Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Valentina Lisitsa - Show Off!

A sporting a forum I was on before, resulted in a player reading criticism, was then determined to prove himself, and ended up having great success that year!

Oh no of course they don't give a damn, but I don't think we expect them to anyway, it's just a discussion amongst us isn't it?

I agree with argerichfan about how good she is - this performance of the Rachmaninoff A minor Etude-tableau is astonishing and mesmerizing.

In my humble opinion, I think she is one of the great pianists of our time.

Of course, hopinmad, you're quite correct. But tell that to the choirs within the Anglican rite who have been trashed on the BBC boards. It's usually about the psalm singing, and proves once more that opinions are like (fill in the blank), and everybody has one.

For some reason she reminds me of Jacqueline Du Pre.

The A minor Etude-tableaux is excellent: thanks for the link, Argerichfan. Rachmaninoff said that his inspiration for this piece was the story of Little Red Riding Hood and I think the pianist captures this brilliantly. And you can't fault her technique here.

mr_kitty: what's wrong with breaking the opening chords of Rach 2? There's a lot more to playing the piano and interpreting a piece than have hands big enough to play a tenth. It's hardly a reason to dismiss a performance. Ashkenazy breaks the chords and no-one has told him not to play Rachmaninoff!

My hands are just big enough to take the opening of Rachmaninov 2 without breaking, but I would not do that in performance. Rachmaninov did not do so in his recording. He felt for musical reasons that they sounded better broken. And I tend to agree. Take the first chord without breaking, but break the subsequent chords with an increasing intensity. IMHO, ofcourse.

As long as they are not rolled imo

Again, I see no problem with rolling the chords: I'm really not sure it matters that much so long as the interpretation as a whole is effective. So there is no problem at all with Argerichfan's approach of breaking the chords with successive intensity, even though it's not in the score and I wouldn't perform it like that myself.

There are many points in the second concerto that require a 10th span but I'm quite confident that unless you knew the score, you wouldn't even notice if someone rolled or broke the chord (two instances in the second movement immediately spring to mind, one in each hand).

But you see, the score is so over-rated -- we have recordings of Rachmaninov himself playing this concerto, and he breaks some of the chords.

It's not a question of ability -- some of the chords he plays solid, and others he plays broken. He had huge hands.

So *what* is the composer's intentions? And what is the validity of resting on the score as an excuse for not liking a particular way of playing, when [1] the composer himself did not play the way it is written in the score, and [2] the composer himself played it the way you don't like?

By all means, play how you'd like -- there are so many wonderful ways to play music. I don't advocate standing rigidly by the composer's recording, nor do I advocate standing rigidly by the composer's score.

But your evidence of the score, in this example, doesn't quite work.

(IMO -- the required signature, right? Of course it's my opinion... if it wasn't, I wouldn't write it! )

We all know how good Valentina is.
She never stops to amaze me technically, but just take a listen at her tone, she has no knowledge at all of different colors the piano can produce.
Musically? I can't think of worse playing.
Even Lang Lang sounds better, and believe me I do NOT like him.

I think Lang Lang, and Valentina Lisitsa, are amazing pianists!!!

.....you probably like Liberace too
Rachmaninoff broke the opening chords in op 18 once. Once. He wanted to see how it would sound. It didn't sound good. If he wanted them broken, he would have indicated that in the score. He didn't.
I'm not saying if you break those chords you go to heck... all I'm saying is your opening of op 18 will be lame sauce.

How many recordings have you heard of Rachmaninov playing this concerto?

If he tried it -- just to see how it would sound -- and he didn't like it, then why would he release it on a commercial recording?

Maybe he didn't have a preference -- so he just wrote the chords, with the understanding that there are multiple ways of playing them (such as the way he played in his recording).

You will if you can't fix them. Duct tape should do the trick.

What's generations of later pianists going to do with broken chords?

I much prefer barbecue sauce. We should throw in some vodka, too, for Sergei.

sam you post-hog.

Careful Kittyboy, Liberace has his fans on this board, although I do not count myself amongst them, nor -now that I think of it- have I ever knowingly met one.

I love her playing style. People like to trash-talk a lot about new pianists. I think the general trend is "I envy her technique".