Riascolto con piacere e tutte le volte vien fuori aspetti molto interessante sia dalla parte pianistica che orchestrale.Il pianista è formidabile,esecuzione magistrale anche dalla parte orchestrale!
Not a single pianist on Earth's technique comes even close in this piece. Everyone is struggling through (rightfully so). For Hamelin, it's just business as usual.
hey, there, whoever can perform this is in an exalted league. read the review today in LA Times. Fluxus, Harry Partch, John Cage, Milhaud dozens of names relating to Busoni. what a Giant!!!!! DG
Listening to Busoni is like indulging in a musical pig-out. Sometimes you're just in the mood for music that re-arranges your soul with impolite but pure unadulterated power.
5:16 One of the greatest piano entrances ever, in my opinion! This is up there with the piano's entrance in Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. Just unabashedly, unapologetically grand!!! 😍😍
I find it woefully amusing that what is typically considered the easiest/simplest key (C major) has given birth to what is quite possibly the grandest and most difficult piano concerto ever performed.
Starting from 53:10 to 53:25 - 15 seconds of madness! What a challenge to human speed limit.... I am always stunned by watching this again, again and again.... I love Hamelin, I love Busoni!!
What is your point here? Chopin etudes and a 15 second spasm of octaves are two completely different subject matters. You're telling me you watched that thinking, "pooh, Chopin etudes are more difficult," with no thought given to the tremendous speed, strength, and endurance required for a mere 15 seconds of playing? Chopin etudes are more difficult in other ways but in what way are they relevant? Nobody claimed that this section was impossible.
It's a shame the recording quality isn't very good. Hamelin was probably shaking the walls of Sibelius Hall with that thundering entrance. A true grand master of the piano. Also, I can see why this piece isn't popular - it has a few great parts, but the whole thing is so unbelievably difficult for both orchestra and pianist, and all that without very many melodic rewards (which are plentiful in, e.g., Rachmaninov's concerti). I still love this recording though.
I am well stricken in years and yet I have only discovered this piece today. It proves there is always something new to experience in life. Blessings and peace to everyone of you
About 50 years or so. Ogdon did it, but this sounds better; I managed to sit through the whole thing in one go. You need a super memory. Let us not forget the magnificent piano technician who prepared this piano.
Most casual listeners aren't prepared to deal with such a large, expansive, complex work with so many dimensions. The piano part is ferociously difficult, but so are many other concertos. This is a masterpiece in the first degree.
some reasons why i dislike this concerto is because most of the concerto sounds like a build up to nowhere, most of the piano part is completely useless and the chorale at the end adds absolutely nothing to the piece
My piano teacher, Isador Epstein, ninety-one when I went to him for lessons back in the '70's, had studied under Busoni. He put me straight onto Czerny studies.
So proud of my fellow Canadian Marc-Andre Hamelin for tackling and superb playing of this lengthy and complex concerto by Busoni. Nothing is left out of this work -- the choir in the 5th movement adds a lot of emotion to the composition. No mention is made of the excellent orchestra and conductor. Do I presume it's the Lahti Symphony Orchestra? Sibelius Hall opened in 2000; one year before this performance.
How can the audience keep from leaping to its feet after such a magnificent performance of such an astoundingly brilliant work of art? Takes my breath away every time.
Because they are Finns! Nordic peoples are not given to showy behaviour and the audience will have been aware that the occasion was being filmed, possibly for video release.
@@stephenhall3515 I second that... and moreover .. it is sooo frick'n cold in Finland most of the time, plus if it is in the winter, it never gets light... so all in all, the public may just be stuck in the hibernation cycle, and applauding like they did! is all they can muster. Just trying to defend them, lol!
Me too. I don't know what the others are hearing. Quite possibly the most generous piece of music ever composed, a miracle of integration of diverse musical ideas.
Un des plus brillant pianiste de notre temps MA Hamelin , que j’ai eu la joie d’entendre en concert à Paris, dans le monumental concerto de piano de Busoni avec chœur découvert en concert au TCE il y a de nombreuses années.Superbe diabolique !
The final coda starting at 1:07:40 to the end of the concerto was so flawlessly executed - I don't know if I've seen such perfection and fearlessness in an ending, let alone to something as massive as this. I couldn't help but feel after watching this video for the first time that life is all downhill from here...I can only imagine how it is for those who were there live. I can't imagine someone not having the stamina to watch this whole thing in one sitting - I can't stop watching!
