Piano songs and Pianists

[BigMattTheHobo]

I just watched the movie the Pianist the other day and I really loved the piano songs in it. And I was wondering if anyone could recommend any songs or any pianists for me to D/L.

I already know about Brubeck, but I was looking for stuff that was classical.

Thanks :)

[AssClown]

Vitalij Kuprij. He's an electric keyboard player, and he plays some badass NeoClassical and Fusion shit, but he's also an incredible Classical piano player. The New York Philharmonic (I know I chopped that up) Orchestra chose him to play piano for them. He has three solo keyboard CDs out, that feature him dueling with guitar players like Greg Howe, Tony MacAlpine and George Bellas. If you want a song to download by him try "Divided World" that's got him playing with Greg Howe. He's also got a band called Artension. He has a new solo CD coming out and it's got quite a few guitarists on it, Mike Romeo, Francesco Fareri and others. He's one of my biggest musical influences (even for guitar. I suck at piano).

[RolandOfGilead]

Originally posted by BigMattTheHobo
I just watched the movie the Pianist the other day and I really loved the piano songs in it. And I was wondering if anyone could recommend any songs or any pianists for me to D/L.

I already know about Brubeck, but I was looking for stuff that was classical.

Thanks :)

That's what I'm here for, Matt.

If you want some AMAZING classical piano music, check out these:

Scherzo No. 3 - Bach
Prelude in C# minor -- Rachmaninoff
The Rach 3 - Rachmaninoff
Ungarishe Tanze no. 5 - Brahms
Fantasia Impromptu - Chopin (check out the minute waltz too)
Impromptu - Brahms
Passacaglia and Fugue -- Bach (it's for organ, but it's too good for words.)
Any of Shostakovich's Preludes for piano (they're a bitch to play)

If you're looking for modern music, check these out:

Sonata No. 2 - Charles Ives
Microcosmos - Bela Bartok
Ostinato - Bela Bartok
Sonata for Piano - Alan Berg

That should start you off. If you want more, just let me know. Also let me know if/how you like the ones I recommended.

[BigMattTheHobo]

OK thanks guys, I will get to D/Ling when I get my computer back to 100%. I found some good online radios that play great piano music.

[Sketcher]

You should really listen to Yanni too.

[brainkandy87]

Don't listen to much classical piano other than good old Ludwig van, so I must recommend Fur Elise and Moonlight Sonata.

[RolandOfGilead]

Originally posted by Sketcher
You should really listen to Yanni too.

Sweet jesus ignore that comment. Yanni is a goddamn metrosexual, almost as much as Kenny "I-use-4-reverb-units-to-cover-up-my-awful-natural-tone" G. If there's one thing that annoys me (and many musicians I know) it's when people say "Oh yeah! I listen to classical music! I love Yanni/Kenny G.!" They are to classical music what Vanilla Ice was to rap. Please, for the sake of composers everywhere, listen to some Philip Glass or Charles Ives instead of Yanni. Please. I beg you.

[PSADC930]

Hey BigMattTHe Hobo,

I've been browsing Ebaumsworld for a few weeks now looking at the jokes, games, etc. when I stumbled across your post in this forum. I am a classical music fanatic (first and foremost a collector of historic recordings on LP), but I also love jazz, and many different types of ethnic music. I have studied piano for a few years now, although I'm too busy with other things to devote much time to it. I've been active in various aviation-related forums for many years now.

Anyway, I thought I'd take a few minutes and give you a few recommendations.

I think the greatest classical pianists of this last century were: Solomon, Myra Hess, Edwin Fischer, Gerald Moore, and Dinu Lipatti--to name my five favorites. (although hardly anyone has heard of these pianists as compared to the greatly overhyped and commercialized Rubinstein and Horowitz). In addition to paying great attention to the subtlties of tone production, and minimizing the percussive nature of the piano, all these pianists could be called true modernists in that they believed that the performance and performer should be transparent--and that the composer's intentions should be of paramount importance in any performance. This is in stark contrast to many of the romantic excesses of the previous century in which the performer was almost placed ahead of the composer in some respects.

