"The Rach project" : Valentina Lisitsa LSO / Michael Francis. Recording of complete concerti of Rachmaninov starting with # 1 and #2 in Sept. London, Abbey Rd Studios.
TimshawkTX KSA Seguro que ella es la Número Uno! Aunque hay otras excelentes Pianistas. Martha Argerich, Yuja Wang, H Grimaud, HJ LIM, Khatia Buniatishvili, Natalie Schwamova, La otra Valentina: Igoshina, Anna fedorova, Urska Babic, No en ese orden, sino lo escribo según las voy recordando. Si bien es cierto que omití otras por culpa de mi mala memoria. Las amo a TODAS!!!
This Lady has strong hands, her left hand is amazing and capable to push hard on low notes if necessary. But her most remarkable gift is the incredible speed and coordination between fingers, i have seen many other pianists in Rac still she impress me, the stunning naturalness and apparent lack of fatigue remember me Martha Argerich.....another gift of God.
Valentina, you can't imagine how much I wanted to hear this with no orchestra. I wanted to create an exclusive bond between my head and the piano solo. Now I can enjoy this concerto in a full new level of complicity. I was in my car saying who the hell is playing? It's magnificent! And then of course, Valentina, aaahhh, what a wonderful way to start my morning. You are my heroine( no the drug, but same effect).
She usually practices 6 hours a day BEAR MINIMUM. Usually 10 to 12 hours a day. She starts around 9pm and ends around 3am. She puts her kids to be and her husband goes to bed. Then she goes into a sound controlled room they made to practice. (I saw it on a documentary of her on you tube - I forget where) Really cool stuff. !!!!
@studentoftheword I agree. You find your gift- we all have at least one-then spend time fine tuning it like a kid learning how to play baseball with his father 👍🏻
Valentina's galvanic performance of the 2nd with orchestra still unjustly misses the first page of results on RU-vid (where one sees TWO separate performances by Khatia sitting there) So much for a fair ordering system. Not many know that Valentina mortgaged her house in South Carolina....when she lived there, she now lives in Paris...in order to finance the Rachmaninoff Project of recording all 5 of the Rachmaninoff works for piano/orchestra with the London Phil. Such dedication to a composer is unknown today. I can only admire her bravery, her artistry...and, let's get a little shallow here, her beauty. :-)
This feels so intimate. Like you are in your night clothes. You tried to sleep but you couldn't. Something heavy was pressing on your mind. Then you got up to play this concerto to calm your soul.
Yeha Marin That is so true! You can fill in the orchestra in your head while you listen to her play solo. Plus there are so many fine nuances in the piano part that tend to be drowned out a bit when playing with orchestra. You can hear every detail of the piano part in this recording. It's amazing.
Notice how Lisitsa tilts her hand sideways to use her entire 5th finger to get the most out of the bass in the opening while remaining completely relaxed. I aspire to be this relaxed when I play, it’s an art form in itself!
❤❤❤ Валентина, Вы возвели на такую высоту музыку Сергея Васильевича Рахманинова, что даже партия фортепиано без оркестра стала самодостаточной в Вашем исполнении! Браво!!! 🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤
takes notes kids: relaxed hands. all the way through the piece. it is so important to play relaxed. she doesnt tense up almost at all to play a accented note, she shifts the weight of her hand, if you need more, shift your body weight into the keyboard
Prochy you can’t play with such relaxed hands if you don’t have incredible finger strength because your fingers will “slip” and produce an uneven tone. For starters, relaxed wrists and then you need to practice a lot of technique. And most important thing should be to keep fingers curled and tone production even.
Prochy - If you’re hands and arms etc were completely relaxed you wouldn’t be able to even play the piano. Tension is needed to play the piano. But that is often avoided because tension has become a bit of a pejorative amongst pianists. Only unnecessary tension should be eliminated. And furthermore, reacting to a comment in this thread, finger strength does not exist. There are no muscles in the fingers. The only thing that allows you to raise fingers is the tendons in your arm. You don’t need to improve these tendons. In order to get good technique you only need to learn how to use the tendons in the most efficient way possible.
You know it’s good music when you can hear the orchestra in your head. Rachmaninoff really put the effort into the piano as well as the orchestra. Fantastic composer!
