Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Busoni's Piano Concerto in C Major Op. 39

Soooooo sorry, I heard him play it, even turned pages during practise, no recording, only private, his Op.Clav. should be there, as should his Busoni (Philips), he won't do the Kaikoshuro ever again though, can well imagine, crazy man and music, did you know that G.D.M. was the first to record all the Godowsky/Chopin violations?

You knew Madge?!?!?!? That's so cool!!!!!

I would have LOVED to have known Madge. And John Ogdon, for that matter.

Heck, I wish I knew ALL these guys, performers of nonstandard repertoire and standard repertoire (and ladies too, Martha Argerich).

Wow! Must have been amazing. Yes, I know about his Godowsky recordings. It's funny to me how some people think Hamelin is the only one who can play Chopin-Godowsky! Sure, his performances (especially the live ones) are incredible, but just to name a few more, there's also Grante, Libetta, Hobson, and of course Bolet (who has ownership over all the Chopin-Godowsky transcriptions he recorded, in my mind; though sadly that isn't a lot). If I'm ever in a Chopin-Godowsky mood, I find myself switching to Grante for "that" etude, Hamelin for this one, Madge for another...

To get back on subject, I'll simply say that Roland Pontinen is a fabulous Busoni interpreter too; and also, Brendel has a stunning recording of the Toccata. And don't miss out on Paul Jacobs!

You still can get to know Madge. Here's his email: madge (at) xs4all.nl

I once cooked dinner for John Ogdon - I fear it wasn't enough food, even though he didn't complain.

There's a man named David Saperton who made some good Chopin-Godowsky recordings. Boris Berezovsky is pretty good with Chopin-Godowsky, too. I also have heard some of Hobson's and Bolet's recordings.

Back to the original post, I just bought Ogdon's recording of the concerto! Best $6 I've spent in a while! And I listened to Ohlsson's recording; it's great, too. I also listened to Hamelin's live performance on Youtube... it is wonderful as well, but I just wanted to go with Ogdon because I want to have a greater variety on my iPod. Who knows... I may come back to Ohlsson later; I just don't have any Ogdon yet, and this made a GREAT start with him.

EDIT: (Because of another forum I've circulated for years that frowns HIGHLY on double posting, I just can't do it...) I've read up more on Madge, and I REALLY hope people don't think he's not a good pianist because of his O.C. recording not being on par with Ogdon's, or the review someone said about Madge's recordings in a description of Hamelin's... He's a terrific pianist and a brilliant man. Here's a website giving more info about Madge: http://www.xs4all.nl/~madge/

BUMP: My friend found this recording of the Busoni Piano Concerto and burned it onto CD for me! Kun-Woo Paik, who is apparently already an established concert pianist with a nice career already under his belt, has a recording of it! I don't know the orchestra, conductor, choir, or date of recording yet...

Thanks to the upgrade to 15 minutes instead of 10, I don't have to upload it in NINE parts... LOL!



The other parts should be in related videos. If not, look on my channel.

OMG, it ended just when I was approaching ecstasy.

Nuts! This is truly the landscape of a precious soul, only Elgar's Gerontius (in my experience) come close to Busoni.

Sorry, it's 15:30 long, but YouTube rejected me trying to go just 30 seconds over the limit... So I had to squeeze the ending of the first movement with the second movement on the second video. Likewise, I had to split the third movement up. But the second, fourth, and fifth movements are all in one piece.

Well okay, but it was very upsetting for Busoni's magnificent 1st movement to suddenly die on me, just when Busoni was summing up the landscape, and preparing us for the next movements.

I went through this twice. I am going out for supper, and I have to be up early tomorrow.