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Under-rated: Nina Simone

I bet you guys just love Favil Say.

I agree.

Under rated: Yvonne Lefebure

I'm really interested in having this discussion with you, about Rach 3 and S-S 5. I'm going to start a thread about it, I think.

I am surprised at how my answer to this has changed in the past year or so. I am sure I have answered this questions before, and for one of my classes I had to upkeep a blog, and I don't know how many times I said I did not like Valentina Lisitsa.

I find myself listening more and more for the differences in recordings, and enjoying those differences. There are still recordings I find a bit banal, but overall I found myself enjoying listening to music much more. Enjoying the different nuances and takes from a wide range of artists. It also helps me appreciate what the great artists accomplish more. Those delicate moments before Horowitz would explode and overwhelm the listener, Glenn Gould's impeccable ability with counterpoint, or the intelligence in Stephen Hough's playing.

Hehe, as you wish, but now that I am settled in Paris -and quite having the time of my life!- Rach 3 seems a world away, utterly irrelevant and colossally uninteresting to any matters at hand.

If Rach 3 didn't have the faked-up reputation for being the most difficult concerto in the standard repertoire, might it loose its mystical significance, might some clothes be missing?

Funny how it goes. Unsurprisingly on this board, Rach 3 is the ne plus ultra of piano concertos, and rather amusing to sit back and watch everyone pay their devout respects to a piece of music which is profoundly overwritten, profoundly uninspired, and most of all, profoundly unaware of its musical insignificance.

And that is enough. French culture is calling.

Instead of the fake "Egyptian" tunes in your favoured concerto, might I suggest a rather more interesting French concertante work for your delectation, while you're standing below the Arc de Triomphe, and dodging the crazy French motorists?

Debussy's early Fantaisie for piano & orchestra is unjustly neglected, and is far more in need of your eloquent advocacy than the rather pompous Saint-Saëns. Don't worry about the insignificant Rach 3: the rest of us here in PW will do our best to keep it in the public eye and out of its thoroughly deserved obscurity, until your return to civilization (a.k.a. USA).

BTW, I recommend snails in garlic sauce in that posh Restaurant L'Escargot on the Champs-Elysées, followed by roasted frogs' legs. (Sorry, I can't give you any recommendations about wine, as I'm a teetotaller).

Jason, how long will you be in Paris? Hope it is magnifique! will you visit any major musical sites?

Sophia

That would not be the case, at least not for me.


I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. You have not elaborated on why you think it is overwritten. Uninspired? Insignificant? You really want to go there? You're telling me that the themes in the piece are not INSPIRED? They're some of the most beautiful themes in the Romantic repertoire. You don't like the sentimentality, fine. But I just don't see why you'd make a statement like calling it uninspired.


You still have not justified your argument that S-S 5 is superior? Why is this, do you think? Is it just because the composer happens to be French?

Well, yes. The opening of the slow movement has to be one of the most banal moments in all of the literature. Rachmaninov sexes it up later with a lot of notes, but compared to the equivalent in the 2nd concerto, it is IMO such awfully written music, posturing without substance. Haven't we come along way wherein this empty note spinning is considered genius.

Not sure why you would think that because S-S is French, I would automatically think him superior. If we are talking organ music, that is a different situation -the French have it mastered to a farthing- but the Romanov Russians didn't write organ music. There was no demand for it.

It all comes down to what we prefer. I don't care about the supposed 'fake' Egyptian tunes in S-S 5, they work well in context, and the 1st and 3rd movements have an inspirational flow and honest spontaneity which I just don't hear in Rachmaninov's bloated assault in playing to the gallery.

Of course we're not going to agree here, and there is nothing to be done. I'm obviously ahead of my time, and not fooled by music which is only designed to impress.

I think I am correct that musically, R's 2nd concerto is a far more honestly written piece of music, it touches the heart and inspires it as well. Meanwhile, PW goes on and on about which cadenza to use in the 3rd, as if it really makes much difference in the long haul.

Cheers, and over and out!

The piano entrance to the slow movement is about as far from banal as I can imagine. And the melody before it is exceedingly beautiful, with a distinct Russian character, if maybe too drawn-out. "Sexes it up with a lot of notes"? You seem to think the concerto is all about how many notes there are. Can you not feel the emotion in the music at all?