@@epicaunleashed8764 "Better" is very subjective. I was talking about it being the most monumental piano concerto, I think that's just an objective statement. Not my favorite piano concerto, though. :)
I believe Andre Marc Hamelin is as great a pianist as Gilels and possibly even Richter.His vivid imagination, transcendental virtuosity and countless expressive insights place him in the category of Lhevinne, Hofmann, Rubinstein, Godowsky, Rosenthal, Gilels, Richter and even Horowitz, not to mention Serkin and Brendel.Possibly one of the greatest pianists ever.
I have only just recently discovered this piece of music, and I have to be honest, I didn't really like it at first - it was too unrelaxed, too shifty, too unstable. But I've gotten used to it since then, and now I feel like I understand the work a lot more. I think that's all that it takes with this kind of music - the more you expose yourself to it, the more it speaks to you, and the more you can make out what it's trying to tell you. :)
A masterpiece. Seriously worthy of consideration in top 5 piano concertos along with Beethoven 4 and 5, Rach 3, Brahms 2. Best listened to looking up at stars in a clear night sky; the waves of invention and emotion here should be sent across the universe as a representation of humanity.
What dumb, illiterate choices for the top spots -- the ridiculous products that are Beethoven's concerti should be among the greatest ever? Luckily music has much better to offer to the ear
I long hoped that a video of this would appear. The quality of this is pretty decent. Any recording of Marc-André Hamelin is very welcomed! Thank you very much for uploading this.
Hamelin plays with amazing disinvoltura but with equally amazing panache . The complex rhythms of this work make it one of the most challenging in all music are wonderfully performed. At the 33rd minute listen to the the almost Bachian discipline with which Busoni constructs one of the most riveting sequences in the history of music.............What I love most about this concerto is the perfect synthesis of Italianate show and Teutonic orderliness. It is a masterpiece of the first order
I heard yhis concerto msny years ago for the first time and each time i hear it i am stunned by it . What a magnificent piece of music . The pianist must be absolutely shattered when they finish playing it
Gran concerto-sinfonia originale per architettura, virtuosismo, corale, possente, drammatico e sublime. Busoni un genio. Ed eccellenti interpreti tutti.
Quite a few years ago I was able to get a ticket to see/hear Evgeny Kissin in a Carnegie Hall recital. I waited backstage on a long line afterward to meet & greet him (and have him sign a recent CD). I asked him if he might ever perform the Busoni. He answered emphatically "NO!" (quite rudely I thought at the time). I wonder why?
Probably for the same reason that so many other pianists have refused to play the Busoni, and it has nothing to do with an ability to play it. It just comes down to pure snobbery. As I was once told by an amazing, eminent pianist, "It's just not a good piece of music. Why should I waste my time with it when there's so much better repertoire to learn?"
Mark Swed just reviewed this LA Times today. He's the greatest writer ever!!!! what an event for SF ! seems a little bombastic on first hearing for me. You gotta love Busoni vast influence on the culture. A name almost forgotten today. He performed and conducted this at various times. Waiting to see Hamelin play the TUBA!>:? DG
Not only the largest, but also the most beautiful piano concerto ever composed. Note how the piano acts more as a percussion than a melodic instrument. And Mr Hamelin has reached the top of the ladder. (I wonder whether this is the Polytechnic Choir? The brilliance makes me think it's them.)
Probably one of the very best of the Hamelin performances, to be bracketed with that of Gunnar Johansen. Bravura passages come easily to Mr Hamelin's fingers.
A tousend words will never be enough to express the greatness of this Fantastic Masterpiece !!! From now on I think all other piano concertos lays on the shadows of this one.
I can hear somo Prokofiev and Liszt legacy in there. Even some chordal voicings that resemble Rachmaninof's style, but this concert was composed when Rach was not that famous yet. Beautifully written and performed.
Absolutely astounding. I hope "mentor1954" is not mentoring anybody with regard to music or having an open mind to unfamiliar things. Structure abounds in this piece. Themes carry through the entire work. There are melodic and rhythmic motifs that tie the whole thing together. I assure you Mr. Hamelin would not be playing the entire thing securely by memory if there wasn't strong unity within its structure. He actually stands this piece on its ear and plays it like a large piece of chamber music. Astounding playing of a gargantuan piece.
I love this version more than the Hypérion CD one. It is... ballistc, wild, crazy! The Alla Italiana is absolutely bone-crushing. The CD sounds a bit plastic and cautious, as if someone restricts the sheer fury. After listening to this version, my limbs are jittering. Busoni is a monster.
If a chorus is available, why shouldn't the version with chorus be used? I think this is a wonderful piano concerto - "magisterial" might be the word for it. And when you hear the opening piano cadenza with those massive chords encompassing the entire keyboard, and then you come to the E-major opening theme for the chorus much later, and learn that the cadenza was in reality the harmonic foundation for that chorus, you realize what a brilliant masterstroke this transformation is.
