Friedman plays Chopin Etudes 

Friedmann studied all the works of Chopin , Liszt, Schumann, edited them with his fingerings. He composed a lot, lovely works. He was the pupil of Leschetitzky in vienna who also formed famous musicians in russia later. w Which lead us to those fabulous musicians Maria Yudina and Vladimir Sofronitzky !!!!

"Cortot, Lhevinne, Friedman, Hoffman, Moisewitsch" I agree with J Grainger they were wonderful and to listen to them after all those dry and correct pianists of the 50s is to enter a magical world. Sheer poetry.

"Friedman is the badass" excellent choice of words

He makes the piano roar like a lion in the revolutionary etude, in op. 10 no. 7 plays with such speed he makes tremelo out of 3rds and 6ths like a Hammond organ. Paganini/Liszt/Busoni "La Campanella" he practically rips the piano in half on his descending scales. His fluidity, technique, and musical imagination are simply the best. There is no pianist I have heard other than Rachmaninoff himself who can even come close.

임윤찬의 플레이 리스트에 있는 피아니스트여서 찾아왔습니다 영감을 많이 받은 피아니스트라고 합니다. 속주이긴 한데 대단한 열정이 느껴집니다. 아마 임윤찬이 영향을 받은 느낌이 듭니다.

Darn impressive piano playing! Virtuosity allied to musicality doesn't get much better than this. Thanks for posting.

I'm not a pianist, but I get the feeling that Friedman has completely mastered Chopin and is holding up his musical phrases and showing them to us from different angles. I think he has gotten into Chopinn's head. I could listen to this guy all day.

He isnt afraid of breaking the rules to make the music alive!

Thanks for sharing this! It's so much fun to hear Friedman's playing. I also always loved his Invitation to the Dance recording.

"Badass" is a euphonism, but I can't come up with a better (or, at least, cleaner) description just yet. So "badass" will do, until I can.

Stunning. Friedman was a giant!

His fluency and speed are unhindered by flesh, bone and muscle.

A wonderful pianist, one of my all time favorites!

The fluidity is beyond words. Pity he did not record all 24 Etudes.

it is unbelievable!

Marvelous!

Op. 10 No. 7 and No. 12 are unparalleled performances. It is as if an alien being with 8 fingers on each hand was playing them. He dispenses with dotted eighth-sixteenth figure in the RH, makes them eighth notes. I haven't heard anyone come up to this level of playing Chopin.

Amazing!

10/7 unbelievable , and 10/12 ordinarily so boring (excuse this blasphema...) here an unmatched dramatico . Thank you so much Mr. Friedman , you make the modern pianists completely unnecessary !

Wow. He is as good as Lhevinne. Now I begin to understand the Friedman mystique.

This is very fine pianism.

I find his account of op.10, no.12 commonly known as the Revolutionary most exciting. It surges and ebbs like a great oceanic storm. Also the R.H. double notes of the earlier C major etude are executed with nonchalant ease, not to mention the famous G sharp minor in thirds. Friedman represents a lost golden age of subtle and imaginative pianism. Yes of course there are instances in his performance that many of todays observers would find indulgent, even iconoclastic. The point is such playing should be assessed and evaluated within the cultural context of the times.

I cried from the first piece...

That aint Chopin . The page could never mean the music that Friedman here on his own makes . It's revelatory, magical , incredible playing ! He is as titanic , meaningful ,almost as energetic as Gilels or Horowitz . It's totally Freidman and what a musical personality and the creativity of what he says is unbelievable and surprising .Listen to the right hand become a character all of its own more enigmatic than the right hand in the Revolutionary etude . The etude in thirds is another planet even compared to Lhevinne -It CAn Notbe compared it is doing something completely different . Little-big idea tone poems Freidman makes . Maybe the Mazurkas will surprise me now that I have the ears to really hear him . I bought the Freidman in the Phillips Greats but didn't have the ability to really hear him as I donow .

