What do you find so interesting in Clifford Curzon? What can you say against this?


Shame on you.
Never heard his Gaspard de la Nuit?
I agree his interpretations are excessively personal, but he does a monumental expressive work too; and that should not be overlooked.

Curzon listened to every sound that he made and consequently his playing is finely controlled yet full of colour and interest, all within the boundaries of the composer's work. For me, Curzon is one of the greatest of all pianists and woefully under-rated. His Decca recording of the Liszt Sonata is wonderful. All the things that Curzon does so well, are the things that Lang doesn't do at all. Lang bangs outrageously and there is just no sense of the music having an over-arching shape.





I haven't heard his Gaspard and so I reserve judgement on that (although I like Perlemuter best in Ravel), but I have heard his Tchaikovsky 1st concerto and some of his Chopin and, to me, his expressiveness is so extreme that it works in opposition to the music. Why listen to Pogorelich pulling Chopin around beyond recognition when there are such wonderful recordings by Lipatti, Rubinstein, Arrau, and Zimerman to enjoy which are all the more convincingly expressive for their greater restraint and understanding of the score.

Now Maxim Vengerov is one of my least favorite musicians. His performance of Ravel's Tzigane was the only thing I remotely like of his. He's just sloppy. That's all there is to it.

Ohh, give Vengerov a break! When he manages to not play sloppy, it's wonderful. Ignore the faces and just listen. If you go on youtube look at his performance of Dvorak's violin concerto or even his teenage performance of Tchaikovsky's violin concerto. pls?

There are many far better performances of both concerti. Though I must admit I did kind of like his "Ronde des Lutins." Another person I can't quite get around is Nathan Milstein. He's just TOO crisp and clean, it almost sounds a bit flaky to me. I'd rather hear a performance by Menuhin or Oistrakh or Stern. They're all great, but Milstein just sounds like he's overly concerned about the notes... there are his great pieces, but they aren't terribly many from what I've heard of him.

__________________
"Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n
wirst du, mein Herz, in einem Nu!
Was du geschlagen
zu Gott wird es dich tragen!"
-Gustav Mahler

sarah brightman. 'nuff said :P

Someone linked to a particular conductor whom I really dislike yesterday. The attention was directed toward the piece, which Youtube lacks any really good performances of anyway.

If one can include conductors here?...Maximianno Cobra (Nuff said)!!

Rock and roll musicians who tear up their instruments after a performance.
I think that's very wasteful. Maybe some fan out in the audience would like
to have that guitar or drum or amp with the guitar from their favorite band.
judy tooley

I don't like Evgeni Svetlanov conducting. He plays all fast,fast,fast. Adagios
he plays andantes. Andantes he plays allegro, and allegro he plays presto.
But he was a very fine pianist.

One of the most despicable people who receives tremendous adulation and has societies devoted to him and his works was Richard Wagner. I was a member of the Wagner society of Dallas until last year and now I am a member of the Wagner Society of Southern California. His compositions are worthy of admiration but the person who wrote them is a rotten skunk of a human being. I joined these societies in order to meet other classical music enthusiasts and not to honor this blatherskite.

Daniel Barenboim: I cannot stand him: a complete fraud as a musician, in my opinion. He could have been a good pianist, which he is not anymore.. And as a conductor he has always been a mediocre one, despite his titularship in Chicago.

Giuseppe Sinopoli: I still recall what a boredom in his concerts... which I attended just because of the glorious Staatskapelle Dresden.

The last names I have put in my black list have been: Franz Welser-Möst (I had to quit an Alpine Symphony, but probably I will give him another chance) and Daniele Gatti (what a vacuous musician... no redemption seems possible in this case).

LANG LANG!!!!

I respect his skill, but I absolutely despise his showmanship!

If anyone has heard Lang Lang playing Liszts Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, they'll agree that he plays it ridiculously fast. There are other pianists that deserve the fame he has.

If you want to listen to a very clever and funny HR No.2, get the difficult
Horowit'z arrangement. It's as hard to play as Liszt's.