What are you listening to right now?

[dizzyfingers]

Combining the two posts above I've been listening to Szymanowski's Mythes with Zimerman on piano!

i=tTPOVfryx4q8hOCM
And as for his sonatas, the 3rd is the best- Richter's live recording is on youtube.

That's quite a photograph!  For one thing, Zimerman, whose photos are around today (showing a much  older gentleman), is so young!  And I do believe I detect some intriguing chemistry between the two young musicians.

What do you think of Szymanowski's Mythes?

I listened to some of the 3rd sonata, again I sense a lack of inner inspiration, which creates a laboriousness.

[thorn]

That's quite a photograph!  For one thing, Zimerman, whose photos are around today (showing a much  older gentleman), is so young!  And I do believe I detect some intriguing chemistry between the two young musicians.

What do you think of Szymanowski's Mythes?

I listened to some of the 3rd sonata, again I sense a lack of inner inspiration, which creates a laboriousness.

Yes, he's very young there! And who knows.

And it took me a while to understand the 3rd movement but I liked the other two right away. I read in several program notes that it's an important work in the context of violin repertoire, but as I'm not a string player I can't comment on that. As far as piano writing goes the mid-period work that Szymanowski himself was most proud of was Masques, which Zimerman recently recorded.

What do you mean by 'a lack of inner inspiration'? I'm curious because I think I get what you mean in terms of early Szymanowski (and early/mid Scriabin for that matter), but to me he then grew out of that.

[dizzyfingers]

I'm listening to this sonata from 1940 by Irish composer Howard Ferguson, played by Myra Hess.
Because - - it's the only composer on pianolibrary.org I'm not familiar with.
There's probably some connection to the admins of that site and this composer ... there's a dozen other obscure composers they could have the music for, but do not, it's mainstream - so why him?

Anyone else familiar with this work?

[liszt-and-the-galops]

I'm listening to this sonata from 1940 by Irish composer Howard Ferguson, played by Myra Hess.
Because - it's the only composer on pianolibrary.org I'm not familiar with.
There's probably some connection to the admins of that site and this composer ... there's a dozen other obscure composers they could have the music for - why him?

Anyone else familiar with this work?

My understanding is that that site relies on contributions by readers (or viewers, or whatever they would be called), so odds are that the reason they have stuff on Ferguson is because someone who knows about the site sent them a ton of stuff about/by him.

[essence]

Howard Ferguson?

True story. He was living in Cambridge during the 1970's. I gave an amateur performance one Sunday afternoon at the graduate centre of my college (Corpus Christi). I was playing several of the op 39 Rachmaninoff Etudes Tableaux. I was meant to be studying quantum field theory.

By chance he was in the audience. He sent me a note afterwards saying how much he had enjoyed it, and said the etudes were new to him, apart from the last one. I think the etudes were much less well-known in those days.

I also remember the wife of the warden was excited by Red riding hood and the wolf, she nearly jumped out of her skin when i played the last ff chord.

Been downhill since then.

[dizzyfingers]

Howard Ferguson?  ... He sent me a note afterwards saying how much he had enjoyed it,...

Clearly a kind man.

Been downhill since then.

.. well there's something to be said for surviving ... you must be about 75 now
Perhaps tell us your story in Introductions - - -

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=122.0

[frodo10]

1

[essence]

I listened to this, I sight read the first movement some time ago, the sonata has many attractions, but is it too long and rambling? It seems to have many familiar Rachmaninoff motifs.

Overall, would you say it is technically a bit less difficult than the second sonata?

[thorn]

Also some Rachmaninoff. I never listened to the entire set before, I only knew 2,5,6. I think my new favourite is 8.

i=Yu-dCf0fny032GM8

[frodo10]

1

1

1

[liszt-and-the-galops]

The coda of Medtner's Third Concerto "Ballade," played by Tatiana Nikolaeva. The rest of the concerto is great, but the final few minutes are something else.

Coda starts at 33:16 in the above video.

[frodo10]

Combining the two posts above I've been listening to Szymanowski's Mythes with Zimerman on piano!

i=tTPOVfryx4q8hOCM

And as for his sonatas, the 3rd is the best- Richter's live recording is on youtube.

I have this CD.  Szymanowski's Mythes is a fine work.  But to me the gem is the Franck violin sonata written at his age 64!  I have come to view Franck as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic period.  But he wrote all of his great masterpieces at age 64 or later (except for the piano quintet written at age 57).  I understand why AI does not put him on the list of top 20 romantic composers.  But I feel many of his late works are at least as great as works that Brahms wrote.  He is consistently on my top 10 favorite composers list - a personal list for me.

[frodo10]

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