Some Rachmaninoff because WTF not.
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Wow!!! Really nice!!
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@George-K said in Some Rachmaninoff because WTF not.:
Very nice.
I'll bet Klaus couldn't do that....
He can! We learned this piece together about a year ago.
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Related but not really. Saw this on the radio.
Lang Lang Records Goldburg Variations
"A career-threatening arm injury in 2017 put him on hiatus for a year. Now he’s out with his latest project, which was years in the making — two versions of Johann Sebastian Bach’s masterwork, “Goldberg Variations.” It contains both a studio recording of the work as well as a live performance at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Germany, where Bach is buried."
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@taiwan_girl said in Some Rachmaninoff because WTF not.:
Related but not really. Saw this on the radio.
Lang Lang Records Goldburg VariationsListening now on Apple Music. Only up to the 1st variation which is .. interesting. He accents the baseline almost like Gould does, but he keeps it lighter - like Perahia. He also seems to take pains to add embellishments in the repeats, which I like.
Just jumping around, he seems to take pains to bring out the voices in the bass line. Another nice touch.
The Quodlibet is like I've never heard before. Very romantic...
Gonna have to give it a serious listen in the next few days.
Thanks for the heads-up.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K said in Some Rachmaninoff because WTF not.:
@taiwan_girl said in Some Rachmaninoff because WTF not.:
Related but not really. Saw this on the radio.Lang Lang Records Goldburg Variations
Listening now on Apple Music. Only up to the 1st variation which is .. interesting. He accents the baseline almost like Gould does, but he keeps it lighter - like Perahia. He also seems to take pains to add embellishments in the repeats, which I like.
Just jumping around, he seems to take pains to bring out the voices in the bass line. Another nice touch.
The Quodlibet is like I've never heard before. Very romantic...
Gonna have to give it a serious listen in the next few days.
Thanks for the heads-up.
I heard the aria from the studio recording and was not impressed with it. I haven't heard anything else from the release, yet.
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@mark said in Some Rachmaninoff because WTF not.:
@George-K said in Some Rachmaninoff because WTF not.:
@taiwan_girl said in Some Rachmaninoff because WTF not.:
Related but not really. Saw this on the radio.Lang Lang Records Goldburg Variations
Listening now on Apple Music. Only up to the 1st variation which is .. interesting. He accents the baseline almost like Gould does, but he keeps it lighter - like Perahia. He also seems to take pains to add embellishments in the repeats, which I like.
Just jumping around, he seems to take pains to bring out the voices in the bass line. Another nice touch.
The Quodlibet is like I've never heard before. Very romantic...
Gonna have to give it a serious listen in the next few days.
Thanks for the heads-up.
I heard the aria from the studio recording and was not impressed with it. I haven't heard anything else from the release, yet.
OK, here's what I liked:
The added ornamentation in the repeated sections. Delightful.
His technique is really great.
The emphasis on inner voices, particularly in the bass line (which I said earlier)What I don't like:
There's no overall sense of going somewhere. The pieces just seem to be stand-alone vignettes.
Very, very romantic interpretation overall (which I said earlier)
Sometimes just TOO fast, as though speed were the goal. -
@George-K said in Some Rachmaninoff because WTF not.:
Very nice.
I'll bet Klaus couldn't do that....
I'm glad you ask! This recording is from yesterday.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WAO0nfjD-zo_ngRoEgcGUpqUhSkDa539/view
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A review of Lang Lang's Goldbergs: Lang Lang: The Pianist Who Plays Too Muchly
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For a pianist whose stardom was fueled by dazzling performances of Romantic concertos, Mr. Lang’s venture into Bach’s touchstone score was a risk. There is a large discography of exceptional recordings. And what constitutes proper Baroque style is hotly debated, even among specialists.
Mr. Lang’s seriousness of purpose permeates his “Goldbergs.” Still, indulgences appear from the first measures of the tranquil opening Aria, which provides the bass line (and harmonic patterns) from which Bach generated 30 variations. Mr. Lang takes a restrained tempo and plays with warm, subdued sound. His execution of clipped rhythmic figures and embellishments is somewhat pronounced, though within the bounds of Bachian style.
But Mr. Lang can’t resist tugging and pulling at phrases. The result is that the Aria lacks flow and shape. Moment after moment, Mr. Lang keeps you hanging, and hanging. This opening section has never seemed so long.
What does it mean to play expressively? Compare classical music to film. Film buffs recognize overacting in a flash, and won’t put up with it. Mr. Lang, I think, does the equivalent of overacting in music; his expressivity tips over into exaggeration, even vulgarity. He has won ardent fans for the sheer brilliance and energy of his playing. But many also respond to moments of deep expression, when he sure seems to be doing something to the music, almost always reflected in his physical mannerisms.
