This channel is dedicated to score-videos of piano music, mainly of fairly lesser-known works, but also those of great Italian composer Muzio Clementi.
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Splendid sonata, somehow reminiscent of Mozart and Beethoven, the canonic movement adds an interesting touch as well. Excellent performance, thanks for uploading.
At 14:04 is evidence that true tonality, with melodic lyricism didn't surrender to the mid-century obsession with atonality. At 15:18 it sounds like Barber is quoting Gershwin's piano concerto.
Browning never understood what to do with the recurring 3-note motif in the 1st movement which should have stress on the 2nd note, not the 1st. The orchestra gets it right, but the pianist, in both of his recordings, doesn't. You'd think somebody like the exacting George Szell would've pointed this out to the soloist. If you're following along with the score, it's maddening not to hear what is plainly indicated by the composer.
Which three-note motif? Can you give a time stamp for an example of it? I see a recurring triplet figure, but not anything that indicates the stress should be on the second note.
@@nicholasfox966 Its first appearance is in bars 4 and 5 (piano alone), and since it's one of the main motifs of the whole movement, it's to be found all over the place. The first note is marked 'staccato,' while the 2nd note is the instinctively stressed start of a 2-note slur. The first note of such a slur doesn't require an accent (>) mark. . . it should happen "naturally." or to repeat myself, "instinctively." What Browning (and apparently all pianists) does, gives not the slightest hint of a slur. A careful listener, without having seen the score, would be shocked later to find that the latter bears no resemblance to what the pianist played. It's interesting (and maddening) that even the orchestra fails to get it right, which is another way of saying that the conductor either didn't notice what's clearly in his score (I checked), or that he and the orchestra copied what they heard the pianist do in his opening solo. Of course, Barber could've simply (if redundantly) put a plain old > mark on the 2nd note, and "solution achieved."
Good to see this with the short score. I always have to chuckle how conductors and pianists inevitably play the main theme of the finale so that it sounds like 6/8 instead of 5/8 (making the first "big" beat too long). And as to the difficulty, I remember going to a pre-concert panel discussion before the NY Phil's first performance of this in 1963, with Barber and Browning, and Barber saying that there was no way in hell he could perform the piano part himself.
One of the greatest piano concertos, bar none! Wonderfully performed by both soloist and orchestra. Fiendishly difficult except for the ravishing second movement. Samuel Barber deserves to be counted amongst the greats!!
Excelente audio! Me gustó demasiado. Es la primera vez en mis 67 años que escucho este hermoso Vals Suite de este compositor. Es un Vals muy elegante. ¡Felicitaciones! ¡Gracias por compartir! Saludos desde México.
God, he butchers the first mazurka so hard... he just butchers everything he plays, just a modernist with no musical insight, a complete waste of a human.
You are a complete waste of a human. Half of the time when I listen to amazing classical music on this website I find you in the comments spewing garbage and my day is ruined. Then I click on your channel and laugh at your trash compositions, and my day gets better.
The first movement is quite odd, and almost post tonal, but has its own beauty. As a pianist, it is ridiculously difficult to a degree that even surpasses Rachmaninov. I will say, even though Barber was a pianist himself, there are bits of this movement that do are not nicely "playable" (by that I mean that even though rachmaninov's repertoire is incredibly difficult, it is written with the soloist in mind). That being said, this concerto was written specifically from John Browning's piano technique, which is why it doesn't come across as universally playable, e.g. the writing isn't intuitive, and is specific to the intended soloist. The second movement is just gorgeous, and the most playable and intuitive section of the entire concerto. It is heartbreaking and menacing at the same time, and to me represents the unknowns of death. The descending chromatic motif within the strings is potentially one of the most moving bits of music I have ever encountered. The third movement is quite frankly just goofy. And I think that is potentially the intent. It is to me very difficult to find exactly what key area we are in, and there is extensive use of dissonance which furthers the confusion. But its a good kind of confusion, one that is welcome for its shear absurdity and virtuosity. (Apparently, the third movement was not even finished until 15 days before the concert and was deemed to be unplayable in its first draft by the soloist, and it took a second opinion from Vladimir Howitz for Barber to agree to write it to be playable at concert tempo) Overall, one of the most unique and eclectic works in the genre, and a fantastic example of American classical music. Barber will certainly continue to be one of the American Greats and just orchestral Greats in general.
So nice! It sounds more symphonic (in terms of form and thematic development, im not talking about textures) than the usual sibelius piano pieces, that tend to be more like miniatures. Very interesting
