This is a superb Brahms Recital, one of the very best i own, and i've certainly listened to it a lot, but recently i've heard that Emanuel Ax isn't a very good Pianist from certain quarters, and when talking about Brahms, he's one of the one's to avoid, have i got it wrong, is he really not that great really?, so i listened to this disc extra careful to maybe find if it's true, and the reason why, and this was an enlightening experience for me, it's true!, there are certain mannerisms that Ax has, that are not wholly to the musics benefit, especially in the Handel Variations, his rubato at times, his left hand prominence, his staccato exaggerations, and sometimes simply he can get a bit muddled, but in saying all that, there's certainly moments of brilliance, and he also makes you see things anew, there's gains and losses, he really got me thinking, and... if this recital is anything to go by, he made me see new things in the music that i didn't realize were there, this was a tremendously enlightening hours listen for me.
Emanuel Ax is American, but was born in a part of Russia that is now in the Ukraine, he is now 62 years old, he made this recording in 1991, the front cover [by Ludwig Schirmer] is a nice picture of Ax, sitting at his piano, nice sharp in focus, with background and foreground out of focus, nicely spotlights his portrait, and it's certainly recorded very well indeed, and again i can't believe that this is the first time a disc like this makes its debut in my Blog, it's a disc that gets into my all time top 50, it's a major statement.
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