84 (and One-half)

84 (and one-half)

Yes, you're right, technically speaking it's not 85, it's 84. Cameron Carpenter is an organist. I'll have more to say about that once we get to talking about op. 10 no. 12, the "Revolutionary".

It starts with the Bat. And then the Bat is replaced by the Gryphon. Thus we listen to our private rebroadcast of Live from Lincoln Center with Ax, Perlman, and Ma. I justify this inclusion because there is my piano in the background.

Portrait of the Artist as Piano Teacher

Opus 25

Continuing... you'll have already noted, from the previous post, my tendencies toward speed and a certain violence in the Etudes. Even the slow ones, truth be told. But take it with a grain of salt and the pepper will come later.

Wilhelm Backhaus

Ren Zhang (?!)

Vladimir Ashkenazy (?)

Nelson Freire

Dinu Lipatti

Mikhail Pletnev

Dubravka Tomsic

Lazar Berman

Andrei Gavrilov

Maurizio Pollini (?)

Andrei Gavrilov (!)

Grigory Sokolov

Schumannology

I am going through an intensive Schumann phase and I don't know why. I have never, never been a Schumann fan, from my earliest days learning the piano. (I do not recall him at all in the days before that, in my single digits, when I was reading the lives of "the composers" and listening to their music.) With the exception of op. 21 (the Novelletten, perhaps his least played major work for piano), I just never felt the connection that piano players are supposed to feel for this music. Thanks to Pletnev, however, I discovered a heart for the op. 99 pieces. Thanks to Richter, for the op. 7 Toccata. And now my mind is filling with the sounds of op. 20 (the Humoreske for piano), the op. 38 1st Symphony, and the op. 41 string quartets. Mind: I don't expect ever to have anything like fellow feeling with the op. 26 (Faschingsschwank aus Wien) or the Papillons or Album für die Jugend, but I've opened up my head.

Whistling

Has anyone ever scored a work for piano and whistle? It seems the sort of thing Ives or Cowell or even Crumb might gave done but I can find no evidence. Perhaps the sound in my head is one I'll have to realize myself.