Posted on 12/16/2006 10:57:05 AM PST by ZGuy
I had an LP of Horowitz playing Moonlight Sonata. It sent chills up my spine. De gustibus non es disputandum?
And that's the wonderful thing about this stuff, it can be so fresh with a different artist, even if one has heard the same piece hundreds of times.
As far as no accounting for taste, I would tell you who is my favorite interpreter of two much less major pieces (the Chopin Aeolian Harp etude and the Liszt Un Sospiro), but then you'd have to shoot me. Let's leave it that you are correct!
One other thing, a recommendation. Have you heard Cyprien Katsaris play the Liszt symphony transcriptions? Those aren't often heard (maybe with good reason), and the 9th simply cannot be transcribed. But the Eroica and especially the finale of the Pastorale are exquisite (with some accounting for taste). They can stand alone, to me, as piano works of high art, without reference to the symphonies. Just a thought.
> Tell us who's your favorite conductor of Beethoven's symphonies (or who you're enjoying now).
I'll go with the set recorded by Bruno Walter on LP in the early 50s (5th and 6th were my in grandfather's collection and I still have them). After that, the remastered Toscaninis. Distant third, von Karajan from the late 50s/early 60s. 9th...the great Furtwaengler from I think 1938, and of course the Bernstein Freiheit recorded in Berlin when the Wall came down in 1989.
To LVB!
Wow, I can't believe I found it so quickly in my LP collection! It doesn't have No. 3, it has No. 2 (the "Moonlight") along with four Schubert Impromptus (Columbia M32342). Now I remember why I bought this one: I had to do an analysis of Schubert's Impromptu in E-Flat Major for my Musicology class. Funny how one acquires recordings! My gosh, that was 30 years ago - now I feel old!
I really didn't want to get into the artistic ratings game except as an anecdotal comment because one man's Mehta is another man's Poissant, LOL.
Leni
Top 4 yes but Top 3? Who would Wagner replace then? Bach, Mozart or Beethoven?
lol! You're right, and I thought about that miscalculation almost immediately after I hit post. Should have corrected it. How about in the "first tier"?
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