Is this Carnegie Hall?

I thought the performance has some moments of great beauty mixed with others of exteme willfullness and strange playing.

Some inner voices he emphasizes don't work at all for me. For example, right at the beginning, playing the C,A,G left hand voice loudly sounds tasteless to me. I listened to Zimmerman, Pollini, Horowitz, Rubinstein, Perahia, and Bolet. None of them do this.

This

Carnegie Hall

is Carnegie Hall.

Regards,

So it seems there is an extra "section" of seats in the hall shown for the video. I have been to CH innumerable times and thought the only sections were Box, Upper Box, Family Circle, and Balcony which is only four sections as in your photo.

But since I always sit in the upper Balcony(first half only!), I wasn't sure.

I think Carnegie Hall has been through at least one if not more major re-fits over the years.

I don't think they changed the seating sections. But it's possible there was once a row of lights for the upper balcony section and that is the fifth section that appears in the video photo.

The only meaning the music has is the meaning you give to it. I think that not all music has meaning that can be expressed in words. It's enough that you feel it, love it, and treasure every moment of it. One does not need to dissect a microwave to use it.

I thank you for highlighting that because it made me really listen for it. And actually it's not just the C-A-G; he leads up to it by making a whole tenor line, starting with G-A-G. I'm not sure I'd want to do stuff like that, but I wouldn't say it's tasteless. IMO it's "interesting."
BTW....he takes many other liberties too.

But mainly, thanks for posting this terrific rare video!!!!!

I think that is very well said. Different people might want to put it a bit differently (or not at all) but I think in essence that's right on target.

And really, at least one more of the ballades is like that, if not all 4.
Certainly we could say #1 is. I remember reading (don't know where or by whom) that the opening is like, "This is how it was" .....and then the story begins in earnest with the rolling G minor melody.
And for me the 3rd is sort of like this too, although more ambiguously and I'm sure there would be huge disagreement, plus it wouldn't exactly be "past-present": I always felt that the first 16 measures "set it up" and the story begins in earnest only in measure 17.

And what can we say about #2......That repeated C at the beginning....... we might say the same thing.

My point was that those six great pianists(just the first six listed on Youtube) were undoubtedly aware of the inner line but chose not to bring ot out. My first reaction to hearing Hoffman's version was "This is so wierd and terrible sounding, I wonder if any other pianist does it?" I think I've heard other pianists bring out this line but much more subtly than Hoffman did. Of course, you're free to view it any way you like.

Just lisened to six more who did it the way I like: Sofronitsky, Lugansky, Arrau, Yunid Li, Kissin, Cziffra.