Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Playlist

  • Brahms, Piano Sonata no. 3 and Variations on a Theme of Handel, Bruno Leonardo Gelber on Denon. Gelber is one of the great unknown pianists of his generation, which is the generation of Argerich, Barenboim, Goode, and Kovacevich. These performances are tremendous, I can't think of any other word. Splendid musicianship and pianism, beautiful playing all around.
  • Busoni and His Legacy, Arbiter 105. Performances by the legendary pianist & composer Ferruccio Busoni and his students Rosamond Ley and Egon Petri. Again, tremendous playing, and I cannot tell you how much I love Liszt's Totentanz in a partial, previously unpublished performance by Petri.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are quite right about BLG. His Brahms Concertos have been reissued on super-budget EMI discs (along with another performance of the Handel Variations!). There's a powerful performance of the Emperor Concerto, also on EMI.

Too bad those Denon CDs are all OOP.

Lisa Hirsch said...

Yes, it is. I picked most of them up on eBay a few years back. A friend had an extra of the Brahms disc and sent it to me.

Not that I need more Brahms or Beethoven concertos, but for him I'll make an exceptions. He still has a concert career, though I have never seen any notice of him performing in the Bay Area, sigh.