Pianophilia

There's a lot of his Chopin, and some other things, on Spotify. The higher quality streaming that comes with a subscription is fine IMHO.

Frederic CHOPIN
Nocturnes (Part B) edited by Stefan Askenase

Alfor, the 2nd volume of the Nocturnes is wonderfully informative, and there are some interesting end notes not to be missed. Now I'm frantically scrambling to find the Cortot editions to compare notes. Alas in my library, they seem NOT to be filed under "C".

I must confess that I had thought you had miss-spelling and thought you meant (Vladimir Askenazy) and he is not one of my favorite pianists and so did not pay much attention.

Now Askenase is quite original, highly musical and without any extraneous exaggerations which might characterize one of Horowitz's renditions of the Op.53 Polonaise, for instance. I find Askenase's interpretation of this war-horse to be a revelation with his delicious, sensuous rubato and his minimalist pedaling. For some reason, my eyesight likely, I cannot find the other polonaise on your site, so I'll try with clearer vision on the morrow.

fleubis wrote:...I cannot find the other polonaise on your site, so I'll try with clearer vision on the morrow.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=439&p=8705&hilit=askenase#p8705

To Frank

Aleksander MICHALOWSKI
Valse brilliante op. 13

Dear Alfred,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful gift of this wonderful Michalowski Valse!!! This is a composer I truly adore, and especially love to play because his music fits so graciously under the fingers. What a great addition to the library of his music which you posted for us back in October! Michalowski is just outstanding, and I will never be able to understand how his music has fallen into such complete obscurity.

On a somewhat related note regarding how well music "fits" under the fingers while playing, have you noticed that so many compositions by composers such as Moszkowski are composed in the key of E major? I've always thought that the reasoning behind this is that the E major scale fits the human hand so perfectly. I.e., if the thumb is placed on E and the 5th finger on B, the natural curvature of the hand fits the sharp notes in between ideally. Just an aside, as I always marvel at the lost art of composing piano music which compliments the performer as well as the ear. In this area Michalowski is certainly one of the great genius composers for piano, imho!

Also I want to sincerely thank you for your recent outstanding postings of Poulenc (such beautiful scans, easy on my old eyes!) And I add my thanks to the many others who have seen and appreciated the authoratative volume of Chopin Nocturnes by Askenase. I was totally unaware of this edition, and while I need to devote many more hours to study it thoroughly it is very apparent that we have here a completely refreshening approach to the Nocturnes. I second all of dear fleubis' comments relative to the heavy-handed 19th century Chopin editions, and how this edition just glows in comparison. I will re-work my favorites of the Nocturnes following strictly Askenase's indications for pedalling, fingering and dynamics.

As always, my dear friend, you spread so much joy with your postings! It is the greatest honor to receive these incredible daily contributions to our library of the finest piano music. As many times in the past I'm at a loss to fully express my appreciation in English. Drawing from my German parentage, the word "Ausgezeichnet" is the only one I find appropriate!

With the greatest thanks and best wishes always,

Frank

Dear Frank,

thank you for your nice and very enjoyable comment. You are always welcome and you are
one of the reasons that - for a while at least - I will try to stick to my daily routine of posting.

warmest regards

alfor

Aleksander MICHALOWSKI
Prélude op. 14Menuet op. 15

Dear Alfred,

I must echo Frank's enthusiasm for the Michalowski. I have only just gotten to his Valse today, and being not much a fan of that genre, was not in a great hurry to play it. But by now, I should know that

a) If it's Michalowski, it's going to be a mighty good piece
b) If Alfor posts it, it's not going to be just another Valse.

So there was yet another great surprise in front of me when I played it. And indeed, Frank is so right, like all Michalowski's pieces, it all fits easily under the hand, is highly pianistic and amazingly effective. Since your giant October postings of his works, I've also become a big fan. Just how can music like this be ignored?--I just don't understand it!

(And as a side note for Frank, I must say that I've never considered E Major as being especially hand friendly, but do grasp his point, but from my viewpoint, the easiest key to play in is D flat Major and the hardest is C Major--IMHO)

For all Askenase fans out there, you should know that there is an amazing (but alarmingly priced) box set available from Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/7b5gleq
and some of the reviewers comments of this set are quite insightful.

Alfred, for many of us, your daily postings are a major highlight of our day, and I think the silent majority would agree with that sentiment.

fleubis

fleubis wrote:
For all Askenase fans out there, you should know that there is an amazing (but alarmingly priced) box set available from Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/7b5gleq
and some of the reviewers comments of this set are quite insightful.

Dear all,

most of these recordings you can also find here: http://classical-music-online.net/ looking for Ashkenazy, Stephan (sic!) This website is on of the reasons, why I don't find much time for scanning at the moment. Very much interesting stuff to listen and download!

Happy 2012!!

Paul

Thank you for the link, dear Paul!

Seems to be a russian site (the russians have one advantage: they do not know the word "copyright" !)

audio:
So I have only to add some Chopin from Askenase's 1971 stereo recording (good, but not as impressive as his mono recordings.)
http://www.mediafire.com/?hdoh2gz70q5r173