Z0LSTICE Well it really comes down to whether or not you think the artist has the definitive, final say on his or her work. I don't think so, but I take it you do? Regarding tempo, though, it's mostly just a personal feeling I have that I feel like I've noticed a lot.
Leo T I'd say there is room for creativity in different interpretations, but I think the music should still be respected. The thing is that we don't know how most classical music was intended to sound since its composers are dead, but since we have the actual recording of the composer playing his own work, there is less interpretation that I find acceptable. I know each person plays a piece differently, but I think we should try to mimic the playing of the composer since that is the way they originally thought about it in their mind.
CLASSICAL KARAOKE !! I just hummed the entire orchestral part !! :-) This is actually superb !!! Valentina is a body occupied by an old old old soul ...here again...doing what her spirit does best. Life is college. Enduring the latest course she's on.
Anytime I need inspiration, this is where I go. I cannot get enough of this beautiful orchestraless iteration of a Rachmanninov great. ValentinaLisitsa, thank you so much. :)
Maybe because I have listened to this concerto so many times that I have got it in my head. But does anyone else hear the phantom strings playing for the melody between 0:30 - 1:30? Or did Rachmaninoff somehow cleverly crafted those notes in the piano? Especially the build up to 1:00.
I could also hear the sonority of the strings section, at 1:03. I think that because this passage is very fast, there is no time for the notes to decay due to the dizzying speed with which they are played. This resonance maintained at maximum volume creates this impressive illusion of strings. It is no wonder that these tail pianos are called orchestral. The sound of Steinway is simply impressive. I think that this effect is due to the fact that the sound of the steinway is darker and with medium and treble more full. I think that this effect would hardly be achieved in a Bösendorfer due to its crystalline and sparkling tone, where the bass, mid and treble have definite and clear sonority.
He must've experimented all his life with the voices. Maybe when he was younger, he realised that playing with such speed and accuracy gave the listener an illusion of multiple voices (violin, orchestra) on the piano
*1:02** Я прям физически слышу партию струнных. Или это из-за того, что много раз прослушивал этот концерт и в памяти остались чёткие музыкальные образы этого произведения, или так построена гармония, что появляются яркие звуковые ассоциации с тягучим матовым тембральным окрасом струнных.*
I’m learning this now. This is absolutely brilliant. Thank you for this. I’m on the first movement and using it as a reference. I feel privileged to have a perfect interpretation from you. Valentina the Queen.
Definitely and the fact that you can hear only the piano makes it so much easier to reference when learning compared to using other recordings with the orchestra in the background
+psirus89 That's why sometimes, I think if I had to chose, I'd rather be blind than deaf (but for daily lif blindness will most likely be more limiting).
This part is just undescribable...it gives me something like nostalgia or desire...I love it! I play it much slower than she does, but her tempo of that passage fits very well with the sound of the piano. Edit: Well, 10 months later, the world has changed for me a lot, I cried, I was happy...what remained, is my admiration of this amazing section!
Valentina is the best of the best!! Her piano skills are simply superb. She just glides over those keys, which of course is the way it should be done. She really is perfection. I could listen to her play hours on end. She is amazing and along with that has a wonderful personality and demeanor with her students. There are other fine pianists out there, but to me, Valentina is absolutely #1 in the world. Keep entertaining us Valentina!! I wish I could hear you play in person somewhere, some time, perhaps New York City when COVID-19 is gone for good!! FANTASTIC!!! BRILLIANT!!
I just love the piano. This piece is one of my classical favorites. Although I don't play the piano. I play the violin. I wished I learned how to play the piano. Well there is still time to learn how to play it.
Per me sei la più grande pianista a livello mondiale ! Per tecnica , sensibilità e molto altro che ci fai leggere tra le righe …tutto un mondo che appartiene al nostro interiore ….alla nostra anima ! Un’ ICONA del pianoforte !!!
Valentina does these solo performances, unlike any other professional artist out there, because she just absolutely loves to play piano. She does it, I'm sure, for the sheer joy of creating beautiful music for the listener without thought of any "reward". That's what makes her a great humanitarian as well as a great pianist.
Looking at your fingers flying, I felt I was taking a trip to an exotic world. So enchanting. You are really good at letting the piano SOUND. Beautiful tones. Thank you.
