.20 & 31 (Rubinstein)
Beethoven - Sonatas 2, 26, 32 (Garrick Ohlsson)
Bach, Beethoven, Chopin etc. - razor blades, little pills, big pianos as previously described (James Rhodes)
Brahms - Opp.116, 117, 118, 119, 79, 76, 24, 35 (Fantasias, Intermezzi, Rhapsodies, Variations on Handel & Paganini etc) (Kovacevich etc on Philips)
Schubert - Sonatas D959, 784, 157 (Lupu)

Highlights:
Last movement of Beethoven Op.111
Bach Chaconne from razor blades...
Brahms Pieces Op.119
Schubert - slow mvmt from D959

For some reason it has been that sort of day. The sort of day where I want to comment about it all, but words are woefully inadequate. The slow movement of the Schubert is a particular favourite of mine. I love that sonata SO SO much. That is all for tonight. If I listen to anything more it will be the Schubert disc again - it's still playing now in any case.

2 comments:

  1. Interesting - the Chaconne is the thing I probably like least on James's album. Nothing to do with the way he plays it, of course, it's just I don't like what Busoni's arrangement does to the piece. I much prefer Brahms's left hand version - it's much more true to the original.

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  2. The Busoni was an arrangement I got to know at a particularly happy time of life, so it has lots of good associations to start with. I'm particularly keen on James's Bach on that album - for me he seems to achieve both sensitivity and excitement at the same time, and the day of this particular listening it hit the spot so absolutely precisely I needed to mention it.

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