Word: pianist
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...Deacon, director of catalogue exploitation for Philips Music Group in Amsterdam, is one of those people blessed with the sort of memory for facts usually on display when 14-year-olds argue football trivia with their elders. Ask Deacon about a recording of a composition by a particular pianist, and he will rattle off all the details: the record label, the date and place of the recording, possibly even the precise microphone placement for the session. It's also likely that the recording will be in Deacon's personal collection of 25,000 LPs and 10,000 CDs. So when...
...music in the same way that a caf‚ au lait manages to retain the integrity of a shot of espresso but just in a more subdued manner. The reward of this "quiet" performance was evident for all who listened carefully. The piano-playing abilities of renowned German pianist Christian Zacharias were both impressive and compelling. Especially touching was the way he handled the "Adagio." Zacharias's ability to juxtapose articulation with lyrical continuity was particularly shown in this movement. His fingers and notes were light, breezy and even playful at times...
...rondo finale was more or less nondescript. Ohlsson's dynamics seemed to lose subtlety here, and the first melody assumed an unseemly complacency. The movement offered a strange glimpse of what sort of Schubert pianist Ohlsson might...
...Waltzes are basically failsafe for any equipped pianist, but one might have hoped for a bit more gusto from Ohlsson, whose suavity in these three miniatures was at times offputting. The Minute Waltz (at 1:53, mind you) sounded tossed-off, although with a hilarious ending, and the third of the set had nothing to recommend it. Only the ravishing C-sharp minor, trademark of Rachmaninoff and Rubinstein, demanded close listening. Ohlsson privileged the left hand at times when other pianists wouldn't, and sculpted a middle voice between the melodies...
...music and motions. At the end of a phrase he would sweep his arms up as if to gesture to the orchestra and say, "Now it's your turn." The piano concerto is one of those pieces that is supposed to put all the listeners in awe of the pianist. It is fun to hear, and maybe even more fun to watch it performed. Perhaps Norris was a little too virtuosic in the concerto: while the notes were technically accurate, it was hard to make sense of the quick and dense passages, hard to appreciate Mendelssohn's skill and talent...