Busoni Piano Concerto

[cz4p32]

Does anyone know if there is at all in existance a video recording of anyone performing the Busoni Piano Concerto?


Thanks

[pianistimo]

trust me.  you don't want to hear it.  it's terribly long winded and can't make itself into any one of the three forms quite as well as the two forms in beethoven's 9th and the piano takes so long to come in.  you have the orchestra forever mutating (as with the piano) imitating different pianists styles of the time - finally, the piano, and then at the end, the chorus (men's chorus).  it's really a horrific piece.  the words are nice.  but, i don't feel it as a unified whole.  just a chunky bit of tasteless plagarism of ideas.  don't take me as the last word.  many people like it.  maybe because of it's difficulty. *sorry, busoni, i just don't like it.

mark andre-hamelin played it in reading on a bosendorfer piano (with mendelssohn's men's chorus).  they must have recorded it!!  it was in reading pennsylvania with the reading symphony orchestra.  you could call them and find out or look at mark andre-hamelin's DVD's if he made one of the concert.

[panic]

I disagree, I find it to be a very well constructed piece. Then again, I love listening to Mahler and Bruckner so perhaps I have different tastes as far as length. And it's not because it's hard, because I would bet money that Rach 3 and something like Scharwenka 4 are harder. With time it becomes apparent that the Busoni holds together well almost everywhere and is easily digestible. It stands above many other concertos in my mind because of the cerebral genius that is apparent throughout a lot of it, which I don't see in enough Romantic concertos. There are many virtuosic passages but they have a point and a sense of direction that keeps the music going forward. The entire fourth movement particularly emerges as constructed in one continual flash of inspiration - there is no way that Busoni could have come up with almost anything in that movement by sitting at the piano and stamping it out.

And pianistimo, I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say that the piano takes a long time to come in - it's about 3:35 by my count, which is about the same in a lot of classical concertos and in Brahms 1.

I have come to these opinions from listening only to the version played by Garrick Ohlsson, who grew up around the music of Busoni and knows how to carry it across. Perhaps Hamelin, in his slightly lamentable tradition of passing through the music of a composer so fast as to often fail to get a feel for that composer's style, does not bring across the concerto nearly as well. The three minutes I have heard of his version come across as plowing through the music way too fast.

Perhaps, cz, you might be able to find a video of Ohlsson playing the concerto with Dohnanyi or something, but I've never looked for that. Good luck in finding something.

[pianistimo]

maybe i'm not patient enough.  i just didn't enjoy it.  maybe i should listen to other versions, as you say.  seemed very long to me. 

here's a dvd at amazon :
The Golden Age of Pianists - i think grainger play it on here.
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00008ADAM/002-6927726-1427260?v=glance&n=130

[cz4p32]

Beleve me, i'm not asking for a video out of the blue.  The Busoni is one of my favorite late romantic concertos.  I've listened to it in it's entirity many many times, and a few times while following the score.  I enjoy it's structure and uniqueness.  I can't think of another concerto with so much to offer.  5 movements, choir, etc....

Anyways, that link to amazon and the dvd there may or may not have a clip of the busoni, but I am in particular looking for the entire performance.  So, if anyone knows, please share.

Thanks

[pianistimo]

yes.  i didn't realize they were clips.  arrau does play the beethoven #4 piano concerto in full.  guess i should post that on the other thread.

[viking]

Hmm I am going to see a live performance of the Busoni in Winnepeg (Hamelin).  Maybe I could record it??  It would be against the law though....

[cz4p32]

Viking, that's awesome!  I looked into going to that, but to fly there from Buffalo would cost a fortune.  Please let me know how it is!  About sneaking a video camera in...that's your perogative.

[viking]

WOW!!!!

I actually cant believe what he did.  You know those sewing machines that mechanically raise the needle up and down about 100 times per second?  Hamelin's octaves are faster than that.  I got his autograph on my copy of his Busoni Concerto CD, and then I bumped into him in the bar of the hotel I stayed in later that night!  It was a night to remember!