One of the delectable things about writing booklet notes for CDs is that now and then you're assigned a task you like; and you get the disc at the end of it. This morning a box of dizzying delights hit my desk as a result of one such job: a set of reissues from Warners of Andras Schiff playing concertos and chamber music - no fewer than nine discs. OmG, which to play first?! The Bartok piano concertos with Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra? Schubert trios with Yuuko Shiokawa and Miklos Perenyi? The Dvorak Piano Quintet with the Panochas? Beethoven, Mozart and the fascinating Sandor Veress... Solution: close eyes, shuffle discs and pick the one at the top. It's the Dvorak. Heaven.
"...Schiff always puts the music first and last. In a world obsessed with superficiality, image, anti-intellectualism and short-term thinking, Schiff continues to stand proudly for the opposite, offering a voice of reason and artistic integrity."
A couple of weeks ago Andras was awarded the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize. He'll be starting his Beethoven sonatas cycle in the States this October - Ann Arbor, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York - I've recently done an interview with him about this for Carnegie Hall's Playbill, which I'll post as soon as it's available online. And you can still hear his lectures about the sonatas from the Wigmore Hall on The Guardian's webcast.
Please excuse me while I gloat, worship and purr, all at the same time.
3 comments:
Thanks for pointing this one out to me; hope it's on the market already - it'll be a present for someone I love, and for me, too.
The wee Hungarian maestro....
The Bach prize is well deserved! I've read varying reviews though of his series of Beethoven sonata CDs.
I am delighted at the thought of your writing notes for CDs. Like writing concert programme notes, of which I've done quite a bit myself, it is an art in itself. It wasn't until I heard that kind things had been said at the Chicago Lyric Opera about notes I wrote for a performance in Vancouver that I started to think I might just have the knack. Not an easy thing at all to write these miniature essays, to avoid the obvious and the cliched, pitch it just right, say something truly worth reading. It might be worth keeping in mind that the finest concert programme notes have on occasion been collected and published in book form. I seem to remember a book of programme notes written for the NY Phil which were worth a read. The same could be done with recording notes. This struck me particularly this morning because I read this post just after reading the booklet accompanying a Pearl cd. That contrived not to mention the music at all, which was probably just as well as the music listed on the booklet is not exactly the same as the music on the disc. The whole enterprise is thus devalued. I am in pursuit of the Schiff box and much look forward to reading your booklet. Philip
I don't think the box has yet been released, but it will be very soon!
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