Podcast appearances and mentions of Maurizio Pollini

The German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's 100th birthday falls on May 28. One of the most versatile singers of the last century – his operatic repertoire alone ranged from Gluck, Handel and Mozart via Verdi, Wagner and Richard Strauss to Berg, Busoni and Reimann – it's his devotion to song that remains his lasting legacy. To mark the anniversary of Fischer-Dieskau's birth, Gramophone's James Jolly spoke to song specialist and author of Schubert: The Complete Song Texts (Schirmer: 1988), Richard Wigmore. They focused on Fischer-Dieskau's audio recordings of Schubert's greatest song-cycle Winterreise (1828) which include three with Gerald Moore, as well as versions with Klaus Billing, Hermann Reuter, Daniel Barenboim, Jörg Demus, Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia and Maurizio Pollini.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) - Quintetto in fa minore per pianoforte e archi, op. 341.       Allegro non troppo - Poco sostenuto - Tempo I 2.       Andante, un poco Adagio [15:58]3.       Scherzo. Allegro – Trio [25:08]4.       Finale. Poco sostenuto - Allegro non troppo - Tempo I - Presto non troppo [32:51]Quartetto ItalianoPaolo Borciani, Elisa Pegreffi (Violini)Dino Asciolla (Viola)Franco Rossi (Violoncello)Maurizio Pollini (Piano)

durée : 01:59:12 - Maurizio Pollini en concert (2) - par : Philippe Cassard - Maurizio Pollini disparaissait il y a un an, Portraits de famille vous livre quelques archives de concerts passionnantes. - réalisé par : Philippe Petit

durée : 01:58:38 - Maurizio Pollini en concert (1) - par : Philippe Cassard - Un an après le décès d'un des plus importants pianistes de ces 60 dernières années, Portraits de famille livre quelques archives de concerts passionnantes. - réalisé par : Doria Zénine

Puntata dedicata ad un'ospite che ci porta nel mondo dei suoni. Modem a colloquio con la musicista e compositrice italiana Silvia Bianchera. Nata a Roma nel ‘43, con alle spalle studi musicali, prima in canto e poi in composizione presso il conservatorio di Milano, allieva e poi moglie di Bruno Bettinelli. Il maestro dalla cui classe sono passati anche Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Maurizio Pollini e Bruno Canino per citare alcuni nomi noti della musica classica. Ma anche Gianna Nannini fu allieva di Bettinelli.  Silvia Bianchera nella sua carriera ha collezionato diversi riconoscimenti e ha collaborato con illustri direttori d'orchestra e solisti che hanno interpretato brani suoi. Infine, ricordiamo che le sue composizioni sono state pubblicate da importanti etichette musicali. Con Silvia Bianchera parliamo di musica, riferendoci al suo lavoro, alla sua esperienza. Ma approfittiamo della sua presenza anche per parlare di donne compositrici che, tra mille fatiche, ci sono sempre state nella storia. Ma solo in tempi piuttosto recenti si è finalmente cominciato ad approfondire lo studio delle loro opere. 

durée : 01:28:29 - En pistes ! du vendredi 14 février 2025 - par : Emilie Munera, Rodolphe Bruneau Boulmier - On finit la semaine avec un peu de poésie : Ronsard chanté par Marc Mauillon et Doulce Mémoire, Chopin sous les doigts de Maurizio Pollini ou ces très beaux airs de Telemann enregistrés par la soprano Amanda Forsythe

durée : 01:28:29 - En pistes ! du vendredi 14 février 2025 - par : Emilie Munera, Rodolphe Bruneau Boulmier - On finit la semaine avec un peu de poésie : Ronsard chanté par Marc Mauillon et Doulce Mémoire, Chopin sous les doigts de Maurizio Pollini ou ces très beaux airs de Telemann enregistrés par la soprano Amanda Forsythe

durée : 00:18:45 - Disques de légende du vendredi 31 janvier 2025 - Maurizio Pollini est un pianiste à la précocité miraculeuse. Il gagne très tôt des concours, organise parfaitement son début de carrière et sz consacre à des engagements politiques : un contrat chez Deutsche Grammophon ne fait que renforcer sa légende.

durée : 00:18:45 - Disques de légende du vendredi 31 janvier 2025 - Maurizio Pollini est un pianiste à la précocité miraculeuse. Il gagne très tôt des concours, organise parfaitement son début de carrière et sz consacre à des engagements politiques : un contrat chez Deutsche Grammophon ne fait que renforcer sa légende.

