Archive for the ‘piano’ Tag
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2; Piano Sonata No. 1 – Sviatoslav Richter
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Seems like I’ve been getting hooked to classical music lately. Can’t write much here as I feel like an infant in this world, just sitting around enjoying it’s beauty.
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Hauschka – Ferndorf
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Volker Bertelmann aka Hauschka is a pianist and composer from Germany exploring the possibilities of prepared piano – where one plays a piano that had its sound altered by placing objects between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers. So what he’s doing is:
Clamping wedges of leather, felt or rubber between the strings; preparing the hammers with aluminium paper or rough films; placing crown corks on the strings, weaving guitar strings around the piano’s guts, or pasting them down with gaffa tape – his resulting tracks are composed both originally and charmingly. The results are vivid, unconventional pieces made in a spirit of playful research-enthusiasm.
And the last sentence there holds true – often together with a string duo, the compositions on this album actually grow into each other as an orchestrated daydream – on a distant village (Ferndorf) indeed.
Keith Jarrett at the Blue Note: The Complete Recordings
This has to be the most valuable music set that I found recently. Keith Jarrett, for me the greatest living jazz pianist, with his pals Peacock and DeJohnette plays six live sets at Blue Note. This is a set of standards so transposed, wonderfully expanded into unusual and beautiful that’s just pure joy to listen.
Chopin – The Complete Waltzes, played by Arthur Lima
Three recommendations in three different genres, all in one day – only on Torrent Times! After the nocturnes, I looked for more of Chopin and here’s a collection of his waltzes played by Brazilian pianist Arthur Lima. Another series of brilliant compositions that I’m glad to have found.
Maurizio Pollini – Chopin Nocturnes
Through my love for piano jazz, I occasionally pick up and enjoy some classical piano compositions. Here Maurizio Pollini, Italian pianist, plays (all, it seems) 18 nocturnes written by Chopin (one of them I first heard played by Fujiko Hemming a while ago). The compositions are soulful and lyrical, while the performance is occasionally somewhat disturbed by the hissing noise of Pollini’s breathing. But nevermind, it is beautiful music through which I am still finding my way.
This torrent got deleted three times already as I was keeping it bookmarked; if the link takes you to a non-existing page, search for ‘pollini chopin’ and you’ll find it. Files are encoded in FLAC and an informative PDF booklet is included.
