Nelson Freire plays the Mendelssohn Variations Serieuses, Op. 54 as the opening work for his recital at the 1982 University of Maryland Piano Festival and Competition.
Technique presque infaillible ...musicalité d'un grand ...quel talent dans ces variations si difficiles...ce concert a déjà plus de 30 ans ,il était en outre très bien enregistré ,merci à RB Prior.
Wow! A SUPERB performance! While he has the technique for it, he has put his polished technique totally at the service of his deeply thought out and deeply felt interpretation of these immortal variations. Thank you for uploading this great performance to you tube.
Remarkable.......a great performance..........it's not Horowitz...it's not Richter.......it is Nelson Freire, and they are all great each in its own way!
A brilliant performance, one that is marred, however, by frequent gratuitous dynamic shifts and tempo changes. Freire tends to treat this piece as though it were by Chopin. As for your comment about what you call the "ending", I am not sure what you mean. Are you referring to the presto section or to the final five-and-a-half measures? Freire plays these latter in exactly the same manner as all other pianists I have heard - Brendel and Perahia, for example, both of whom excel in this piece.
This is an excellent performance. However, the best version ever of this piece is, IMHO, given by Horowitz. Freire comes close. But Horowitz's version remains unsurpassed. In fact, I can clearly hear in Freire's interpretation that he was quite familiar with Horowitz's account of this piece.
