Tzimon Barto

[nicolaievich]

Hi all!
I want to know your opinions about this pianist. I didn't know him until I bought a CD with Rach #3 and Bartok #2 (Eschenbach directing London Philharmonic).
I have not read nothing about him at this forum neither. After buying that CD, that I liked pretty much, I heard his version of the Chopin Preludes, and I liked them also.

The only thing I didn't like of this EMI-Classics Edition is the low volume of the recording, but it's a great performance indeed.

What do you think?

[donjuan]

He's good.  Other than you and me, no one here on the forum talks about him, though.  I love his Liszt!  He has the best Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and Sonetto 104 del petrarca I have ever heard.  I think I heard these pieces on his CD called "Tzimon Barto plays Liszt"

What pisses me off now is how I can't find that CD because I borrowed it from the library a long time ago and I burned a copy of Sonetto 104, but not rhapsody.     Now I realize what a great recording it was and I am just kicking myself for not grabbing it when I could have.

[ralessi]

He is going to be at my school as a part of some kind of small festival next month, cant wait to do a masterclass with him! Ill let you know how his recital is!

Cheers!
Ricky

[nicolaievich]

Hey! That's amazing! I wish I could be there. Aren't you able to record anything in there?
Good luck!

I love his Liszt! He has the best Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and Sonetto 104 del petrarca I have ever heard

I haven't heard any more than that I mentioned before. I'll try to get some else.

See you on next post.

[rapmasterb]

I have a DVD of him playing Chopin E-minor with some random orchestra and I have to say it is fantastic - by far the best I have ever heard. On further reserach I found out how hugely respected he is (as both a pianist and poet). He has on numerous occassions performend both Brahms concerti in one evening and he is a bodybuilder aswell.

[ralessi]

COMPLETE A$$HOLE.  He played a horrible concert and was a total jerkoff.  ok..keep in mind that he is playing at a small private university in Central Florida, first thing he does is request that the hall be empty from 2:00 until his performance, which is reasonable.  Then he sends the school an email saying that he is going to need a personal dressing room with a grand piano and bathroom with shower in it so he can eat, practice, shower, whatever, AS WELL as keeping the hall open all day incase he wanted to go practice on the D in the hall.  He ends up practicing in one of the faculty members rooms, who is the conductor of the orchestra here with his own personal 1920 something steinway.  Barto ends up having his food all over it getting $hit everywhere and leaves the office trashed.  To top everything off, His playing was absolutely obnoxious; huge hand gestures/movements, rediculous faces, feet all over the place, humming and singing along with the music (very loudly,  i think he beat glenn gould).  He is the PERFECT medium between Glen Gould and Lang Lang.   He played Hayden like it was Islamey or the Grand Gallop Chromatique, the Remeau....wasnt, then he played a piece that won his "Barto Prize" for composition.  The piece involved slapping and plucking bass strings.  His majesty managed to slap the strings and as he was going to sit back down at terminal velocity (with the pedal still down keeping the dampers up) ran his hand across all the dampers from about A3 down.  They all got bent up and now are in the midst of heavy repairs along with a possibly cracked soundboard from his pounding away, and some broken action complete with sticking keys.  oh....and then, after the recital he did not  even stay to acknowledge the audience that came to see him.  If this were a commercial performance at carnegie hall thats a whole different story, but it's in a small chapel/hall in a town of about 3000 people. 

FURTHERMORE! with the broken piano in the hall, we only have the Bosendorfer so i will not be able to play the 1st movement of the Rachmaninoff 2nd concerto for recital like my teacher and had I planned....

Ricky

[ralessi]

oh..and in the prize winning composition he played, there were many calls for playing sFFFFFz's with elbows and fists....resulting in the damaged action...

Rick

[donjuan]

lol are you exagerrating just a teensy bit there, ralessi?

this is him right? https://www.tzimonbarto.com/Pianist/Biography.htm

If what you say is true, it's pretty sad I guess .. but I still enjoyed your angry rant

[nicolaievich]

COMPLETE A$$HOLE.  He played a horrible concert and was a total jerkoff.  ok..keep in mind that he is playing at a small private university in Central Florida, first thing he does is request that the hall be empty from 2:00 until his performance, which is reasonable.  Then he sends the school an email saying that he is going to need a personal dressing room with a grand piano and bathroom with shower in it so he can eat, practice, shower, whatever, AS WELL as keeping the hall open all day incase he wanted to go practice on the D in the hall.  He ends up practicing in one of the faculty members rooms, who is the conductor of the orchestra here with his own personal 1920 something steinway.  Barto ends up having his food all over it getting $hit everywhere and leaves the office trashed.  To top everything off, His playing was absolutely obnoxious; huge hand gestures/movements, rediculous faces, feet all over the place, humming and singing along with the music (very loudly,  i think he beat glenn gould).  He is the PERFECT medium between Glen Gould and Lang Lang.   He played Hayden like it was Islamey or the Grand Gallop Chromatique, the Remeau....wasnt, then he played a piece that won his "Barto Prize" for composition.  The piece involved slapping and plucking bass strings.  His majesty managed to slap the strings and as he was going to sit back down at terminal velocity (with the pedal still down keeping the dampers up) ran his hand across all the dampers from about A3 down.  They all got bent up and now are in the midst of heavy repairs along with a possibly cracked soundboard from his pounding away, and some broken action complete with sticking keys.  oh....and then, after the recital he did not  even stay to acknowledge the audience that came to see him.  If this were a commercial performance at carnegie hall thats a whole different story, but it's in a small chapel/hall in a town of about 3000 people. 

FURTHERMORE! with the broken piano in the hall, we only have the Bosendorfer so i will not be able to play the 1st movement of the Rachmaninoff 2nd concerto for recital like my teacher and had I planned....

Ricky

Wow!

[plunkyplink]

That's complete and total disrespect for others and other people's property. He shouldn't get away with that crap!

[ralessi]

Unfortunately thats not an exaggeration.  My professor (chair of the piano dpt) got up and walked out halfway through.  He is so SO angry about this and personally held barto's check until we find out the damage total to the piano.  If you're going to have an ego the size of that and not even give fake "thank you's" for the praises, you have no business in music.  His attitude was completely unprofessional, as to be like "You must pay me a large sum of money to entertain your petty students and townfolk"  Perfect example of how there is no peresonality in big named musicians now days....


Cheers!
Ricky