She Is Someone, For Me, I Cannot Imagine As 62 Years Old. But I Am Glad. And Does She Deserve A Place

She is someone, for me, I cannot imagine as 62 years old. But I am glad. And does she deserve a place on Players+Pianos? Well, it's a stretch, I'll admit, but Wikipedia gives me leave, per this, so I'm doing it:

"The box set Enchanted, was released to acclaim on April 28, 1998 with liner notes from Nicks, as well as exclusive rare photographs, and pages from her journals. Featuring successful solo hits, Nicks also included b-sides, rare soundtrack contributions, duets, covers, demos, live recordings, and a solo piano rendition of "Rhiannon" recorded for the set. The box set was supported with a successful US tour with a more varied set list incorporating rare material such as "Rose Garden", "Garbo" and "Sleeping Angel". The set sold 56,000 units in its first week and was certified Gold."

thingsiatethatilove:

Happy 62nd birthday, Stevie Nicks!  I tried to think of a joke but they were all dumb.  “Edge of 62”?  Nah.

Today is an auspicious day.  Tickets are still available for the First Kiss event.

Fascinating texturals. I'm not sure this is its ultimate realization, but fine introduction to a composer unknown to me. I assume the performer is Thomas Bjørnseth, although I could be wrong about this. My applause in any event for decoding a difficult text. (I love the video methodology of following the score, brilliant.)

atonalitydotnet:

SCIARRINO Piano Sonata no.5

Complete playlist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDVL6FopD_E&feature=PlayList&p=EE0742EFCB8874F4&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1

On The Other Hand

To hell with originality. It's a fool's quest. The minute you think you're on to something new, you find someone who did it or said it 500 years ago. Don't worry about it.

The Beginning

As a matter of honor, this first post really should in some way involve Glenn Gould. So I'm going to briefly take on a philosophical point of order, in the hopes that it not only satisfies honor but also sets forth some principle of approach so you can tell whether or not this is going to be something you're going to want to read going forward.

The philosophical point concerns the idea of "greatness" in created work, and since this is specifically about piano players and music, greatness qua such. I'll try to keep it simple for my own sake, so here: I don't think much of the idea.

Less simply, here's why. If we stack up 5 artists of any sort and set some categorical context, some criteria and so forth, that's all a bunch of muddle to me and misses what I consider most satisfying in many cases: not the historical moment but what a player means to ME. And in this regard, some unknown or some so-called minor work or some eccentric trajectory of a career may prove to be the most fascinating, the deepest creation of a moment. And as we all well know, having once upon a time been children, a moment can last your whole life. 

So you won't, I hope, find me arguing much for Greatness around these parts, but rather for things of substance and positive provocation. And as a substitute, if one is needed, I would say what is more meaningful is to put forward artists of tremendous insight, unique in the je ne sais quoi and sine qua non of their approach and execution. For if there is one thing the 20th and 21st centuries do not need, it is more of the vanilla perfection of what is churned out by the piano academies and too much of the concert world. How many of these will we miss? Do we need more and more and ever more of the more or less same Chopin waltzes, Brahms intermezzi, Tchaikovsky concerti, and [substitute your own overplayed repertoire]?

Well, yes, it might be argued, we need more and more and infinitely more because you never know (and the artist him/herself surely does not know) when something unusual or remembrance-worthy is going to occur. But this is precisely where judgment enters the picture. Precisely where maturity and an editorial decision along the lines of: "Yes I will study that work, yes I will play it, but no I will not record it, no I will not concertize with it, unless I am firmly convinced that my voice is one that must be heard". Do current piano players make this conscious statement? Of course they do, alas.

Which brings me back round to Gould. Glenn Gould is my favorite piano player of all I've heard because his is the loss I would feel most (and have most felt since his death), his is the hole that would leave piano playing with a gap that would change it inconceivably had he never been. That he is Great is not the point, for we will speak of many things in these posts that are Great. I would not like to rank anyone with anything other than subjectivity, so that's all you'll find here. People I cannot do without, the objects of their making I cannot do without, or the people and their objects I can do without and why.

Much about much to come.

Some Relevance

I believe this quotation has some relevance to my previous post:

His [Pogorelich's] recordings from the 1980s are too extreme to be classics, but they hold up if you're in a mood to hear Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit bristle with extraordinarily menacing energy.

"Too extreme to be classics." I suppose that says it all.

Listen: something either works or it doesn't. Even if it doesn't, it may have value beyond its mere candidacy for classicism. If it works in your mind, why shouldn't it enter the hall of fame?

Source: Philadelphia Enquirer 4/29/2010

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.