I've never heard of Busoni I read somewhere he matched Rubenstein and Liszt's in virtuosity and then i found this. This is a masterwork beyond beleif. pure magic and genius. I'm also gland hamelin is playing this.
I've got very bad taste because a) I love this and b) I especially love the 3rd movement. I used to have a recording of John Ogdon and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing this under the baton of Daniel Revenaugh. It was quite superb. But so is this performance.
Busoni's piano concerto is almost certainly the most difficult piano concerto ever performed, and probably the most difficult piano work up to Sorabji's time. The only Romantic piece that I could imagine matching this in sheer scale and difficulty is Alkan's Concerto for Solo Piano (which Hamelin also does an admirable job with). Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's Symphonies 9 and 7 also do come rather close, as does his transcription of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. As difficult as Rachmaninov and Prokofiev's concertos are, recordings of them are a dime a dozen. Every prodigy and rising virtuoso learns them because they are standard repertoire for competitions. Legends like Ashkenazy, Rubinstein, and Horowitz are the pillars of the piano but none of them had the sheer technique required for Busoni and similar works. Nobody but the transcendental giants can triumph through Alkan and Busoni, and hardly anyone at all plays the Liszt transcriptions.
@@calebhu6383 Also Godowsky-Chopin Etudes are one that level (if you consider playing them all in one sitting) and Liszt S. 137 Douze Grandes Etudes and the S. 140 Paganini Etudes.
@@calebhu6383 I love Scriabin's work but I don't think it surpasses Liszt's (purely technically speaking, in terms of Musicality Scriabin is far superior to anyone else)
Just 9 minutes into the concerto and I'm speechless. My first hearing of this concerto after I googled "the longest piano concerto". After hearing Rachmaninoff"s Piano Concerto #3.
Actually, most amazingly difficult pieces aren't that difficult to memorise, seeing the amount of time one has to spend on each part! The hardest things to remember are things that don't take much work
Really outstanding thanks for uploading this!! Busoni was an incredible innovative composer! Amazing piano concerto played by one of the greatest pianist in the world!!
To Kris Keyes - this is NOT 'modern' music. It is neo-romantic. So, you are saying that modern music should be like music from another period. Well, then it would still not be modern music. It would be a copy of another style from a different period.
This is a wonderful work....I only needed to hear it once and I then purchased the vinyl version of John Ogdon doing this work...and that record has OUTSTANDING sonics to go with this ANGELIC music !
That looks exhausting for the pianist, conductor, orchestra, choir (!), and audience. And Marc-André Hamelin seems to have all 70 minutes memorized. And he barely breaks a sweat. I don't think I'd ever have the stamina to watch all of this, but I'm glad you posted it.
I've owned the John Ogden since 1973 and still love it, although this is a mighty performance as well. In any event, Ogden gave the Busoni PC a great recorded send off. Ogden is reputed to have chain smoked during the entire studio recording session (juggling between the massive chords?). Despite his tragic end (suicide), he was a great pianist for a time, even sharing a prize with Ashkenazy.
So marvellous to revive such glorious piano concertos that demand the most demanding virtuosity to execute, parts of this work leave me aghast as a piano player that seem almost staggering to comprehend how long it would require in months of preparatory practice to play many of the passages, it is very Lisztian in character to me and has those influences taking technicality to an extreme. To think it is C major also
2. In any case, I wouldn't have thought the similarity of thematic material was at all likely to be the reason Busoni made a version without the chorus. I don't know if anything is definitely known about his reasons; but it seems to me a much more likely reason for the version without chorus was simply to provide for occasions when a chorus was not available, to allow the concerto still to be performed in some version.
This is later than most music I care for, being a hopeless Romantic. I found much of it enjoyable, in particular the keyboard work. Definitely not for the shrinking violet at the piano. Is this something I would choose for daily listening? No, but for the occasional listen, I find it quite enjoyable in a caucophonist sort of way.
This concerto will be featured on April 5th 2018 at the Konserthuset in Stockholm, Sweden. The soloist will be Garrick Ohlson, who already recorded that concerto on CD. There are still seats available...
Garrick O manages a depth of sound, a fullness not available to MAH, has a firmer sense of rhythm, and actually has more reliable chops. Throughout his career he must have been poorly managed for the world not to know him better.
@@AndrewRudin Makes me think of Sleepy Joe holding a press conference in the Oval Office and telling reporters he needs to stop for a minute to go relieve himself-and then goes to the room with MAIL on the door.