The one problem a new listener may encounter is that all of Solomon's, Hess', Fischer's, and Lipatti's recordings were made from the 20s through the 50s, and all are monaural, and some CD reissues are even plagued by surface noise. This reflects one of the famous sayings in the world of high-end audio: "Sound quality is inversely related to quality of performance." It is not really that bad though, and is something I urge any serious music listener to simply get used to. A music lover refusing to listen to monaural recordings is like a film lover refusing to watch black and white movies. One stands to miss a great deal, and many of the greatest recordings ever made. The fact of the matter is, that in terms of accurately capturing the timbral qualities of musical instruments, recording technology has not really progressed much at all since the mid 1950s, and has in many respects greatly regressed. (To see what I'm talking about, just go to about any movie theater, and listen to the sound system. The sound quality in the great majority of movie theaters is nothing short of abyssmal, and does not even do an adequate job of recreating the timbral characteristics of the human voice--a job that was served admirably well in the early 1900s by ACOUSTIC recordings! The "digital experience" and Lucasfilm stuff is a joke and an insult.) I have recordings of piano, cello, violin, human voice made in the 50s that would put to shame just about any modern CD recording. No joke. I personally know a few people with audio-only systems worth more than $100K who agree with this assessment.

In any case here are a few recommendations with labels in all caps:

Solomon:

- Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1, Handel Variations on TESTAMENT CD
- Beethoven Sonatas, nos. 26,27, 29 on TESTAMENT (This included the Hammerklavier Sonata, arguably the greatest work ever conceived for piano)
- Brahms Sonata number 3, and Schumann's Carnaval

Hess

Great pianists series including works by Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, etc. PHILLIPS / EMI

Lipatti

Anything, really, but my favorite is on EMI REFERENCES-- Dinu Lipatti plays Bach: Partita no. 1, choral preludes, etc.

Fischer

Bach: The well-tempered Klavier EMI

Moore

Moore was an accompanist, and accompanied all of the great lieder and art song soloists, such as Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, etc. Anything with these two would be good, esp. songs by Schubert, Wolf, etc.

I also really like Andras Schiff if you find you must have something in modern stereo sound. His Bach is technically perfect, if a little cold at times--but overall he is probably the greatest classical pianist alive today.

My true love is the organ, especially Bach. I believe that Bach was the greatest genius who ever lived, and that his organ works represent some of his greatest compositions. The pipe organ is the greatest of all instruments IMO, and there is no other instrument that can even come close to the organ's power, range, and expressive and tonal versatility. Try anything by Karl Richter, Helmut Walcha, or Michael Murray. You might just get hooked...

[RolandOfGilead]

The man's been studying! Welcome to ebaumsworld forums, PSADC930! It's so nice to have a fellow classical/jazz buff among the forums! I won't feel so lonely anymore lol.

I couldn't agree more with your statement on mono recordings, by the way. My composition teacher constantly exposes me to monaural LP recordings of the work of early 20th century Russian and Ukranian composers (Pokrass, Skryabin, Sofronitsky, etc...) and the natual colors projected from these live recordings are unmatched by digital recordings. It's a LOT harder to separate voices for transcription (even with perfect pitch *pat on the back*) but as far as listening and analyzing goes, nothing quite captures the artistic essence of the performer like it. The whole purpose of THX, Dolby Digital, etc... is entirely for percussive effect; subsonics and high-ends without any regard for EQ (most of which are synthesized anyways.)

As for your love of organ music, that's basically why I absolutely had to recommend Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue. The best recording I've heard personally is by E. Power Biggs if you can find it (unless you already have it.)

Actual performers aside, I would still say as far as the music itself is concerned, check out Ives's piano sonatas, Shostakovich's preludes, and basically anything by Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Brahms (impromptus), Debussey, Ravel (Pavane for a dead princess -- can't remember the french title of it), or, of course, Bach's massive collection of harpsichord and organ works (the pianoforte came along in italy close to Bach's death, so *most* of his works are for harpsichord.)

And as far as Andras Schiff, he's a lot like Wynton Marsalis in my opinion (or a lot of Japanese soloists' recordings, I hate to say) -- you can tell he's practiced 10 hours a day each and every day his entire life, but it lacks a lot of emotion.

PSADC930, have you ever heard of Dave Loeb or Bruce Paulson? Just curious.

