Je ne peux écouter Couperin interprété par Sokolov qu'à genoux car il y a quelque chose de divin dans les notes.Les anges du paradis eux-mêmes écoutent stupéfaits !
Sokolov's Couperin stands on its own and apart of whoever else have had played Couperin on keyboard. Trading banalities about his technique is useless. His technique is simply like noone else of living pianists. What is really interesting is how deeply he understood baroque sensibility and went beyond obligatory though amazingly precise and approriate decorations. He did captured that elusive melancholic french spirit that marks french repertoir with mistery and poetry. There is no styles for him - just music. If that music demands a convoluted articulation with clarity, wisdom and tenderness - there you have it. His sublime understanding of the true character of any material he touches is sometimes unnerving. That is why every composer's oevre sounds so different from one another because he does supreme justice to each one. He loves music that much...
it is known as agogic,it is not tempo rubato as we know from later period of romanticism...It is in some way simillar, but...It is very difficult to talk today about musical thoughts of a man from several centuries before us...Music should always bread but not in a manner to be exosted like in many performances today...Music and so called technique ( there is no technique) are inseparable...Who rules tonal world,he rules music,without even knowing he posseses any kind of musical "technique"...There are structural elements like scales,arpegios,double thirds and so on...If they have been practiced in musical manner it will come to developement of propper motion patterns what helps in later studies of true musical peaces,scales should be studied very careful and in musical manner,paralel to geting knowledge of musical form and harmony,otherwise it will bring nothing to the student...
@Dònal Brügge Thing is Couperin is closer or further depending on the listener. To our ears, and musical culture Couperin on piano, played with some rubato, or flexibility in the tempo, may sound closer, while the harpsichord Couperin, with no tempo flexibility, may sound too far away. And perhaps, from a physiological point of view, we, as human beings may enjoy and feel closer musical expressions with some variation and flexibility in the tempo as well as the dynamics. People in Couperin's time didn't have an option, so they had regular dynamics in each key stroke. But perhaps Couperin's intention was more variable and nuanced in that regard. So, we can't really know. And anyway, there really hasn't been much change in our intellectual capacities and sensibility from the times of Couperin, at least according to the evolutionary biologists or anthropologists. (Chomsky remarks this). So perhaps we may not be breaking any style veracity rules anyway.
Extraordinaire Sokolov. Il faut voir ses mains ! Quelle sensibilité. Ces pièces écrites pour le clavecin ne perdent rien de leur couleur sous ses doigts magiques. Spaciba !
An amazing article about Sokolov was in the Spectator written by James Rhodes in March 26 2011.You will found it. Wrote your search engine Greatest living pianist Grigory Sokolov The Spectator.We knowSokolov best he have played here since 1969.All his best concertos in the youtube are with Finnish Radio Symphony concertos like Chopin 2 Brahms 2 Mozart piano concerto 24.Today Sokolov plays only a recital programs.That is why they are important documents
You are quite right. English is only my third language. After listening to this fantastic performance again I change my statement to that it is unlikely that mr Sokolovs achievement is going to be repeated in the foreseeable future. Apart from that I must say that you get in touch with some weird characters on youtube.
G.Sokolov did not go to critics summer cottage.G.Sokolov said to this critic i have a concert in a town Varkaus( a town in Finland a population 27000 people) G.Sokolov said to this critic i have to practice before that concert in Varkaus.His last concert here in Finland The Naantali music festival was a strange one.G.Sokolov was 20 minutes late.Every body in the concert the listeners tought Sokolov was training playing practicing.But Sokolov was late beause the Steinway and the chair a not level
During the 1960s, a musicologist writing in an encyclopedia of music, stated that Couperin's keyboard compositions are useless as piano music. And then came Grigory Sokolov!
The author of Sibelius biography Erik Tawaststjerna was a jury member in the Tchaikovsky piano competion in 1966.Sokolov won thtat one.E.Tawaststjerna wrote a critic it is difficult get G.Sokolov in the food table to eat beause he wants to practice all the time.The other Finnish critic asked very famous musicians to visit his summer cottage to relax eating and drinking and offered them his Sauna( a steam room)All the others did go to the summer cottage to relax but not G.Sokolov
About wanting to investigate the piano and practice Sokolov is like godowsky .Lucky for us he has made very great recordings whereas Godowsky only comes across on his two Schubert recordings the variety of tonal resource in these 2 recordings rivals horowitz .Hofmann thought godowsky had no rivals at all when he came to sound and that was in the era of Rachmaninoff and Moseiwitsch . Sokolov can do anything and say anything at the paino. that he has taken on early French music is a tribute to his sensivities .I must find his Ravel I'm sure he has delvd in Messiaen don't know if we have any recordings ?
actually, i am a native speaker of english, and i think it sounds perfectly ok to say the 'forthcoming future' as that includes the near future and the distant future. perhaps it would be a bit redundant, but redundancies are commonly used to emphasise the significance of a point. and i think gyth001 made a pretty good assessment about the sine qua non brilliance of this performance by el Maestro Sokolov. muchas gracias y saludos desde Tokio.
Richard Jones( born 1700s in England! Johann Caspar Ferninad Fischer! Fischer The Uranle Suite! Both Fischer and Richard Jones are amazing! The Best Concerto is Georg Anton Benda Harpsichord concerto in b Minor! Also Paisiello Piano concerto no 4!!!
Grigory Sokolov have trained praticed 12 hours a day 54 years to get to the top.But he should make records of the big concertos like Mozart 24 Brahms 2 Chopin 2 Saint Saens 2 and so on.Sokolov is the only one who is the level of Rubinstein Richter Gilels of these concertos.Carly Rose Sonenclar gets 18 million hits Sokolov 35o4 hits.I do think that the pop singing competions are as tough as a classical piano competions.Carly Rose Sonenclar!!!! Grigory Sokolov!!!!!
I read somewhere that his last studio recordings date from the late 60's and he has shunned the recording studio ever since. I've had the great privilege of seeing him on three occasions - his yearly concerts at the Palau de la Mùsica in Barcelona are routinely sold out - and he is evidently a true live performer, giving spellbinding performances in which people actually forget to cough. This year he regaled us with 7 encores after a 2h+ concert, and he was apparently running a high fever. There was a tremendous uproar every time he left the stage; the audience would simply not let him leave...
The Steinway and the chair were not 100% position.They have to use a level indicator.Somehow they fixed this problem.They got the Steinway and the chair in a perfect level and position.Then G.Sokolocv started to play and started the concert.I have read a great article from some news paper i do rememberd it know.But i will found and wrote to you back.It was an english.
Don't be cruel, maybe the guy just doesn't have English as his firts language? (maybe he meant 'near future' or something like that...) You, on the other hand, seems to be a funny smart boy. But I bet you play the piano like shit, to be so jealous of somebody praising Sokolov like mr. gyth001 ;)
Grigory Sokolov=THE TITAN OF THE PIANO!! THE GIANT OF THE PIANO!! Grigory Sokolov his Chopin piano concerto no 2! Brahms piano concerto no 2! Mozart piano concerto no 24!! Saint-Saens piano concerto no 2! AFTER Grigory Sokolov played These concertos then All The others PIANISTS ARE REALLY ONLY THE DUST ZEROS!! ALL THE OTHERS PIANISTS=DUST!!!. EMPTY TRASH ART!!
