Another pronouncement of 10 from on high
July 05 2010
...as I was saying in last week’s post, the Pianobabbler plays favourites. Musical favourites.
I talked about embracing our musical opinions. Eschew timidity in admitting delight, and fear in asserting dislike. Go on-enjoy Céline! Trash Wagner! Dig Drake! Reject Radiohead!
In that spirit, the Pianobabbler has come here to declare which pianos, recorded pianos, most make him babble. The ten recordings that he not only likes, but which have invaded his inner space, and spread across his soundscape like English Ivy, winding in, out, around and throughout the body and the mind.
Like some benign tinnitus, the ring of these piano recordings never fades away. They never cease to provoke a Pavlovian pleasure response in this pianobabbling crypto-Epicurianist.
Some prefatory explanations: the listed recordings all date back to before 2000; then, my mind’s cement was more spacious and wet, receptive to greater impressions. The list contains mostly men; would it were otherwise. ”But you left out...”; yes I did.
That said, the Pianobabbler happily offers his top 10 list of all-time piano recording favourties:
10. Marta Argerich- Concert recordings 1978/1979 - Digs with her visionary hands a portal view onto the conflicted soul of beauty and turmoil;
9. Marc-André Hamelin- Works of Leopold Godowsky - Beauty in complexity; clarity in density; giant technique of Zeusian dimension, always at the service of Athenan grace. (My late, great teacher Darwyn Aitken studied with the under-celebrated David Saperton, Godowsky’s son-in-law, a brilliant virtuoso and teacher);
8. Oscar Peterson- Tenderly (the song not the entire recording)- The jazz swing feel distilled to its body-bestirring essence.
7. Glenn Gould (non-Bach)- Brahms Intermezzi, opp. 117 &118 - The gods descended and handed Gould music’s luminescence, and he shone it on these diaphanous pieces.
6. Phineas Newborn- World of Piano- Oh. My. Lord. How can the name of this musical and technical wizard not form part of the music of the stars?
5. Glenn Gould (Bach)- Goldberg Variations (1955 & 1981 versions) - Words fail.
4. Vladimir Horowitz- Schumann- Sonata No. 3 in F minor: Concerto sans orchestre- Be still my heart. Power, passion, pathos, piano.
3. Art Tatum- Piano Starts Here- Oh yes it does. Oh yes it does. Oh yes, it does.
2. Josef Hofmann- Golden Jubilee Concert- Piano music as natural as human speech. Hofmann makes the piano scream and sigh and laugh and cry, and takes us with him.
1. Willie “The Lion” Smith and Don Ewell - Grand Piano- On first hearing, this recording of stride piano duets altered my DNA: power, grace, joy and a life energy that still glows bright over 40 years after it was recorded.
The Pianobabbler has babbled.
The Pianobabbler is a RonDavisMusic production. The Pianobabbler's blog posts appear weekly at pianobabber.com. Please remember to leave your comments and thoughts below. Subscribe to the RSS feed. And subscribe to RonDavisNews by clicking on the link, above right. And follow us on Twitter.
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