Astonishing...easily the best I've ever heard this work played. Such fire, yet such control...such abandon yet such awareness of the structural flow from one variation to the next.
Wow. I am blown away. I had goose bumps by listening this performance. Really great and well done. Nice voice leading, big dynamic range, tone volume, emotions, control, agogic... This performance has another dimension. 💪🔥🎶🎵
That's my favorite performance of this, after Pritchard, Gould and Richter. It's nearly perfect, instaed of her rendition of Variation 13. She played it so slow, it sounds like a practice session. Due to the 32nd notes and the marking of "Sempre assai leggiero", it should be played fast and with lightness, like flying staccatos. Not slow and clumbersome, as Larrocha did here. This is my favorite piano piece ever and most pianists don't do it justice, but Larrocha did a good job most of the time.
Variations 5 and 15 are played too fast, Variatios 6, 7, 13, 16 and 17 too slow. Especially her interpretation of Var. 13 drives me crazy. Var. 12 is played SO perfectly powerful and fast, and so should be Var. 13 as well. Larrocha completely kicked me out of the mood and simply ruined the entire piece. You need to put the video's velocity on 1.5 or 1.25 to make her Var. 13 sound bearable. Larrocha should have played Vars. 6, 7, 13, 16 & 17 exactly the way Glenn Gould did it. She was a great pianist, there's no way she wouldn't have managed that. I really don't understand the reason why she didn't. Maybe her persoal "artistic" taste or smth. It would've been better if she had simply done what Mendelssohn intended to be done by the pianist. He didn't write tempo markings and dynamics to be ignored by some ignorant arrogant performer who thinks he's as much as an artist as the composer.
How I despise those who can't accept a different interpretation.. "Should do this, should do that, too fast, too slow, that's wrong, that must be played differently because I know exactly what Mendelssohn would have liked." Some ignorant arrogant commenter who thinks he's as much as an artist as the composer.
@@PianoJFAudioSheetIt's not like if music interpretation was like postmodern philosophy where objectivity doesn't exist. If you study a composer, his entire biography in detail, his euvre, his diaries, his letters to other people, what people wrote about him and his performances (in short: if you do a bit of historical research), you can get a clear picture of how he VERY likely played himself, and which renditions he would have critisized and why. But you don't even need to do that. If you want to know what Mendelssohn intended the pianist to do, you can read the score and respect it. There is a reason why composers write their music down. Sure, a false interpretation can be called "different", as well as claiming that the earth is flat can be called a different opinion although it's objectively wrong, which is fine. But that doesn't change the fact that it's bullshit.
@@allahuakbee846 You surely don't want to compare interpreting a piece of music to arguing about the shape of the earth? Still, we can have as many letters, diaries etc., we can NEVER know what he really might have liked and what he might not have liked, because performance has changed immensely within the past 200 years. We have countless recordings of pianists born in the 19th century and we encounter a much greater freedom with the score and huge differences in interpretation - in comparison more recent performances seem stiff, boring and uninspired. But that's being ignored and many musicians of today argue that we somehow would know better. Descriptions in letters and diaries are only one part of the truth. The other part is what it actually meant. The freedom you despise might not even be considered much freedom at all in the 1800s. And historic recordings confirm that.
My hands are cramping just from listening to this work
Astonishing...easily the best I've ever heard this work played.
Such fire, yet such control...such abandon yet such awareness of the structural flow from one variation to the next.
Wow. I am blown away. I had goose bumps by listening this performance. Really great and well done. Nice voice leading, big dynamic range, tone volume, emotions, control, agogic... This performance has another dimension. 💪🔥🎶🎵
The voicing in the first variation is astounding
Beautiful. Thank you, for posting this.
That's my favorite performance of this, after Pritchard, Gould and Richter. It's nearly perfect, instaed of her rendition of Variation 13. She played it so slow, it sounds like a practice session.
Due to the 32nd notes and the marking of "Sempre assai leggiero", it should be played fast and with lightness, like flying staccatos. Not slow and clumbersome, as Larrocha did here.
This is my favorite piano piece ever and most pianists don't do it justice, but Larrocha did a good job most of the time.
Beautiful!! Wonderful!!❤❤❤
HOT DAMN!
Why so sérieuse, Félix?
やっぱりメンデルスゾーンはアルカンに似てる所がある
Variations 5 and 15 are played too fast, Variatios 6, 7, 13, 16 and 17 too slow. Especially her interpretation of Var. 13 drives me crazy. Var. 12 is played SO perfectly powerful and fast, and so should be Var. 13 as well. Larrocha completely kicked me out of the mood and simply ruined the entire piece. You need to put the video's velocity on 1.5 or 1.25 to make her Var. 13 sound bearable.
Larrocha should have played Vars. 6, 7, 13, 16 & 17 exactly the way Glenn Gould did it. She was a great pianist, there's no way she wouldn't have managed that. I really don't understand the reason why she didn't. Maybe her persoal "artistic" taste or smth.
It would've been better if she had simply done what Mendelssohn intended to be done by the pianist. He didn't write tempo markings and dynamics to be ignored by some ignorant arrogant performer who thinks he's as much as an artist as the composer.
How I despise those who can't accept a different interpretation.. "Should do this, should do that, too fast, too slow, that's wrong, that must be played differently because I know exactly what Mendelssohn would have liked."
Some ignorant arrogant commenter who thinks he's as much as an artist as the composer.
@@PianoJFAudioSheetIt's not like if music interpretation was like postmodern philosophy where objectivity doesn't exist. If you study a composer, his entire biography in detail, his euvre, his diaries, his letters to other people, what people wrote about him and his performances (in short: if you do a bit of historical research), you can get a clear picture of how he VERY likely played himself, and which renditions he would have critisized and why.
But you don't even need to do that. If you want to know what Mendelssohn intended the pianist to do, you can read the score and respect it. There is a reason why composers write their music down.
Sure, a false interpretation can be called "different", as well as claiming that the earth is flat can be called a different opinion although it's objectively wrong, which is fine. But that doesn't change the fact that it's bullshit.
@@allahuakbee846 You surely don't want to compare interpreting a piece of music to arguing about the shape of the earth?
Still, we can have as many letters, diaries etc., we can NEVER know what he really might have liked and what he might not have liked, because performance has changed immensely within the past 200 years. We have countless recordings of pianists born in the 19th century and we encounter a much greater freedom with the score and huge differences in interpretation - in comparison more recent performances seem stiff, boring and uninspired. But that's being ignored and many musicians of today argue that we somehow would know better. Descriptions in letters and diaries are only one part of the truth. The other part is what it actually meant. The freedom you despise might not even be considered much freedom at all in the 1800s. And historic recordings confirm that.
❤️🎼🎹😍