Who else in literature today could be more interesting to interview than Brandon Taylor, the author of Real Life, Filthy Animals, and The Late Americans, as well as the author of popular reviews and the sweater weather Substack? We talked about so much, including: Chopin and who plays him best; why there isn't more tennis in fiction; writing fiction on a lab bench; being a scientific critic; what he has learned working as a publisher; negative reviews; boring novels; Jane Austen. You'll also get Brandon's quick takes on Iris Murdoch, Jonathan Franzen, Lionel Trilling, György Lukács, and a few others; the modern critics he likes reading; and the dead critics he likes reading.Brandon also talked about how his new novel is going to be different from his previous novels. He told me:I no longer really want to be starting my books, quote unquote, in media res. I want my books to feel like books. I don't want my books to feel like movies. And I don't want them to feel like treatments for film. And so I want to sort of bring back all of what a novel can do in terms of its structure and in terms of its form and stuff like that. And so it means starting books, you know, with this sort of Dickensian voice of God speaking from on high, sort of summing up an era. And I think also sort of allowing the narrators in my work to dare to sum up, allowing characters in my work to have ideologies and to argue about those ideologies. I feel like that is a thing that was sort of denuded from the American novel for a lot of millennials and just sort of like trying to put back some of that old fashioned machinery that was like stripped out of the novel. And seeing what of it can still function, seeing, trying to figure out if there's any juice left in these modes of representation.I have enjoyed Brandon's fiction (several people I recommend him to have loved Real Life) and I think he's one of the best critics working today. I was delighted to interview him.Oh, and he's a Dickens fan!Transcript (AI produced, lightly formatted by me)Henry: Today I am talking to Brandon Taylor, the author of Real Life, Filthy Animals, and The Late Americans. Brandon is also a notable book reviewer and of course he writes a sub stack called Sweater Weather. Brandon, welcome.Brandon: Yeah, thanks for having me.Henry: What did you think of the newly discovered Chopin waltz?Brandon: Um, I thought, I mean, I remember very vividly waking up that day and there being a new waltz, but it was played by Lang Lang, which I did not. I don't know that, like, he's my go-to Chopin interpreter. But I don't know, I was, I was excited by it. Um, I don't know, it was in a world sort of dominated by this ethos of like nothing new under the sun. It felt wonderfully novel. I don't know that it's like one of Chopin's like major, I don't know that it's like major. Um, it's sort of definitively like middle of the road, middle tier Chopin, I think. But I enjoyed it. I played it like 20 times in a row.Henry: I like those moments because I like, I like it when people get surprised into realizing that like, it's not fixed what we know about the world and you can even actually get new Chopin, right?Brandon: I mean, it felt a little bit like when Beyonce did her first big surprise drop. It was like new Chopin just dropped. Oh my God. All my sort of classical music nerd group texts were buzzing. It felt like a real moment, actually.Henry: And I think it gives people a sense of what art was like in the past. You can go, oh my God, new Chopin. Like, yes, those feelings are not just about modern culture, right? That used to happen with like, oh my God, a new Jane Austen book is here.Brandon: Oh, I know. Well, I mean, I was like reading a lot of Emile Zola up until I guess late last year. And at some point I discovered that he was like an avid amateur photographer. And in like the French Ministry of Culture is like digitized a lot of his glass plate negatives. And one of them is like a picture that Zola has taken of Manet's portrait of him. And it's just like on a floor somewhere. Like he's like sort of taken this like very rickety early camera machinery to this place where this portrait is and like taken a picture of it. It's like, wow. Like you can imagine that like Manet's like, here's this painting I did of you. And Zola's like, ah, yes, I'm going to take a picture to commemorate it. And so I sort of love that.Henry: What other of his photos do you like?Brandon: Well, there's one of him on a bike riding toward the camera. That's really delightful to me because it like that impulse is so recognizable to me. There are all these photos that he took of his mistress that were also just like, you can like, there are also photographs of his children and of his family. And again, those feel so like recognizable to me. He's not even like a very good photographer. It's just that he was taking pictures of his like daily life, except for his kind of stunt photos where he's riding the bike. And it's like, ah, yes, Zola, he would have been great with an iPhone camera.Henry: Which pianists do you like for Chopin?Brandon: Which pianists do I love for Chopin? I like Pollini a lot. Pollini is amazing. Pollini the