Absolutely first rate. No wonder after listening to the great Maestro Liszt play it! I used to play this years ago but now I have to go back to it and think about doing it more like this.
the CONCEPT ot what "TONE" IS is vastly different from today s norm...there is musically and conceptually a FRESHNESS ...like they were just DISCOVERING or hearing for the first time the composition...while playing with virtuouso hands..honed through a lifetime ....IT HAS A COUNTERPART in VOCAL art..opera singers today PALE in comparison with the LUSCIOUS "dark" sounds of the generations up to the Mid 1960.s when the greatest like Tebaldi were in the latter part of their legendary careers...INSTRUMENTAL soloists are the same......they in fact HAD better technique...it is a MISCONCEPTION that just because of enormour spread of playing in the world...that "VIRTUOSOS" today are "progressed" technically or ""more intelligent" as MUSICIANS or artists...that is not tuure...ROSENTHAL almost plays as "quirky" in articulation as a ...say..Glenn Gould...yet the concept is somewhere MORE "CHOPINUESQE " than the ""proper stylists" today...
it would PASS the grade in competitions or even music academia from where the competition committees are gathered ..to extol their "famous winners"...BUT that s exactly an explanation of the brilliance and "correctness" today PALES in musical Character compared to the "old school" ...with its greater CONTRASTS and LARGE lyrical lines...coupled with the FINEST subtleties that show all the PAIN , tears...struggle...majestic...terror...calm and soaring style of the romantic era.
Honestly Lamond is such a treasure of the pianistic world that it's breathtaking his accomplished playing is so legendarily magnificent. May his playing be a reminder to us within this current 21st generation of what romantic pianism truly is.
Lamond fan for a long time, some of his Liszt recordings are peerless. No, he didn't have the fingers of a Lhevinne or a Barere, but then neither did Schnabel. I like D'Albert's recording of this better, which as far as I know is the only Brahms selection recorded by any of Liszt's students. By the way, the only Lamond recording that hasn't been released on Biddulph, APR, or Marston is an acoustic of Rubinstein's Barcarolle in G minor.
Along with half of his Decca recordings, his acoustic recording of L'Alouette and the electric recording he made of Hammerklavier. Unlike the rest of those recordings, the Barcarolle is easily available on Internet Archive here archive.org/details/78_barcarolle-op50-no3-in-g-minor_lamond-frederic The 1922 L'Alouette is actually available on Ebay for kinda cheap but I do not have a decent Phonograph at my disposal and I do not wish to pay the exorbitant shipping fees to get the disc over here anyways. The Decca and Hammerklavier discs are a completely different story though. Since most of the Deccas (1941 Feux Follets, Waldstein, Moonlight, Liebestruam 3) and 1927 Hammerklavier were never published, it would be nearly impossible just to find them.
@@pianomaly9 The thing was never issued and is now lost. It's such a shame because tonnes of people, including Liszt himself adored his interpretation of the Sonata, especially the Fugue.
@@LamondFan Missed your first comment that it wasn't published. I remember reading that Lamond, then seventeen, had the fugue prepared to play for Liszt, but the master declined to hear it for several days, and Lamond was nearly in tears. Don't recall when the audition finally took place. Liszt was very moved by L's playing of Op. 81a.
A revelation! I love hearing pianists from that era playing 19th century works, especially those who studied with Liszt, Brahms etc. So different to what we hear today.
