I just went on Spotify because your review had me really intrigued... and also because I kind of couldn't believe that it was really THAT bad. Boy, was I wrong. Didn't make it beyond the first movement, but that was one hell of a lot of fun. Like, watching a horror B-movie at three in the morning when high on acid fun. It's the musical equivalent of what you get when you throw everything available at a salad bar together in one bowl. Oh, here's an anchovy... it doesn't go together at all with the raisin, but how weirdly interesting... that was a dried tomato, and here comes a pickle... maybe I shouldn't have mixed all five dressings together. It is a shapeless hot mess from start to finish. Nothing ever makes any sense. A cascade of sonic happenings that arrive out of nowhere and disappear in a second, without leading anywhere. I have never been the greatest fan of Tharaud and his mostly icy precision pianism... but this is from another planet. A Ravel party disc if ever there was one.
I saw him doing the Ravel concerto in Kyoto, a bizarre tragedy in motion. He seemed to be doing some weird accents on the piano and the orchestra seemed to have a lot of trouble finding out when to come in and out… Japan has a splendid classical scene but this seemed like a piece they forgot to rehearse.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Maybe they rehearsed it and got used to the weird things he was doing but then he did a different set of weird things in the performance ...
"Misplaced Chunk Kunk." That so totally needs to be the name of something, maybe a super chic place in Williamsburg where they serve Dim Sum crossed with Ethiopian stews? IDK? I worship your videos, Dave, thanks again for another hilarious and brilliant review!
Maybe I should listen to this, to hear for myself. . . I have a hunch that since I adore Alicia de la Rocha's recording of NIGHTS IN THE GARDENS OF SPAIN from the early eighties, I would probably not get to the end of the first movement.
The misplaced chunk hunk is hilarious! Something similar happened 20 or more years ago with a CD called The Puccini Experience released by the Royal Opera House in the UK. They featured the end of Act I of Turandot, and by mistake edited out one of the five orchestral “Ta-daa”s that end the act. Subsequent digital releases have reinstated it, but the original CD is a doozie!
How did they accidentally edit out a bar in the middle?! I remember a Schickele Mix where he told the story of a major label recording of Tristan und Isolde that was issued missing the first four bars of the Prelude! It probably happened in rewinding the tape. He added that if you listen very carefully during the silence, you can hear the sound of the recording engineer's head rolling down the corridor.
Sills' recording of Lucia di Lammermoor conducted by Schippers on Westminster is uncut--except they left out 17 bars of the orchestral introduction, which is always played and must have been recorded.
Tiberghien and Roth do the same, both recordings are based on the new critical edition of the score. As you may know, Durand never applied Ravel’s corrections to the printed proofs. Until now, some of these corrections were known through his correspondence with Ansermet. Maybe it’s advisable getting some information before thinking that such musicians, either you appreciate them or not, are dumbs.
Ravel the Merciless. The adagio assai might not look terribly difficult, but it's like a Mozart aria: the tiniest mistake can ruin the magic. "well, one of the tchung-kungs is missing. yes, they've missplaced a tchung-kung" :)))) loved it.
My university piano teacher of many years ago loved playing Ravel. He said the slow movement to the Concerto is notoriously difficult to memorize. The right-hand scales and filigree in the return of the melody follow no consistent pattern.
It was in fact a movement that costed Ravel a lot of work. "It near killed me!". The effort and pain must have been titanic, for Ravel to make such an statement.
Once Tharaud came to Amsterdam to perform Bach solo. He chose to use a Steinway and I think the pedal got stuck after the first few notes. The performance drowned in resonance that seperate notes were not to be distinguished. I left a the intermission, my ears could not take it anymore. This fog of sound that hung in the main hall had become smog.
Your noting of a missing bar in the G major concerto reminds me of something I went through with the Japanese re-issue of Munch's 1961 Daphnis & Chloe: Where the LP side flip occured at the start of the "War Dance" they cut out TWO bars!!! I had so wanted and waited for this release, as I never cared for the 1955 "binaural" recording, then when I finally got a friend to track it down in Japan for me, I was so disappointed... almost angry at them NOT checking the score and thinking the first 2 bars of LP side B were a repeat of the last 2 bars of side A!
Speaking of editing cock-ups, there is an extra bar at the end of Bernstein's Sony recording of Billy the Kid - I kid you not! 9 repeated bars instead of 8. Never fixed.
Many years ago I listened Tharaud at Barcelona (I think it was a Bach program). I was disappointed, didn't like him, he was boring, non-engaging, not precise, full of mistakes, strange phrasing, completely out of place (I would even say non-studied). After that, may be because I was biased because of that concert, never liked his recordings. May be he is a very good pianist, but I get him on my no-no-list.