[brainkandy87]

Originally posted by PSADC930
I've been browsing Ebaumsworld for a few weeks now looking at the jokes, games, etc. when I stumbled across your post in this forum. I am a classical music fanatic (first and foremost a collector of historic recordings on LP), but I also love jazz, and many different types of ethnic music. I have studied piano for a few years now, although I'm too busy with other things to devote much time to it. I've been active in various aviation-related forums for many years now.

Welcome to the boards.

[PSADC930]

Hey folks thanks for the welcome.

Yeah, the whole thing with movie sound is to emphasize the high and low end, as you said. The bass (midbass mostly) is obviously overly-hyped, and the high frequencies have excessive sibilance, and harshness, while the midrange (where 80% of the music / human voice is) sounds as if it were coming through a wall of mashed potatoes. The human voice, (i.e. at least soloists), is not really that difficult to record, and does not have the complex harmonic structure of something like the piano. Acoustic recordings of Caruso, Tamagno, et al. are amazing in their ability to capture the characteristics of the human voice, and far excel those god-awful movie systems.

As for piano, I'd actually be playing the harpsichord, if it were not for the music of Debussy. I'm a Bach fanatic, and have no objections to Bach played on the piano, but could just as easily do it on the harpsichord. However, as much as I love the great works by Brahms and Beethoven, it is really Debussy that keeps me playing the piano as opposed to harpsichord. I highly recommend the Preludes, Suite Bergamasque, Etudes, Images, Children's corner suite, Arabesques, etc. Walter Gieseking is probably my favorite overall interpreter, but I do think Aldo Ciccolini, and Pascal Roge are fine modern interpretations. The Schumann's Carnaval I recommended above played by Solomon is priceless, and is probably the first one you (anyone) should pick up. The Handel Variations are superb too, and my piano teacher is always saying that NO ONE aside from Solomon does a good job on them.

I have not heard of Dave Loeb or Bruce Paulson. What is their music like? Thanks for the recommendation.

I'm also a huge jazz fan, and recently have been into a lot of Sun Ra. I also really enjoy Astor Piazzolla (quintet stuff), Japanese classical music (shakuhachi, koto, etc.), and even popular French songs from the 40s, 50s, etc. I am an unabashed collector, and my perspective as a music lover is one of a collector, not a music scholar or historian. I am amazed by musicologists who pride themselves on never listening to recordings. It reminds me of that saying about the world needing smarter intellectuals. :rolleyes:

Anyway, thanks again for the welcome.

[RolandOfGilead]

I absolutely love Debussey. I believe he single-handedly invented Romanticism. He actually has a pretty hilarious history. Apparently when he was in college, his teachers absolutely despised his work, so they kicked him out. After writing La Mer, Claire Di Lune, and other such works, he got back in only to be rejected again. That happened two more times before he decided college wasn't his thing. It's just funny because there are many popular composers who have similar histories -- their music went against the trends of the time, they were rejected, then they wind up being some of the most well-renowned composers ever to exist. I never heard about Debussey's teacher receiving any recognition. I don't think his name was ever mentioned, to tell you the truth.

I've heard Carnaval, but I don't think I've ever heard Solomon play it. I'll check out that recording at the music library this week. Thanks for the recommendation!

Dave Loeb and Bruce Paulson are actually two of my teachers here at UNLV. Dave Loeb used to be the top-call piano player in New York, and Bruce Paulson worked on the Carson show for 22 years as the trombone player. They've both done tons of recordings, live & studio, classical, jazz, ethnic. I would say check out the recording "Minnesota" by Bruce Paulson. He's a phenomenal jazz player and it's an honor to be taking lessons from him (as you'll plainly see if you listen to that recording.)

[BigMattTheHobo]

Welcome to the boards PSA, and I thank you all again.

I just reinstalled XP (gggrrrr......) so I gotta get kazaa and all that stuff again, so its gonna be a while before I try out your picks, but I am going to keep this thread on mind.

side note: I am so happy that I decided to move all my media files onto my second HD, right before my computer fucked up (virus I think). So no real lose :)

[Royalanarchist]

elton John........and Billy Joel "piano man

[AssClown]

I don't think that guy seriously meant for you to listen to Yanni. I think the point he was trying to get across was that piano music is for pussys or something and that you might as well listen to Yanni. Don't listen to that guy, he's got the god damned Disturbed logo for an avatar.