"bloated assault in playing to the gallery" - again, you think he was just trying to write a difficult piece. He wasn't; he expressed what he was trying to express, and it happened to be difficult. Alkan wrote difficult music for the sake of being difficult. Rachmaninoff uses the technical difficulty as a tool to express himself.

"ahead of my time, and not fooled by music which is only designed to impress" - give me a break. If anything, S-S is the one who is infatuated with technique. Look at the first movement of the 5th concerto - look how many scales and runs there are. Look at the end of the last movement - now THAT is uninspired writing. He just does octave runs up and down the piano, and then repeats three notes over and over and has some F major chords to finish it off. I'm not saying it's not a great piece, but look at the way you're insulting Rach's 3rd. You're also acting quite arrogant here - "ahead of my time" and all.

I'm not going to give an opinion on whether R's 2nd is better than his 3rd, because it's useless to do so. Both are very inspired and very beautiful. I think the 3rd's 2nd movement is superior - no, it's not because there are more notes. They have a very different character, and they both work in the context of the concerto as a whole.

Rach 2 is evidently a practice run for Rach 3 : the melodies in the latter are longer-breathed, the harmonies more inspired and richer, the writing for both orchestra and piano not only more interesting but also more exciting and more emotionally fulfilling. Great pianists cut their teeth on Rach 2 before venturing on to Rach 3.

OK, argument over and out, now back to French music. Other than the Debussy Fantaisie I mentioned earlier, I'd say that the most unjustly neglected French piano concerto is Vincent d'Indy's Symphonie sur un chant montagnard français, which is suffused with Wagnerian harmonies but allied to Gallic charm. OK, its piano part may be more reminiscent of an obbligato rôle (like Szymanowski's Symphony No.4, or Bernstein's Symphony No.2) than a virtuoso vehicle for the soloist, but it's well written and makes the work what it is.

And it's far more interesting than Saint-Saëns's "Egyptian": you can really breathe in the mountain air ..........

I agree that Lang Lang is over rated. I listened to one of his concerts on youtube a few months back and I wasn't really impressed. I also agree that he is way too show-offish. I think he could have potential if he left that behind. The one piece I did list to by him, and I believe it was a Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody, it really had barely any dynamic value. I also didn't sense really any emotion in that piece either.

As far as under rated pianist are concerned, John Schimdt. He plays for the piano guys now and he is very good, in my opinion anyways. His popularity has taken off with the piano guys but I don't think he was very popular as a solo pianist, as good as he is.

I think Đặng Thái Sơn is underrated,and relatively unheard to many of considering his achievement, compared to the likes of Krystian Zimmerman, for example, who I think is rated correctly, neither over or under, by most people.

That wasn't meant to be taken seriously, and quite frankly I have enjoyed being the devil's advocate. Polyphonist, my friend, it isn't that big a deal.

Alexis Weissenberg once said (or wrote) that he considered Rach 3 the most gloriously written of all piano concertos, yet that could just as easily be said by most of the pianists who have successfully, or maybe not so successfully, performed this piece.

Let us please keep the perspective, and enjoy it for the masterly work it is, but with some of the adulation -not by you- floating around PW over the years, one would think Rachmaninov's music is on the level of a Beethoven or a Brahms.

Paris is warm, cloudy, humid, and overstocked with a full catalogue of humanity. I love it.

That is a wonderful work! Have you read d'Indy's preface to his edition of Franck's piano works? (It has been reprinted by Dover.)

d'Indy's piano sonata has some interesting moments, but it feels a bit long for its material. One of the other big French sonatas from the time -Dukas- seems to me a better work.

Some would say it is on that level (of Brahms, not Beethoven of course.)

No, I didn't know that d'Indy edited Franck - must look out for that Dover edition. So far, I've played Franck's Prélude, Chorale et Fugue and Prélude, Fugue et Variation (which you probably play on the organ); and of course his Violin Sonata (in Cortot's transcription for solo piano), but absolutely nothing of d"Indy. Dukas's Piano Sonata is a huge work, but rarely played, even by French pianists.

Incidentally, Liszt made a wonderful (& virtuosic) transcription of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique which is rarely played, unlike his Beethoven symphonies.