In classical music, unlike in film, players are often performing repertory works, like the “Goldberg” Variations, which are familiar to their audiences. Listeners are judging a performance based on its differences from others they’ve heard, not merely in a vacuum. The key, I’d say, is the proper mixture of bold personality — difference from the norm — and subtlety, taste.
Taste is, of course, a subjective thing. But there is reason to question Mr. Lang’s. Yes, a melody can be sung or played with expressive touches by bending a phrase, prolonging a note, delaying an entry.
But even music that seems lyrically flowing, with melodic lines that spin and weave — like the slow movement of Bach’s “Italian” Concerto, or any Chopin nocturne — have an underlying structure, much like the underlying metrical structure of a poem. Even prose unfolds in clauses, sentences and paragraphs. The risk of stretching music — especially to the degree that a sense of pulse becomes weak — is that the shape of a phrase, a passage or an entire section becomes entirely lost in a profusion of expressivity.
Mr. Lang plays the Romantic repertory with a great deal of freedom, especially rhythmic freedom — what’s known as rubato. Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations certainly invite flexible approaches to rhythm and pacing. But it’s a question of degree, style, taste.
Variation 3, for example, is the first of the periodic contrapuntal canons in the score, with one line followed a couple of beats later by its echo. The two lines intertwine gracefully above a steady bass pattern of eighth notes that soon becomes more animated. Mr. Lang takes a slow tempo and keeps stretching the mingling lines as they flow over the bass. But the playing is so yanked around rhythmically that the music sounds labored. He makes things even fussier by a constant use of crescendos that swell and subside, like a squeeze box.
In his 2013 recording, Jeremy Denk approaches the “Goldbergs” intent on bringing fresh spontaneity to the music. It’s certainly a strong interpretation. In Variation 3, which he plays just a little faster than Mr. Lang, Mr. Denk is not shy, articulating the bass line with detached staccato touch and giving lyrical independence to the two upper lines. Yet the performance is lithe, undulant and cogently phrased. It’s lovely.
On the young pianist Beatrice Rana’s splendid 2017 recording, she takes a quicker tempo, yet plays with beguilingly subdued sound and just a trace of impishness. Bach structures his variations in two sections, each one repeated. In Ms. Rana’s performance of Variation 3, each section seems like it’s emitted in a single breath.
Mr. Lang fares better in the faster, more pulsing variations. But even in these — for example the 10th, a bracing four-voice fughetta — he can’t help himself. On the surface this is bright, crystalline playing. Yet Mr. Lang seems determined to project each voice with emphatic clarity. The music winds up feeling confusingly complicated. The way he punches out accents is almost pummeling. The four voices come out clearly, but much more naturally, in Ms. Rana’s spirited yet restrained, nuanced performance.
The 26th Variation is a whirlwind of spiraling passagework that tests a pianist’s technique. Not surprisingly, Mr. Lang dispatches it effortlessly at a breathless tempo. But so does Ms. Rana, who plays with wondrous lightness and sparkle, yet uncanny poise, which actually enhances the excitement: You listen in awe, wondering how she can bring out both qualities at once.
The sublime 25th Variation, a slow, achingly lyrical rumination with passages that explore bold realms of chromatic harmony, invites a performer to play with brooding expressivity. But Mr. Lang’s performance is so contorted I find it almost unlistenable. Both Ms. Rana and Mr. Denk play the music eloquently in seven minutes or less. Mr. Lang’s lugubrious account clocks in at over 10 minutes.
It’s like he’s attempting to show us how deeply he feels the music, to prove that it’s truly coming from his heart. But as a listener I don’t care about his feelings; I care about mine. He has to make this music touch me, not himself.
Mr. Lang brought enormous dedication to his “Goldbergs” project. Yet in an admiring 1940 review of the distinguished pianist Josef Lhevinne, Virgil Thomson wrote that “any authoritative execution derives as much of its excellence from what the artist does not do as from what he does.” Mr. Lang surely does too much.
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@kluurs said in Some Rachmaninoff because WTF not.:
@Klaus Nicely done and nicely recorded. I'm wondering how you recorded this? I'm working on upgrading the quality of my recordings - even as I struggle to improve the quality of my playing.
You can see parts of the recording equipment in the video. I use two cheap $100 microphones.
For video, I use a mirrorless system camera with a prime lens. I feed the HDMI output via a HDMI-to-USB converter to the computer, so it works like a webcam.
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@Klaus said in Some Rachmaninoff because WTF not.:
@George-K said in Some Rachmaninoff because WTF not.:
Very nice.
I'll bet Klaus couldn't do that....
I'm glad you ask! This recording is from yesterday.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WAO0nfjD-zo_ngRoEgcGUpqUhSkDa539/view
That was great, Klaus!
OBS looks pretty cool. I am going to give it try.
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I came upon this on Youtube by chance. I had forgotten what a great performance this is of the Rach 3. Weissenberg not only had a great technique, but played really musically as well. The first movement cadenza is simply awesome.
Link to video
