Re: [F_minor] Ravel

[f h <boyboy_8@yahoo.com>]

Hi Brad.  I was unaware of previous recordings of the Ravel.  I will try to find them in the future. All in all I was very entertained with GG's version, having heard the orchestral version many times, I was familiar with the music.  I think that we can agree that in his hands the concert grand piano was an excellent substitute for an entire orchestra.  He just knew how to bring all the parts of an orchestra into the body of the piano and make it work.  

Does anyone have a clip we can watch of him doing Chopin?  I don't believe I've seen one yet on the net.  That would be too funny.  Maybe not for Frederick, but for this Fred, yes!

Cheers,

Fred Houpt
Toronto

Happy Canada Day!!!!




--- On Tue, 7/1/08, Brad Lehman <bpl@umich.edu> wrote:

> From: Brad Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>
> Subject: Re: [F_minor] Ravel
> To: f_minor@email.rutgers.edu
> Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 11:15 AM
> f h wrote:
> > I hope that the links will play for you. This is
> GG's entirely new rendition of Ravel's "La
> Valse".  I am blown away.  GG has captured the inner
> essence of this music much more ably than most orchestral
> versions.
> > 
> > Now, this is what I call good "shock and
> awe".
> > 
> > What do you all feel?
> 
> I won't speak for anybody else in the "shock and
> awe" you're hoping 
> they'll feel, but I like both of Leonard Pennario's
> recordings of that 
> piece better than Gould's.  Abbey Simon's is
> excellent, too.  Better 
> elegance and control of tone.  Pennario's first one was
> from 1954, and 
> it even has better *sound* than this Gould TV performance
> (which I have 
> on the 1989 Nuova Era CD).
> 
> There's lots of flashy and fast finger-work, sure, and
> Gould was great 
> at that...but some of these other pianists sublimated those
> notes even 
> better into a colorful texture.  I'm disappointed that
> Gould didn't do a 
> proper studio recording in better sound, beyond this video
> show-off venture.
> 
> You can get the Sony CD of this Gould video at:
> http://www.amazon.com/Glenn-Gould-Krenek-Webern-Debussy/dp/B0000028O5
> 
> Pennario's first one:
> http://www.amazon.com/Leonard-Pennario-Early-Years-1950-1958/dp/B000JCEB1I
> (but his stereo remake was even better)
> 
> Simon's:
> http://www.amazon.com/Ravel-Complete-Music-Solo-Piano/dp/B000001K24
> 
> The composer's own published piano score is readily
> available here cheap:
> http://www.amazon.com/Tombeau-Couperin-Other-Works-Piano/dp/048629806X
> It has some extra lines above the staff showing what some
> of the other 
> orchestral instruments are doing in the original.  Gould
> added some of 
> these optional notes back into his keyboard
> interpretation...which isn't 
> to say that Ravel's arrangement necessarily *needed*
> such further 
> elaboration!
> 
> 
> Brad Lehman
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