As I struggled, as every year, to get my end-of-year lists finished in a reasonably timely fashion, it occurred to me that I could publish half of the classical list earlier if I could find a reasonable way to split it into categories. Thus the non-contemporary/contemporary divide this year. The newer composers' work requires more listening; that's the only reason the older repertoire comes first.
1. Ivan Moravec Twelfth Night Recital Prague 1987 (Supraphon) Supposedly this release of a previously unissued concert recording was approved by the pianist shortly before his passing in July 2015. Certainly it's hard to hear anything of significance that he wouldn't have liked about it, because it is a magnificent testament to everything that made him one of the greatest pianists who ever lived: one of the most beautiful piano tones ever heard, allied to liquid phrasing that gave him one of the greatest legato touches ever recorded.
1. Ivan Moravec Twelfth Night Recital Prague 1987 (Supraphon) Supposedly this release of a previously unissued concert recording was approved by the pianist shortly before his passing in July 2015. Certainly it's hard to hear anything of significance that he wouldn't have liked about it, because it is a magnificent testament to everything that made him one of the greatest pianists who ever lived: one of the most beautiful piano tones ever heard, allied to liquid phrasing that gave him one of the greatest legato touches ever recorded.
- 1/6/2016
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Humor may be the scarcest resource in contemporary music. But when the New York Philharmonic commissioned a new piano concerto from the California composer Andrew Norman, the orchestra knew it could count on a wild but sophisticated wit, and framed the piece in a program of clever fun. Split sat comfortably between Beethoven’s rug-pulling Fourth Symphony and Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, tough acts to follow and precede. The concert crackled all the way through, thanks partly to the lively charm and nuance of James Gaffigan’s conducting, but also to a new score that conceded nothing to the big boys. Norman wrote Split for the pianist Jeffrey Kahane, and treated his effervescent personality as a musical ingredient, sprinkling it throughout the score. The piece announces itself with a backwards pow!, a brief reverberation building to a fortissimo snap. Immediately, the piano sounds both assertive and comically lost,...
- 12/14/2015
- by Justin Davidson
- Vulture
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