3:34 onwards gives me a very warm feeling. It kind of resembles the end of a sad story, with someone hugging me and then whispering very gently: "It will all be alright".
She usually practices 6 hours a day BEAR MINIMUM. Usually 10 to 12 hours a day. She starts around 9pm and ends around 3am. She puts her kids to be and her husband goes to bed. Then she goes into a sound controlled room they made to practice. (I saw it on a documentary of her on you tube - I forget where) Really cool stuff. !!!!
I’ve learned this by heart until 3:00 in. But the more I play it, the more I appreciate this video. Holy moly this is so fast and clean and insanely well played…
Valentina, thank you so much for your performance last night! I had a wonderful time listening to your outstanding interpretation of this timeless piece! I hope to have an opportunity to listen to you again soon. Best wishes.
+chunhaylee I feel like the bass is actually a bit too much? For this solo performance I felt like she was banging on that lowest F. But I guess if she was playing with the orchestra it would be what they needed to properly hear the piano part. Otherwise, beautifully done. :)
She usually practices 6 hours a day BEAR MINIMUM. Usually 10 to 12 hours a day. She starts around 9pm and ends around 3am. She puts her kids to be and her husband goes to bed. Then she goes into a sound controlled room they made to practice. (I saw it on a documentary of her on you tube - I forget where) Really cool stuff. !!!!
@@studentoftheword6115 the fact that she has a normal family and she’s able to maintain a family life while being this good at something, it shows the amount of dedication and passion she has for music
This is incredible. There are so many stories told within this piece. I frequently listen to it while I’m working and notice that my thought pattern changes moods as the piece progresses. And as always, Valentina plays it masterfully.
Thank you for this remarkable performance without the orchestra which can drag you down. You have found the heart and soul of this great composer. I am deeply moved and in tears. Thank You! Thank You!
Some people can make each note be heard very clearly but Lisitsa is an EXPERT when it comes to co troll over the multiple lines of a piece. Sometimes I swear the lower voices of each string of chords is singing!!! Her voicing is actual perfection, exquisite!
It's really cool, you don't really appreciate how the who sides complement each other until you listen to just the piano by itself. Makes me appreciate Rach even more.
Valentina is the greatest living interpreter of Rachmaninoff's Concerto's. Nobody else even comes close. The 130 dislikes are those that have gotten used to hearing it played incorrectly, as 90% of the competition does, with new 2nd rate performances appearing almost every month.
I really like the moment at 1:42 and the ending at 8:43 is so epic, reminds me of Pirates Of The Caribbean... but the whole peace is just gorgeous. Rachmaninoff was such a genius.
Wow! Amazing!! Without orchestra, all the rich piano nuances come thru so clear. it's a testament to Rachman's writing style and great performance by Valentina. Russian soul thru and thru!
First movement of this is my absolute favorite composition, ever. It contains so much emotion, turmoil, love, and held together with such clarity. It is both personal and worldly at the same time. It's my favorite soundtrack to politically uncertain times, as well as times where I am putting the pieces together for myself. And the second movement is so rewarding after this one.
No hay obra que pase por las manos de Lisitsa sin ser bendecida por su musicalidad. Estas versiones sin orquesta son un verdadero referente para músicos y melómanos.
I just love it when someone plays a concerto with just the intended instrument alone or accompanied with just a piano playing the orchestral parts. That way i get to hear the full instrument's intentions. Very often a lot of the instrument's parts are simply drowned out when the orchestra starts playing full blast.
Es pura magia poder escuchar este concierto de piano sin la orquesta. Cuantos detalles escritos magistralmente por el maestro Rachmaninoff se pueden percibir aquí.
OMG, this is an outstanding performance. Valentina shows the best of her technique, turning the piano into an instrument of infinite shades! I can't help but hear the orchestra in the background...
This give me chills down my spine. No one made the piano sound like Rachmaninoff and I'm so glad he's been reincarnated in Valentina. No one plays his music better than she, at least in modern times.
I had forgotten how much I love watching her play...……. until I watched this again. I thought I was pretty good because I can play fantasia impromptu, until I watched this. That you Valentina, I needed that dose of humility. and I reacieved it with a beautiful piece.