elder, not Pollini the younger. The younger is not my favorite. And he died recently, Maurizio Pollini. He died very recently. Maybe he's my favorite. I love, I love Horowitz. Horowitz is wonderful at Chopin. But it's obviously it's like not his, you know, you don't sort of go to Horowitz for Chopin, I guess. But I love his Chopin. And sometimes Trifonov. Trifonov has a couple Chopin recordings that I really, really like. I tend not to love Trifonov as much.Henry: Really?Brandon: I know it's controversial. It's very controversial. I know. Tell me why. I, I don't know. He's just a bit of a banger to me. Like, like he's sort of, I don't know, his playing is so flashy. And he feels a bit like a, like a, like a keyboard basher to me sometimes.Henry: But like, do you like his Bach?Brandon: You know, I haven't done a deep dive. Maybe I should do a sort of more rigorous engagement with Trifonov. But yeah, I don't, he's just not, he doesn't make my heart sing. I think he's very good at Bach.Henry: What about a Martha Argerich?Brandon: Oh, I mean, she's incredible. She's incredible. I bought that sort of big orange box out of like all of her, her sort of like masterwork recordings. And she's incredible. She has such feel for Chopin. But she doesn't, I think sometimes people can make Chopin feel a little like, like treacly, like, like a little too sweet. And she has this perfect understanding of his like rhythm and his like inner nuances and like the crispness in his compositions. Like she really pulls all of that out. And I love her. She has such, obviously great dexterity, but like a real sort of exquisite sensitivity to the rhythmic structures of Chopin.Henry: You listen on CD?Brandon: No, I listen on vinyl and I listen on streaming, but mostly vinyl. Mostly vinyl? Yeah, mostly vinyl. I know it's very annoying. No, no, no, no, no.Henry: Which, what are the good speakers?Brandon: I forget where I bought these speakers from, but I sort of did some Googling during the pandemic of like best speakers to use. I have a U-Turn Audio, U-Turn Orbital record player. And so I was just looking for good speakers that were compatible and like wouldn't take up a ton of space in my apartment because I was moving to New York and had a very tiny, tiny apartment. So they're just from sort of standard, I forget the brand, but they've served me well these past few years.Henry: And do you like Ólafsson? He's done some Chopin.Brandon: Who?Henry: Víkingur Ólafsson. He did the Goldbergs this year, but he's done some Chopin before. I think he's quite good.Brandon: Oh, that Icelandic guy?Henry: Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the glasses? That's right. And the very neat hair.Brandon: Yes. Oh, he's so chic. He's so chic. I don't know his Chopin. I know his, there's another series that he did somewhat recently that I'm more familiar with. But he is really good. He has good Beethoven, Víkingur.Henry: Yeah.Brandon: And normally I don't love Beethoven, but like—Henry: Really? Why? Why? What's wrong with Beethoven? All these controversial opinions about music.Brandon: I'm not trying to have controversial opinions. I think I'm, well, I'm such a, I'm such, I mean, I'm just like a dumb person. And so like, I don't, I don't have a really, I feel like I don't have the robust understanding to like fully appreciate Beethoven and all of his sort of like majesty. And so maybe I've just not heard good Beethoven and I need to sort of go back and sort of get a real understanding of it. But I just tend not to like it. It feels like, I don't know, like grandma's living room music to me sometimes.Henry: What other composers do you enjoy?Brandon: Oh, of course.Henry: Or other music generally, right?Brandon: Rachmaninoff is so amazing to me. There was, of course, Bach. Brahms. Oh, I love Brahms, but like specifically the intermezzi. I love the intermezzi. I recently fell in love with, oh, his name is escaping me now, but he, I went to a concert and they sort of did a Brahms intermezzi. And they also played this, I think he was an Austrian composer. And his music was like, it wasn't experimental, but it was like quite, I had a lot of dissonance in it. And I found it like really interesting and like really moving actually. And so I did a sort of listening to that constantly. Oh, I forget his name. But Brahms, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, love Rachmaninoff. I have a friend who says that Rachmaninoff writes Negro spirituals. And I love that theory that Rachmaninoff's music is like the music of the slaves. It just, I don't know. I really, that really resonates with me spiritually. Which pieces, which Rachmaninoff symphonies, concertos? Yeah, the concertos. But like specifically, like I have a friend who said that Rach II sounded to her like the sort of spiritual cry of like the slaves. And we were at like a hangout with like mostly Black people. And she like stopped playing like Juvenile, like the rapper. And she put on Rach II. And we just like sat there and listened. And it did feel like something powerful had entered the room. Yeah, but he's my guy. I secretly really, really love him. I like Liszt, but like it really depends on the day and the