The Worst Beatle

Debussy - First Arabesque




Chopin - Nocturne in B Major, op. 32 no. 1

I am far from an opera buff, but I know enough to know that my tastes in opera are hopelessly vulgar. I love Puccini. I love Maria Callas.

Puccini -- with his overly dramatic plots and gorgeous but saccharine melodies. Maria Callas -- with her sometimes harsh technique (which to some opera buffs is the epitome of ingratiating) but incredible feeling and passion.

She sings the way I love literature to be: beautiful sometimes, ugly sometimes, but everything is for the art, everything is approached passionately, as if one was willing to die for it. I get chills listening to her.

On my sister's hard drive is my entire collection of Maria Callas -- a staggeringly huge thing that I would love to cherry pick from to show you my love for Maria. But since I don't have it near me, YouTube will have to do.

From Madame Butterfly:




From La Boheme:

One of the most difficult solo piano works by a noteworthy composer, Rudepoêma was written for pianist Arthur Rubinstein. Rubinstein was a virtuoso who, like Richter, was interested more in breadth than in a particular specialty. He not only singlehandedly recorded a huge part of the romantic repertoire, he also knew much of it by heart, thanks to a photographic memory. Here he plays Chopin's Barcarole in a grand and very embellished fashion:



To Rubinstein, a man who was fully enjoying his genius, Villa-Lobos' Rudepoêma must have seemed to be a cumbersome gift: needlessly difficult, obscure, and with little reward.


Several decades after Rudepoêma was composed, Canadian virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin would prove to be the piece's rightful performer. Hamelin was a child prodigy who was exposed by his father to obscure and difficult composers such as Alkan, Sorabji, and Godowsky. He would eventually specialize in this sort of virtuosity and become an unrivaled authority on difficult and obscure solo piano works. His interpretations of more popular works can be disappointing. For instance, Hamelin falls flat performing Scriabin, but playing Leo Ornstein he is dazzling. Watch him perform Rudepoêma:

Part 1:



Part 2:

"You know something? That's Bach for people who do not like Bach."

Martha Argerich

Chopin - Andante Spianato (performed by Martha Argerich)



Chopin - Scherzo No. 3 (performed by Martha Argerich)

Alfred Cortot

Today there are many players of unusual abilities playing Chopin -- players who seem at home in his melancholically lyrical style, who can apply rubato to a melody without breaking the pulse and attend to the music's inner voices -- but there are no Chopinists. There are no pianists whose reputations are primarily based on Chopin performance or whose playing of Chopin is consistently compelling.

[...] some of the most important recorded performances of Chopin were made by a Frenchman who was rarely flip or colorless and who made "poetic divination" a musical religion: Alfred Cortot. Cortot studied with a Chopin pupil, Emile Decombes, and recorded many Chopin pieces several times before his death in 1962. Few of his performances have been easily accessible in recent years, but a six-CD EMI set available as an import amply documents Cortot's standing as a consummate Chopinist.

from here.

Chopin - Prelude in C minor op. 45 (perfomed by Alfred Cortot)


Chopin - Ballade no. 4 (performed by Alfred Cortot)


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Vladimir Sofronitsky

The name of Sofronitsky is connected above all, and properly so, with the music of Chopin and Scriabin. For Sofronitsky's generation, nineteenth-century interpretations of Chopin had long been considered problematic. The numerous layers of sentimentality under which the salon school buried Chopin's music had been replaced by technically perfect renditions, irreproachable in their purity of sound, but clearly deficient. Something imperceptible escaped the majority of performers, even the greatest. A certain Chopin "nerve" was left untouched.

This sense of Chopin's music, inexpressible in words, and impossible to teach, was God's gift to Sofronitsky. Those who heard him in concert recall the invisible but tangible connection he established with his audience. In this bond lay the very essence of Chopin's music. Sofronitsky's loftiness of inspiration, and the exactness with which he could strike the Chopin "nerve", were qualities possessed by no other pianist-at least those whose art is accessible to us, if only in recordings.

from here.

