Word: pianistics
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Beethoven: Sonata No. 31, Op. 110; Sonata No. 32, Op. 111 (Pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy; London, $6.98). There is no halfway point in attitudes toward late Beethoven. For performers and listeners alike, it is either the ultimate in communicative art or too personal and troubled to share with a large audience. Rubinstein and Horowitz subscribe to the latter view and avoid both the music and the problem. Even a comparative youngster like Cliburn has kept his interpretive thoughts on the matter largely to himself. Fortunately there is Ashkenazy, the finest all-round pianist in music today, a man who is possessed...
Aleksander Slobodyanik Plays Liszt; Sonata in B Minor, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 (Columbia/Melodiya, $6.98). Slobodyanik ranks among the half a dozen best keyboard artists under 35. A galvanizing pianist whose appeal is not confined to showers of notes, he fuses virtuosity with a sense of poetry, but in this account of the Liszt B Minor Sonata, Slobodyanik shows a lapse of heart. The allegro passage work is more muscled than brilliant; where it should be bold it thumps...
With the passage of time, the quartet -Pianist John Lewis, Bassist Percy Heath, Drummer Connie Kay and Vibraharpist Milt Jackson-became a phenomenon of a different sort. It stayed together for 22 years, longer than any other jazz ensemble. Last week, during an emotional yet curiously subdued evening at Manhattan's Avery Fisher Hall, the group confirmed that it was disbanding and gave a final concert...
Everyone, or so it seemed, felt the same way. At 70, the unpredictable Ukrainian-born pianist was staging another "historic return"-his first New York performance in six years and the first classical recital ever presented in the eight-year-old Metropolitan Opera House. Jackie Onassis, Peter Falk and Mikhail Baryshnikov were there. So were Conductor Herbert von Karajan and many other noted musicians like Isaac Stern, Daniel Barenboim and Eugene Istomin...
Hard as it may be to believe, the legendary pianist is currently without a recording contract. Much of his time has been spent negotiating for a new one. His deal with Columbia Records expired about 18 months ago. Columbia had reportedly been giving him a $50,000 guarantee per recital LP. That is a moneymaking proposition only if the album sells like a rock record. Unfortunately, not even Horowitz sells that well consistently, although he is convinced that he would, if given more promotional and advertising backing. Also, limiting himself to solo performances, he has not made a concerto recording...