time for him. He makes good folk music, Liszt. I love his folky, his folk era.Henry: What is it that you enjoy about tennis?Brandon: What do I enjoy about tennis? I love the, I love not thinking. I love being able to hit the ball for hours on end and like not think. And like, it's the one part of my life. It's the one time in my life where my experience is like totally unstructured. And so like this morning, I went to a 7am drill and play class where you do drills for an hour. Then you play doubles for an hour. And during that first hour of drills, I was just like hitting the ball. I was at the mercy of the guy feeding us the ball. And I didn't have a single thought about books or literature or like the status of my soul or like the nature of American democracy. It was just like, did I hit that ball? Well, did I hit it kind of off center? Were there tingles in my wrist? Yes or no. Like it was just very, very grounding in the moment. And I think that is what I love about it. Do you like to watch tennis? Oh, yeah, constantly. Sometimes when I'm in a work meeting, the Zoom is here and the tennis is like playing in the background. Love tennis, love to watch, love to play, love to think about, to ponder. Who are the best players for you? Oh, well, the best players, my favorite players are Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Stanislas Wawrinka, love Wawrinka. And I was a really big Davydenko head back in the day. Nikolai Davydenko was this Russian player who had, he was like a metronome. He just like would not miss. Yeah, those are my favorites. Right now, the guy I'm sort of rooting for who's still active is Kasper Rud, who's this Norwegian guy. And I love him because he just looks like some guy. Like he just looks like he should be in a seminary somewhere. I love it. I love, I love his normalness. He just looks like an NPC. And I'm drawn to that in a tennis player.Henry: It's hard to think of tennis in novels. Why is that?Brandon: Well, I think a lot of people don't, well, I think part of it is a lot of novelists. Part of it is a lot of novelists don't play sports. I think that they, at least Americans, I can't speak for other parts of the world, but in America, a lot of novelists are not doing sports. So that's one. And I think two, like, you know, like with anything, I think that tennis has not been subjected to the same schemes of narrativization that like other things are. And so like it's, a lot of novelists just like don't see a sort of readily dramatizable thing in tennis. Even though if you like watch tennis and like listen to tennis commentary, they are always erecting narratives. They're like, oh yeah, she's been on a 19 match losing streak. Is this where she turns it around? And to me, tennis is like a very literary sport because tennis is one of those sports where it's all about the matchup. It's like your forehand to my backhand, like no matter how well I play against everyone else, like it's you and me locked in the struggle. And like that to me feels incredibly literary. And it is so tied to your individual psychology as well. Like, I don't know, I endlessly am fascinated by it. And indeed, I got an idea for a tennis novel the other day that I'm hopefully going to write in three to five years. We'll see.Henry: Very good. How did working in a lab influence your writing?Brandon: Well, somewhat directly and materially in the case of my first book, because I wrote it while I was working in the lab and it gave me weirdly like time and structure to do that work where I would be pipetting. And then while I was waiting for an assay or a experiment to run or finish, I would have 30 minutes to sit down and write.Henry: So you were writing like at the lab bench?Brandon: Oh, yeah, absolutely. One thousand percent. I would like put on Philip Glass's score for the hours and then just like type while my while the centrifuge was running or whatever. And and so like there's that impression sort of baked into the first couple books. And then I think more, I guess, like spiritually or broadly, it influenced my work because it taught me how to think and how to organize time and how to organize thoughts and how to sort of pursue long term, open ended projects whose results may or may not, you know, fail because of something that you did or maybe you didn't do. And that's just the nature of things. Who knows? But yeah, I think also just like discipline, the discipline to sort of clock in every day. And to sort of go to the coalface and do the work. And that's not a thing that is, you know. That you just get by working in a lab, but it's certainly something that I acquired working in a lab.Henry: Do you think it's affected your interest in criticism? Because there's there are certain types of critic who seem to come from a scientific background like Helen Vendler. And there's something something about the sort of the precision and, you know, that certain critics will refuse to use critical waffle, like the human condition. And they won't make these big, vague gestures to like how this can change the way we view society. They're like, give me real details. Give me real like empirical criticism. Do you think this is — are