Jessica Duchen's Classical Music & Ballet Blog. Novelist/journalist JD writes for The Independent, London
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Zimerman at 19 plays Chopin Concerto no. 1
Just found on Youtube. Teenaged Z with Krakow University Orchestra under Jan Krenz, recorded in 1976. This is the slow movement - the rest is out there too. It's the most sublime Chopin I've ever heard, and I've heard quite a lot.
Jessica, if you don't have it already, get the Chopin piano concerti he recorded with Giulini and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for DG. It's mesmerisingly good.
This video had escaped me, though I have the recording with Giulini and otherwise track KZ very closely indeed. I watched this twice, the second time with even more wonder than the first. There is about it a perfection, a word I am not normally wont to use in this context, but it does happen. It is in no way a relative thing, nothing at all to do with comparison with other performances, nor with questions about which is the 'greatest', but a perfect thing in itself. Solomon's legendary recording of Chopin's Berceuse is another rare example. And Friedman in the E flat Nocturne, Op.55/2. I cannot think of too many others, I must say.
5 comments:
Jessica, if you don't have it already, get the Chopin piano concerti he recorded with Giulini and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for DG. It's mesmerisingly good.
FK
What do you mean, 'if I don't have it already', FK? Whaddya take me for?!? That LP kept me sane through my A levels...
Ah, therein lies the problem. I didn't do A levels. So I'm not clever enough to have worked out that you'd already have heard it.
FK
Sorry, FK - I've been a Z fanatic as long as I can remember, so tend to forget that not all JDCMB readers know this.
This video had escaped me, though I have the recording with Giulini and otherwise track KZ very closely indeed. I watched this twice, the second time with even more wonder than the first. There is about it a perfection, a word I am not normally wont to use in this context, but it does happen. It is in no way a relative thing, nothing at all to do with comparison with other performances, nor with questions about which is the 'greatest', but a perfect thing in itself. Solomon's legendary recording of Chopin's Berceuse is another rare example. And Friedman in the E flat Nocturne, Op.55/2. I cannot think of too many others, I must say.
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