Chopin - Impromptu No. 3, Op. 51 (performed by Vladimir Sofronitsky)


Chopin - Fantasy in F minor, Op. 49 (performed by Vladimir Sofronitsky)


Chopin - Barcarolle, Op. 60 (performed by Vladimir Sofronitsky)




More Sofronitsky from The Worst Beatle

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One of my favorite tenors, Björling’s vocal gifts seem effortless. He was a lousy actor, and supposedly a quiet, unassuming man, but wow, what a powerful voice! Most of his recordings suffer from the same problem most older recordings face. Think flat and distorted voice, grainy background. Very fortunately, a recording of his September 24, 1955 recital at Carnegie Hall exists that is far superior in quality to his recordings in the 30s and 40s and is mastered well.

 

Tosti – Ideale (Jussi Björling)

Puccini - E lucevan le stelle (Jussi Björling)

Sofronitsky was the greatest pianist ever recorded. He was great not for holding a monopoly of pianistic gifts – in that regard we can say Horowitz or Richter, both monstrous technically and with the gift of understanding how and when to color a piece, would earn the title – but for a very specific reason. He was an artist among pianists -- to paraphrase Gilels, a God among men. His interpretations are unrivalled for the peculiar reason that they touch the listener more deeply—at the very least, this listener. In this regard he can be compared to Cortot, and yet he had none of the failings Cortot had. He was not a sloppy player. His style was masculine, stern, and yet achingly emotional. One could say he was an unsentimental romantic. He was as technically competent as any world-class pianist, and yet to listen to Sofronitsky for the speed and grace of his octaves would be ridiculous.

Here is how Sofronitsky himself described his own aspiration towards artistic genius:

But most crucial is to find the heart of each piece or each sonata movement, feel its basic essence, culmination, and then-the same in each construction, every phrase. I played badly before, only in recent years have I come to understand -- better and better -- how to play. And if I am alive in several years then I will really start to play. One has to learn to hear oneself and that is very difficult. This is not a posture -- I am speaking with absolute sincerity. First of all, a performance requires a will. A will -- meaning to want a lot, to want more than you have now, more than you can give. For me the entire effort is strengthening the will. Here is all: rhythm, sound, emotion. Rhythm should be soulful. The whole piece should live, breathe, move as protoplasm. I play-and one part is alive, full of breath, and another part nearby may be dead because the live rhythmic flow is broken. Rachmaninoff, for instance, could create a rhythmic pulse that was unfailingly alive. He had the enormous artistic will of a genius. He had a greater will than any of the modern pianists. The same with Anton Rubinstein. Bulow played very cleanly and Rubinstein sloppily, but two or three dirty notes would damage Bulow’s playing more than fistfuls of them would damage Rubinstein’s. And why? Because Rubinstein had an enormous will. A will for hearing, for rhythmic life. And another point, most important: the more emotionally you play, the better, but this emotionality should be hidden, hidden as in a shell. When I come on stage now, I have “seven shells” under my tuxedo, and despite this I feel naked. So, I need fourteen shells. I have to wish to play so well, live so fully, as to die and still feel as if I have not played. I have nothing to do with this. Some special calm should prevail when you rise from the piano-as if somebody else had played.

Sofronitsky is best known for his interpretations of Scriabin, but I equally like his Rachmaninoff, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, and others. Unfortunately, not many recordings of Sofronitsky have survived Soviet Russia, and many that have survived are bootlegs. Some of the recordings are performed on horrendously out-of-tune pianos. Fans of Richter should be familiar with this dilemma. Still, although the quality is mixed to poor, and Sofronitsky himself referred to his recorded material as “my corpses”, the quality of his playing does shine through. He was regarded in his lifetime as an uneven player, prone to mood swings that could elevate or hollow his playing. It would be untrue to say that all of his recorded material is outstanding, but much of it is, and for that he deserves the highest of praise.

Scriabin - Fantasie In B Minor, Op.28

Scriabin - Sonata No. 3, 3rd Movement

Scriabin – Etude, op. 08 No. 08

Rachmaninoff - Prelude in D major, Op. 23, No. 4

Liszt - Sonata in B-minor

Schumann - Sonata No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op.11, 1st Movement

Earnest, beautiful contemporary chamber music is hard to come by.

Morten Lauridsen fits this bill. While not quite as serious of a composer as, say, Arvo Pärt, at times, admittedly, he is more enjoyable.

Sure, there is something a little cheesy about Lauridsen's work. There is also something sacred. This sacredness is what distinguishes the best of his work.

Morten Lauridsen - O Nata Lux
Morten Lauridsen - O Magnum Mysterium