zimmerman is good enough for me. but i also don't get the part after that big trail of chords and the the pp chords...maybe that's called the coda. it just sounds like too much going on.

I personally like Horowitz's recording of it.

Zimmerman is pretty good too.

Great ballade, will learn it next year.

......

Definitely Bolet.

By far

perahia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

zimmerman is good enough for me. but i also don't get the part after that big trail of chords and the the pp chords...maybe that's called the coda. it just sounds like too much going on.

That is indeed the coda and known as one of the most difficult coda's in the piano repetoire.  I have been chipping away at it for many months.  The first part of it is difficult, for me, to make musical.  The next part, the ascending thirds is hard (if one were to play it up to tempo. which I doubt I will ever be able to do ) but not impossible.  The next parts are challenging but not impossible. 

The opening to this piece is very difficult to play well, and in fact the entire thing is full of challenges, both  musically and technically - and is, or should be, a life time project. 

Thanks for the recording advice - I'd like to hear Bolet and Rubenstein.

Pizno

I love Cortot's very much. It's very free, but sometimes maybe to free. Zimmermans for me is a little to well thought out...it looses some freedom, but it has some absolutly stunning moments! Which is why I like it so much, like the small fugue section! The way he brings the inner voice out more 1st time, 2nd time he hides a bit more, and the 3rd time the melody on top sings and the inner voice is there but barley noticible! Genius how he does that!

Was it Moiseowitch (yes I spelt it wrong!) who added 3rds to one of the runs? Or Friedman? I totally forget, but it's one of them. That is truely genius! So orgasmic!

It was Moiseiwitsch who played the descending scale in thirds - and a wonderfully Romantic little tweak it is too.

I've attached two mp3's of Moiseiwitsch playing this section - One from the Philips Great Pianists series and another live rec. from the 1950's.

Enjoy

Oh geez, I had no idea how you guys can pick favorites with big famous works like these.  With Bach it's a bit easier, for me at least, to pick favorites, but not with the Romantics.

All the big names appeal to me as far as this piece goes.  I only recently found Murray Perahia's recording and I thought it was a phenomenal performance.

If you haven't heard Murray Perahia do it, I highly recommend his recording!



Also, aside from the usual suspects, Stephen Hough's interpretation is very good, as is Ivan Moravec.

I like my own performance of it the most

Anyway, i also like the zimmerman recording. The horowitz version is (as usual) too hectic to my taste. He has the tendency to play any fast movement like a scherzo.
By the way, the coda of this piece is really not that hard, like some of here might think. There arent any crazy leaps or whatever, it is quite straight forward.

Richter