wow o wow.

absolutely superb. I apologize for sounding sexist but i love hearing a man play Bach like a man, providing something beyond the sterile perfection of the music as written.

i enjoy sterility and finesse but am impressed with your manly rendering of this music that exhibits such gusto and life. your music springs from the piano.

I do imagine Bach as a passionate, lively and strong man... who played with great aplomb and flourish....a show off and entertainer as well as genius.

What other songs are you recording on this cd?

(off to see if i can still rip thru the D major prelude, which i too warm up with occasionally).



I loved the courante and the aria(?) close to the beginning - (what is that?)

Does anyone have students learning Bach works right now? Would you instruct them to study several of the embellishments? Write them out, play them, and then start to add a few in their score where they feel it might sound good?

Every single student I have studies Bach and ornamentation is something they all work on within and without the score. I do encourage them to add ornaments, but not on an "if you feel it sounds good" basis.

...In 1997, I added short cadenzas to the last movement of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata at the dominant seventh chords fermata--similar to his Third Piano Concerto where short cadenzas exist.

Hi Jeffrey,

Phenomenal playing. What you said about taking Bach out of context really struck me. I feel exactly this way about classical music. There is such an enormous amount of extraneous baggage associated with this music that it is so frustrating when you feel as we do. I wish everyone could just hear it, as you said. When I hear Bach, and all the other great composers we love to listen to and play, it is so alive and emotionally poignant, RIGHT NOW. This is the true timelessness of great art, the profound emotional resonances created within that span the generations.

"Old" music?! Ha! I didn't know that there were old middle C's and new middle C's.

I'm not sure I find anything too wrong with it.

Thanks, Antony! Then you must be a wonderful interpreter! To answer the other question, I suppose I first heard the extra ornamentation in my inner ear--tried to play it, change it, etc until I was happy with it--or discarded it. Right up to the recording sessions. Even now, I would do things differently. However, the more I did this, the easier it became to do. In 1997, I added short cadenzas to the last movement of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata at the dominant seventh chords fermata--similar to his Third Piano Concerto where short cadenzas exist.

You'd be surprised. We're too close to our own playing--and I am happy when someone likes what I do. It's a stamp of approval, given that everyone comes to their comments with experience, taste and personal feeling. I appreciate that more than you know.

You’re very welcome, and we should all be approving of the work of others more and hedge our criticisms recognizing the tremendous amount of work it takes to produce anything at all.

I’m also making another prediction; the concept of “playing with authority” which I may have coined though I don’t want the credit for it, may become a standard approach. There is a point that comes with all of us working on particular pieces where the notes are pretty much in hand and we begin to focus on the conception of the music itself, and THEN we can approach that concept with AUTHORITY; really playing every phrase as if we intended it to be played a certain way without hesitation or any feeling that someone who thinks they may know better may be standing behind us to criticize what they themselves probably couldn’t do. I trust enough of you can read through my lines to understand my meaning.