Thalberg's most infamous composition - revisited

[ronde_des_sylphes]

A bit of a story with this video.

This is the closing theme and variations section from Thalberg's notorious Fantasy on Moses in Egypt, one of the pieces he played at his 1837 duel with Liszt. I think it is clearly the most effective portion of what is a slightly long, meandering fantasy, and it certainly holds up as a single entity. It has probably become my party piece and doubtless I've also posted too many versions of it here, but this is a touch different to the norm. This post is a touch of nostalgia, a touch technical experimentation, and a touch me wanting to share a recording on a really lovely piano. I originally posted this clip, incredibly, 16 years ago, but that was in the infancy of what YT has now become and also the generally available recording technology was nothing like what it is now (the original was camcorder audio after all!)

So what I have done here is that I've not only found the proper audio for the performance, I've done a little bit of cosmetic surgery and noise reduction on it AND I've taken the camcorder video and run it through enhancement software to sharpen and upscale the original, pretty blurry image.

Back in 2006 recording such pieces in a full commercial album context was still only a distant aspiration of mine and it was ten years before I finally recorded this piece in a studio setting. I notice my tempo is a little slower here but I don't mind it at all; in fact some sections have a slightly wistful aspect which I feel isn't really there at a faster tempo.

Hope you like it!

[lelle]

Fantastic playing as always!

I'm curious, considering the repertoire you play, and how long ago this was played - how do you feel you have evolved as a pianist since then? Have your technical skills grown or is this just as easy/hard now as back then to play? Musically, how do you feel this should be performed now compared to what you did then? Would be interesting to hear your thoughts

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Interesting questions to ponder. Since then, I feel my technique is more disciplined, not necessarily better in terms of pure dexterity or speed, but used more consistently and with greater attention towards precision. I didn't convert the full piece in part because I don't think I played some of the earlier sections terribly well; there were some tempo lurches and poor articulations which would be a couple of the presentational aspects I've focussed on in the intervening period (as opposed to, e.g., trying to have faster arpeggios or octaves). I also didn't convert it because it took forever to upscale even these six minutes, but that's another matter!

I actually expected to like this less than I actually did, because I'm conscious that my tempo has increased over time by 10 to 15%, but looking back I feel I've maybe lost some interpretative aspects in the process and that I need to have a think about some details.

Thanks for listening!