Some Rach

[George K]

Link to video

When I was younger, I used to play this - I suppose I could get it back into shape.

I found this performance...idiosyncratic.

[Axtremus]

Eh, anyone can have an off day.
How interesting!

[Klaus]

The big fff chords sound terrible. But who knows how the recording technology of that time interfered with the performance.

[Axtremus]

Lots of interference, but not enough to mask the wrong notes; lots of wrong notes in those big fff chords.

[taiwan_girl]

But today, dont they "stitch" together many many takes to get a final performance that is flawless?

(Not to excuse playing wrong notes - I do it enough LOL, but probably back then, you may have had one shot to get the recording.)

[George K]

@taiwan_girl said in Some Rach:

dont they "stitch" together many many takes to get a final performance that is flawless

I don't know how common it is today, but wasn't Glenn Gould was (in)famous for this.

[George K]

In the opening bars, he almost plays the bass notes as though they were dotted.

Weird.

Also ignores the "Lento"....

[Jon]

I’m a little more open to this interpretation.

Realize that when he performed this the piece was as overplayed as Stairway to Heaven was in guitar stores in 1983.

So of course he’s going to do something a little different. He chooses to emphasize that recurring three chord motif.

I imagine that would have sounded fresh and interesting in 1930.