Ohlsson plays a Bosendorfer, beautifully. I kept wondering how his same fingerings, weightings, touch, pedaling, and dynamics would work on a Steinway in this repertoire.
I think I have a lot in common, speaking of artistic approach, with Maestro Ohlsson. Everything he says gets an instant nod from me! And he is right about the vibrato, much as I disdain its hyperbolic overuse in opera - to sound louder than the orchestra. It rubs me the wrong way like belting does.
from 8:32 the pianist plays an ending which he spoke about in an earlier video (Tonebase I think) in which he suggests that this was an inventive ending but that Chopin wasn't the first to do it - or was he meaning that Chopin had already done it in a previous one of his nocturnes (eg the c sharp minor one op post)? He used words like 'well, someone had to have invented it' or something (i.e that 'someone' was either another composer or Chopin himself).
Is that a Garrick Ohlsson vinyl album cover in the background? I also see the Hyperion Complete Chopan recorded by him. Noice. Is that a disco-light behind you that's generating that purple light?
Haha just a colored LED panel. Kinda tacky but better than the dreary off-white wall behind me. Also, I went though a disco phase in the 5th grade and even had a disco ball and strobe light in my bed room, so read into that as you will. Yep - that’s one of the Garrick LPs from ‘70 competition, plus the Hyperion box set sitting there. (By the way, the entire Hyperion set can be download on their website for like $50… total steal - and much of it not on streaming platforms or RU-vid.)
@@benlawdy Oh, I have all of Garrick's recordings. He once subbed for Pollini in NYC. It was the absolute best recital I ever heard in my life. It was sometime around 2011 or 2012. It was an all Liszt program featuring the Fantasie and Fugue on 'Ad nos, Ad salutarem undam', a Liszt work for the organ that Busoni transcribed for piano. I have never heard such a sonority coaxed from the piano in my life. Garrick Ohlsson is a legend!
@@benlawdy I was teasing about the light. It's fine. From a color theory perspective, warm colors juxtaposed against cooler colors create a pleasing contrast. I'd try a sky blue or teal led light. It will be slightly more subdued but achieve a similar effect.
@@Daniel_Zalman I will play with the light and see. My podcast preview video is especially upsetting color wise, so this is something I’ve been thinking about
@@benlawdy it’s a process. I don’t know much about video. I’m into photography, as a hobby, so I read books and listen to lectures, occasionally, on composition, etc. In reality, as with most fields, theoretical knowledge helps, but you learn more from doing and experimenting. I thought that Garrick was lit very well. The colors were very natural.
Wonderful. But I thought it was funny when, talking about the third finger, he plays the example using his fifth finger on the g in the second measure that's marked 3 in the score.
Really great stuff. Thanks. When I was in high school, music appreciation was something that was offered and pretty much every student had to take. At minimum, it opened our eyes to theclassics. And I’ll bet all those grown up children today, at least at some level, have an appreciation. Even though I studied pop and enjoyed the great American songbook the most, as well as the rock ‘n’ roll of my era, my appreciation for Chopin and so many others is ingrained. Not sure how the Chopin elite feel about Liberace, but I was, and still am, a monster. I’m very appreciative that he brought Chopin to the masses television show as well as his concerts.
Only the German edition has this B major at the end. They loved editing Chopin's texts. What other B major could there be after such a dramatic recitative? It would sound ridiculous
@@brianbernstein3826 Ah, then that’s my fault for using a score with an editor’s error. Chopin wrote B minor. Garrick was playing from memory, and he knows it.
@@benlawdy this is really drawing my interest now! I've only ever heard B major end this piece. Just searched this nocturne on youtube and Rubinstein came right up, with a B major at the end of it :)
The jazz practice of "bending" notes should be mentioned here...I've never heard a classical pianist even come close to doing this. An example might be a real jazz player "bending" the pitch from an F up to a G: he would play the F loudly...then the F# only at mp and the final, main, "target" note G at only a whisper. It's that decay that simulates a voice or guitar string bending from the attack to the final note. Classical players keep playing all three notes the same volume, as if they were grace notes from Mozart or something. The great irony of music is that Europeans made an artificial, stylized artifact out of the human voice and jazz players made European artifacts...ie: instruments, into a human voice. It's a nightmare hearing a classical player trying out jazz! I wonder if these button pushers could even fake "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
@@happyfunguy01 Oh yesss....he was an authentic genius...fundamentally inspired by jazz, not the Euro masters. I played and posted several of his things here on YT.