Actually now improvements are being made, people are starting to play in the style and use effects that were thought to be long gone, Benjamin Grosvenor for example, I think a lot can be learnt from these players of the early 20th century, cortot, lhevinne, friedman, hoffmann, moiseiwitsch, and even up to Horowitz and arthur rubinstein

The finest

This Chopin is too alive for the sickroom and makes us believe the mimic and caricaturist had a sense of humor. If you come to love Friedman find his favorite pupil on YT, Ignaz Tiegerman.

what an artist! - I would have loved to sit in on a Leschetizky class

Good grief!! I meant "euphemism". It's after 7AM, I've been up all night, and I really need to go to bed-- which is why I can't think of a better word. Sorry 'bout that. So, yeah, what the hell, Friedman's a badass. G'night.

As I'm struggling at this moment to get the Revolutionary even into triple-digit tempos, I just have to say: Holy crap! That's all I got, holy crap.

Did you then understand it...back then...?

Profoundity of nonsensical ignorance and shallow troll...one of your best post punishment PG rated ones!

welcome to windows!

He is badass can't agree more. Yeah well some might not like hsi tempo, who cares. Every man/woman their taste.

神乎其神的演奏。。。。

Grosvenor definitely resembles some of the early master like Hofmann in terms of color and harmony construction. That Ravel Gaspard and Chopin scherzi CD was incredibly impressive. I have high hopes for him.

"nugget" likely underestimates its size.

+ 1.000

These recordings remain FABULOUS!! Only Opus 25 N° 6 is of less high quality than the other 4. Geert Dehoux, pianist.

There are a lot of comparatives and superlatives here, but no one actually tries to qualify what they mean by "better" or "best" and it seems to me that what they actually mean is "faster" and "fastest". Firedman's op. 10/7 is certainly faster than I've ever heard it, but is the music meaningful at this speed? Not to my ears. The melodic lines (and there are several) can't sing; they just flash by like a landscape seen from a TGV. In p. 10/5, too, Friedman seems bent on setting a world speed record, ignoring - like every other pianist I've ever heard play this piece, with the possible exception of Horowitz (see below) - the fact that the closing octaves are also written in triplets, not duplets, which cannot possibly be played a tempo if the rest of the piece is played prestissimo; with the result that the piece ends on an upbeat!? Only Horowitz gets near playing them as triplets by taking the rest of the piece much more slowly, which is surely what Chopin intended; otherwise, he'd have written the octaves in duplets, wouldn't he? Anyway, fascinating to hear these recordings. Thanks for posting.

*face palm*

Friedman is surely impressive and I have deep respect for his playing and his musical perceptions but sometimes I wish you would slow down a bit and let the melody shine FORTH

10/7 and 10/12 are freaky. I guess he gives you an idea of what Liszt must have sounded like. I still like Horowitz better for his musical insights. It would be nice to here Friedman recorded in a more modern studio without all the hiss.

Sans doute ça pourrait passer au concert mais dans un enregistrement ça sonne trop nevrotique. Juste le defaut contraire de la plus part des pianistes modernes.

I don't how he can play the first 3 Etudes at these tempi. He always plays the figure in bar 2 (etc>) of the Cm Revolutionary like eight notes instead of dotted eight and sixteenth. I like Lheviine better on the third etude and there does not seem to be that much of Lhevinne available. I Lhevinne's wife Roseanna and her sister. They paid a lot dues at Jews in Old Europe.

Yikes!

What a moronic comment! Thanks for the nugget of stupidity.

Incredible things. Panache,stylishly but the ugly outsized almost Hofmann lionspaw sfz are bad judgments. I think we hsvr better minds better training and technique is down to a science now. Too msny people resd HaroldSch book and dont really know how to listen. Trained pianists know ehat is and wh a t is not hsppeningbhere. Frederic Chiu pl a ys these better thsn anyone . Yeah Pollini is incredible but...

This is so quirky. Thank God this style of playing has vanished.