A very nice listening experience, you know i have a problem with Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, it was a work i heard very early on in my Classical listening experience, and i heard the Pogorelich / Abbado version on DG, and well it put me off, apart from the glorious first three minutes, it just seems a virtuoso workhorse, with emphasis on the 'work', the second and third movements i felt were weak [and Pogorelich weakened them all the more], i've just got it into my head that it's just a bunch of musical episodes cobbled together badly, and therefore i haven't really bothered with this work a great deal, i haven't bought a number of competing interpretations, and therefore i just haven't been exposed to it a lot, but on this listen, i feel it starting to make sense, the whole thing does have a certain poetry about it, and maybe this is the recording to really open my ears to it.
Brigitte Engerer was a French Pianist, she died last year [1952-2012], she recorded this disc in 1991, now the way the front cover is laid out is a model in perfection, the photo [by Alex Von Koettlitz] is excellent, showing Engerer at the piano, with Krivine standing behind her, i like the portrait, i like the colours too, the lettering is well done, even the blank cream bar actually adds to the visuals.
Well it was the first movement that really grabbed me, it just made perfect sense, and i just love the way something that used to sound like a muddle, now sounds obviously logical, and i love that transition between the two, the first movement is huge, 50% longer than the other two movements put together, of course the celebrated opening is justly famous, and even those who know next to nothing about Classical music, recognise the tune, the opening is a fanfare of sorts, the brass heralding in the piano, and certainly the piano doesn't play the tune, the strings do, and the Pianist hammers out blocks of chords [0:00-1:00], and the opening 3 minutes comes as a triptych, with the central as part the piano still hammering out the notes, but this time playing the tune [1:03+], and the descends into a sort of cadenza [1:27+], and Engerer gets to show off her virtuoso skills, and then there's the glorious moment where the opening returns [2:38+], somehow it's even more intense than at the start, maybe because those blocks of chords are now more complex, and more rolling,
Here's Yuja Wang playing the first movement on YouTube.
Brigitte Engerer was a French Pianist, she died last year [1952-2012], she recorded this disc in 1991, now the way the front cover is laid out is a model in perfection, the photo [by Alex Von Koettlitz] is excellent, showing Engerer at the piano, with Krivine standing behind her, i like the portrait, i like the colours too, the lettering is well done, even the blank cream bar actually adds to the visuals.
Well it was the first movement that really grabbed me, it just made perfect sense, and i just love the way something that used to sound like a muddle, now sounds obviously logical, and i love that transition between the two, the first movement is huge, 50% longer than the other two movements put together, of course the celebrated opening is justly famous, and even those who know next to nothing about Classical music, recognise the tune, the opening is a fanfare of sorts, the brass heralding in the piano, and certainly the piano doesn't play the tune, the strings do, and the Pianist hammers out blocks of chords [0:00-1:00], and the opening 3 minutes comes as a triptych, with the central as part the piano still hammering out the notes, but this time playing the tune [1:03+], and the descends into a sort of cadenza [1:27+], and Engerer gets to show off her virtuoso skills, and then there's the glorious moment where the opening returns [2:38+], somehow it's even more intense than at the start, maybe because those blocks of chords are now more complex, and more rolling,
Here's Yuja Wang playing the first movement on YouTube.
