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[m]

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[furtwaengler]

Marik, I love it when you post your recordings. This is a special gift I’m grateful for - I've listened to it twice already.

For some reason I’ve kept myself from knowing the Corelli Variations as I should, even as I’ve had the fortune of being present for several good live performances. What a deep and personal work! I have missed out! But here, at a proper time, is a new beginning for my relationship with this work, and so indeed the heart of Serge Rachmaninov.

Now I think it is infinitely more successful than his Chopin Variations (if such a scale should exist). I wonder if I lacked a certain maturity required to really appreciate this piece; it is serious and runs very deep, very close to Rachmaninov‘s core. I will be meditating on it as if it were a new discovery. 

You play so beautifully. I can tell it is no small matter for you to present your programs, that it is no flippant thing, but has disciplined great and careful thought. I appreciate the care with which you present the theme, with the various suspensions given just the right emphasis. I would love to sit in a hall as you play this, and have the tones float over. Throughout there seems to be little sense of the performing mechanism…the music is always out front. If this was a personal work for Rachmaninov, your intimate performance leaves us alone, very close to his heart.

What can be said? I struggle to express what I want to say in words in this short order, and wonder at the necessity of such. It is only an outlet for expression of my gratitude for your beautiful performance, one which stands without the need for words to prop it. You are a special artist, Marik. 

Dave

[amitmis]

Personally I think it was a beautiful falwless performance of yours.
I really enjoyed it, and to prove it - I uploaded your performance on my mp3. 

Just a little thing though - I felt like it was a little to "forte". Trying to figure out the exact sound from the live perfromance - I found it, again, a little more forte than needed, in my opinion.

But maybe it's just the recording.

Anyway - very very good indeed.

9.2 out of 10 in my scale! 



Thank you very much,
and please keep uploading your performances,
Amit.

[imbetter]

please post more marik your playing often hits almost world class levels I'd love to hear more from you.


Will you be performing in NY anytime soon?

[mike_lang]

9.2 out of 10 in my scale! 

If "flawless" gets 9.2, I would love to hear the performance that receives 10!

ML

[communist]

on the theme of it you crescendos got to loud to quickly and made the mezzo-fortes into fortissimos and if i were you i would try to make a steadier time between variations because on some it sounded like you had a memory lapse and besides that it was very good.

[rachfan]

Hi marik,

Bravo!  Playing these variations is a huge achievement.  As usual, your playing is marked by a thoughtful and refined sense of taste, style and imagination.  It's always a pleasure to hear you perform!

David

 

[richard black]

There's some very nice playing in there, congratulations. I wouldn't mind a little more body in some of the chords - and not all of your quiet chords are coming down entirely together.

How was the recording made? It seems bass-light. I'm guessing mics practically right in front of the piano - try them round nearer the tail end maybe? It also sounds as if there's a limiter in there somewhere, which doesn't help, and the MP3 coding is combining with that to make it sound odd at climaxes.

[amitmis]

If "flawless" gets 9.2, I would love to hear the performance that receives 10!

ML

I t was a joke... 

[m19834]

Marik,

Thanks for posting this !  I have not had the chance to listen to all of it yet, but what I have listened to is haunting.  I am inspired by your musicianship and by your playing, and I find myself fostering a growing curiousity at how you are able to make the music and the piano come alive as you do.  A special characteristic of your own unique ability, I am realizing.  I realize that there is probably no end to who or what can be criticized by others, however, I can't help but feel that anybody who has the opportunity to hear and see you live is probably a bit spoiled.  And, I would imagine, you often surprise your audiences with your ability, despite it's consistency within your life.  I know that every time I have the opportunity to hear you, I am captivated.

[michel dvorsky]

This is phenomenal.