Piano music

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If you like Bach, you might like Dave Hicken on Youtube. He is English but lives in Chang Mai, Thailand. I am amazed that he can create so many pieces without getting dreary or repetitive. My computer is down, I cannot post a link with MXQ-Pro.
 
If you like Bach, you might like Dave Hicken on Youtube. He is English but lives in Chang Mai, Thailand. I am amazed that he can create so many pieces without getting dreary or repetitive. My computer is down, I cannot post a link with MXQ-Pro.
Consider Andra's Schiff or Jean-Efflam Bavouzet for more Bach and Haydn as well.
 
My musical tastes favor contemporary jazz but I certainly appreciate some good piano music. I checked out Hicken and saw that his most popular album was his Christmas album. I sampled some of it. It's good.
I ended up getting his organ album "Organ Works".
 
Debussy's Claire de Lune is my favourite piano piece. Claire de Lune recently won the internet by being voted the most beautiful piece of music of any type, past or present, ever written. That is very good staying power for Claude Debussy. He wrote the piece about 135 years ago!

Glen
 
Love the Canon in D and used to play it!
Still do play Clair de Lune, or rather did before an 1800 pound cow destroyed my left shoulder. I'm working my way back to it, measure by measure.

Here is a great version by Lang Lang. The first part is perhaps too slow, but then he gets the flow going.
Debussy's wrote this not long after seeing Monet's beautiful Impressionistic paintings. That was the beginning of the Impressionistic period of music.

 
All great music guys - Cannon in D is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.
A nice arrangement of Dmitri Shostakovich’s second waltz can be found on YouTube. I tried to link it but It comes up blank .
Search YouTube for Tarek Refaat Shostakovich Second Waltz.
Shostokovich spent some time in the slammer because Stalin didn’t like his music. What an a_ _hole.
edit - Just listened/ watched Glen’s Debussy video above.
Interesting to compare to the Shostakovich video I referenced.
The waltz time seems almost mechanical ( in a good way ) in comparison.
 
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Love the Canon in D and used to play it!
Still do play Clair de Lune, or rather did before an 1800 pound cow destroyed my left shoulder. I'm working my way back to it, measure by measure.

Here is a great version by Lang Lang. The first part is perhaps too slow, but then he gets the flow going.
Debussy's wrote this not long after seeing Monet's beautiful Impressionistic paintings. That was the beginning of the Impressionistic period of music.


THAT guy knows his way around a keyboard......
 
The online music services have allowed me so much more exploration into the realm of music. The travel library I have downloaded onto my iphone continues to grow.
 
Because Waltzes are for dancing they are usually done in strict time.
Debussy's music wasn't for dancing so he used lots of Rubato, or robbed timing. The Rubato adds to the hazy, mystical effect of the music.
I think Lang Lang has added more Rubato than even Debussy would have, especially to the first slow section.
He is Lang Lang, he can do whatever he wants and get away with it!

Glen
 
A long time ago, I was doing technical work at a recording session where Maxim Shostakovich was conducting one of the London orchestras recording one of his father's pieces (think it was the Symphony no 8)

The orchestra were playing along when suddenly the producer stopped them with a comment about 'a most extraordinary noise in bar xx, go again from bar nn'. I thought maybe a musician had hit a music stand or mic stand and made a sound - sometimes happens.

I didn't hear it, so at the end of the session, I asked what the extraordinary noise was. When we did a playback and listened on headphones, a musician could be heard letting out a huge audible fart.
 
As a side note to this topic I much prefer the piano to the organ
( subjective of course) but Bach Toccata and Fugue on an enormous pipe organ is something to behold - even if the movie industry has forever tainted it with horror films…
 
Re. organ music and film scores, Anna Lapwood did a version of a Hans Zimmer piece;



Worth listening to on a decent HiFi...



Re. films, I suppose that Also Sprach Zarathustra is forever associated with 2001 A Space Odyssey.... but as I once heard someone saying, "its a piece cursed with a famous intro". Which is probably true, 'cos after the opening piece, the rest of it is quite boring.
 
My musical tastes favor contemporary jazz but I certainly appreciate some good piano music. I checked out Hicken and saw that his most popular album was his Christmas album. I sampled some of it. It's good.
I ended up getting his organ album "Organ Works". - I like Jacques Loussier 's versions of classics - particularly Bach, but also Schumann and Debussy.
 
I saw Joey Alexander last year at a Seattle Jazz club, (Dimetriou's) Joey is a young prodigy who is waaay out there musically. This video looks like it was shot in that club but maybe not. I sat about 4 feet away on lookers left. Incredible show. Eventually he played one of my favorite songs that I didn't know he even played and I just about cried, it was that beautiful and caught me by surprise. (Bonnie Raitt's, "I can't make you love me")

 
I saw Joey Alexander last year at a Seattle Jazz club, (Dimetriou's) Joey is a young prodigy who is waaay out there musically. This video looks like it was shot in that club but maybe not. I sat about 4 feet away on lookers left. Incredible show. Eventually he played one of my favorite songs that I didn't know he even played and I just about cried, it was that beautiful and caught me by surprise. (Bonnie Raitt's, "I can't make you love me")

Good art usually creates an emotion, however it sometimes takes a long time getting there.
 
Wow!!! Who wudda thought that a bunch of spanner wrenching, motorcycle fettlers, would be so esoteric in top shelf music. I am impressed!

Slick

PS: @acotrel FWIW, I dated a friend of Bonnie Raitt, Bobbie Shelton, whose daddy was part of the not-so-top-shelf band "Light Crust Doughboys" more popularly known as Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

There you have all my knowledge of music, ..... I still consider Waylon my favorite artist.... he and I were both crazy in our youth, but it kept us from going insane!
 
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as a very experienced classical concert goer, there are many, many top pianists to search for on youtube etc. I have seen Yuja Wang live several times. She has some outrageous outfits, so is very watchable and listenable!
Radu Lupu playing the first Brahms Concerto on youtube from about 1996 is superb, especially the slow movement.
 
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