When an artist expresses themselves they are often mistaken as being controversial or contrarian on purpose. I’m not saying that’s never the case, just not nearly as often as people think. It’s not a magic spell where you have to do it exactly right. In art you can’t make mistakes.
How wonderful it is to be sat at one's PC in one's boxers sipping cheap merlot having multiple concert pianists and classical music experts explain it to one why every one of these performances is so darned awesome, all for less than Netflix eh.
I've always liked to think that the Berceuse is what goes through a baby's mind when hearing a repetitive lullaby - how it fractures and tinkles as attention teeters in and out of sleep. And that D-flat that comes in near the end (bar 55 if you're counting) brings a series of those deep, satisfied yawns, the ones that heave out all the stress of a hard day's being a baby. Chopin would probably chide me "Imitate a baby's yawn? How dare you suggest I'd do anything so vulgar!"
PS, before you all chip in, I know it was originally written as a set of variations (and they are intensely pianistic), and it was only later in the day that the title Berceuse was suggested by some count, publisher or whatnot.
@@dwdei8815 this is more or less exactly how I picture it. First the mother starts rocking and starts singing the lullaby, then the child slowly starts imagining things (the contrapuntal voice first) and then gradually falls asleep and starts dreaming. By the last page the mother finishes the lullaby, gently stops rocking and gently tucks the child in on the final cadence. It seems “obvious” that this is what the music is about, but you’re right that Chopin might not approve. But he’s also not here ;)
@@benlawdy Very nice of you to reply. I also note how the last chord of the Berceuse - that D-flat - is strangely not prolonged. It's just a single-beat tonic like it's embarrassed. That to me is the mother cutting her noise short because she realises the child is sleeping so she (and the piece of music) checks herself short.
Wow, Ben. You’re a remarkable communicator and make wonderful videos. But I had not quite realised how intelligent a pianist you are. Such vivid colours and storytelling.
This video was one of the earliest I produced for tonebase Piano, and part of a 5-hour (!) series I directed over two days in Leon Fleisher's home in Baltimore just a few months before he passed away. I had posted the performance and lesson segments separately to this channel before, but wanted to bring them together in the same video. Every minute of the series is worth watching, and you can find the remaining content in the tonebase Piano library (along with hundreds of other videos with great artists): tonebase.co/piano Here are the video listings for the full Leon Fleisher series on tonebase: LEON FLEISHER MASTER CLASSES (2.5 hours) Beethoven Pathetique Sonata, Mvt 1 (Ben Laude, piano) Beethoven Waldstein Sonata, Mvt (Ben Laude, piano) Beethoven Concert No. 4, opening (Ben Laude, piano) Schubert G major Sonata, D. 894 Mvt 1 (Rachel Naomi Kudo, piano) Brahms Concerto No. 1, exposition (Rachel Naomi Kudo, piano) Brahms Concerto No. 2, opening cadenza (Rachel Naomi Kudo, piano) LEON FLEISHER EXTENDED INTERVIEWS (2.5 hours) "Reminiscences" Parts 1 & 2 Interview about Arthur Schnabel
hm nun ja ... gute Arbeit .. freilich .. ich wünschte ich hätte Rach2 jemals so spielen können wie Sie ... aber ich weiss auch ... ich wäre nicht zufrieden gewesen. Warum ? ... nun ich spüre durchaus Musik aber ich spüre auch dass das Stück Sie beherrscht. Manches ist durchaus gelungen .. klingt sehr frei und souverän ... aber öfter höre ich auch die ganzen Kompromisse in Tempo Tonbildung Akzentuierungen Präzision ... da fehlt der letzte technische Kick und die Überlegenheit, die das Stück erfordert, um diese wunderbare Musik nicht nur zu spielen, sondern sie erblühen zu lassen. Ja wissen Sie .. ich will eigentlich gar nicht kritisieren, sondern eigentlich loben und danken dass Sie das Stück hochgeladen haben ... und natürlich ist die Fassung für 2 Klaviere auch durchaus undankbarer für den Solisten weil man natürlich jede Nuance hört was sonst im Orchestergetöse untergehen mag ... also deshalb nochmal .. gute Arbeit und Danke.... Aber zum Schluss bleibt doch das Gefühl ... das Stück beherrscht Sie und nicht Sie das Stück ... Um meinen Seelenfrieden wieder zu finden, habe ich mir Yuja Wang in München angehört, hier der Link ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CJEskzuA56I.html Viele Grüsse aus Deutschland ... irgendwann in der Zeit von 3 AM bis 5 AM ... 🙂
if you compose, the Fantasie Impromptu Op 66 (posthumous) was not published in Chopin's lifetime. I suspect the main reason why is the middle section is not fully fleshed out & has a lot of repetition. It's fun to play around a la Godowsky & imagine what Chopin would've done to complete the work properly.
Yes it’s that, but also it was a piece he composed to sell privately to a student. Also he revised it in 1835, and there’s better voice leading, but it’s still “hollow” in the middle section
Wonderful playing! Ben, could you tell us a bit more about the background ( location, audience, etc.) of this performance? Very few audience for such a fantastic recital!
26:11 i genuinely wanna know what his thought process was here. "huh, i have this bar and i dont know what to fill the top line with. a 48-tuplet? sure, why not."
Where have you been? As an American Pole, second generation, I was brought up on Chopin I have never heard or seen the real Chopin until now. What you did as you thought was a mistake in the nocturne is what Chopin would have done in his day. I need to find all the Chopin you have played. To be honest, I cried! Na Zdrowie! Sto Lat!
some other good ones: liszt - reminiscenced de norma bach/busoni - ciaconna gryaznov - literally anything but daphnis et chloe is one of the best piano reductions ever written (though for two pianos) weiss - carmen fantasy
One interpretation can be more evocative than another. That's my standard. "Don't know what it is, but I know what I like." I'll have to compare for myself. I think I understand what Gould was trying to do. I'd heard this story from a source that really played-up Bernstein's distaste for what Gould was doing, and made Gould out to be a 2nd-rater and a vandal.
The Minute Waltz also stands alone in D♭ major, not just the Berceuse. edit 4 minutes later: ah I get that you’re counting each pair of works in the same opus as one example of C#/D♭ duality.
Thank you so much for this most interesting exploration of Mr Gould. As a piano enthusiast I’d of course heard some of his playing and knew he was a controversial figure, but didn’t know much about him. Love the Brahms, love the way you had music playing during your narration at just he right volume so it wasn’t distracting but really supported your words, and love that everyone with an internet connection can learn about just about any subject, no matter where they are in the world!
I know nothing of classical music. I have heard of Gould -- and that's it. One of the things I found most interesting is that despite Gould's pragmatic approach and Bernstein's transcendental approach to these compositions, they both seemed to appreciate the other.