you one of these people?Brandon: Yeah, yeah, I think I'm, you know, I'm all about what's on the page. I'm all about the I'm not gonna go rooting in your biography for not gonna go. I'm not I'm not doing that. It's like what you brought to me on the page is what you've brought to me. And that is what I will be sort of coming over. I mean, I think so. I mean, very often when critics write about my work, or when people respond to my work, they sort of describe it as being put under a microscope. And I do think like, that is how I approach literature. It's how I approach life. If there's ever a problem or a question put to me, I just sort of dissect it and try to get down to its core bits and its core parts. And and so yeah, I mean, if that is a scientific way of doing things, that's certainly how I but also I don't know any other way to think like that's sort of that's sort of how I was trained to think about stuff. You've been to London. I have. What did you think of it? The first time I didn't love it. The second and third times I had a good time, but I felt like London didn't love me back. London is the only place on earth I've ever been where people have had a hard time understanding me like I like it's the only place where I've like attempted to order food or a drink or something in a store or a cafe or a restaurant. And the waiters like turned to my like British hosts and asked them to translate. And that is an entirely foreign experience for me. And so London and I have like a very contentious relationship, I would say.Henry: Now, you've just published four classic novels.Brandon: Yes.Henry: George Gissing, Edith Wharton, Victor Hugo and Sarah Orne Jewett. Why did you choose those four writers, those four titles?Brandon: Oh, well, once we decided that we were going to do a classics imprint, you know, then it's like, well, what are we going to do? And I'm a big Edith Wharton fan. And there are all of these Edith Wharton novels that Americans don't really know about. They know Edith Wharton for The Age of Innocence. And if they are an English major, they maybe know her for The House of Mirth. Or like maybe they know her for The Custom of the Country if they're like really into reading. But then they sort of think of her as a novelist of the 19th century. And she's writing all of these books set in the 1920s and about the 1920s. And so it felt important to show people like, oh, this is a writer who died a lot later than you think that she did. And whose creative output was, you know, pretty, who was like a contemporary of F. Scott Fitzgerald in a lot of ways. Like, these books are being published around the same time as The Great Gatsby. And to sort of, you know, bring attention to a part of her over that, like, people don't know about. And like, that's really exciting to me. And Sarah Orne Jewett, I mean, I just really love The Country of the Pointed Furs. I love that book. And I found it in like in a 10 cents bin at a flea market one time. And it's a book that people have tried to bring back. And there have been editions of it. But it just felt like if we could get two people who are really cool to talk about why they love that book, we could sort of have like a real moment. And Sarah Orne Jewett was like a pretty big American writer. Like she was a pretty significant writer. And she was like really plugged in and she's not really read or thought about now. And so that felt like a cool opportunity as well to sort of create a very handsome edition of this book and to sort of talk about a bit why she matters. And the guessing of it all is we were going to do New Grub Street. And then my co-editor thought, well, The Odd Women, I think, is perhaps more relevant to our current moment than New Grub Street necessarily. And it would sort of differentiate us from the people, from the presses that are doing reissues of New Grub Street, because there's just been a new edition of that book. And nobody in America really knows The Odd Women. And it's a really wonderful novel. It's both funny and also like really biting in its satire and commentary. So we thought, oh, it'll be fun to bring this writer to Americans who they've never heard of in a way that will speak to them in a lot of ways. And the Victor Hugo, I mean, you know, there are Hugos that people know all about. And then there are Hugos that no one knows about. And Toilers of the Sea was a passion project for my co-editor. She'd read it in Guernsey. That's where she first discovered that book. And it really meant a lot to her. And I read it and really loved it. I mean, it was like Hugo at his most Hugo. Like, it's a very, it's a very, like, it's a very abundant book. And it's so wild and strange and changeful. And so I was like, oh, that seems cool. Let's do it. Let's put out Toilers of the Sea. So that's a bit of why we picked each one.Henry: And what have you learned from being on the other side of things now that you're the publisher?Brandon: So much. I've learned so much. And indeed, I just, I was just asked by my editor to do the author questionnaire for the novel that I have coming out next. And I thought, yes, I will do this. And I will do it immediately. Because now I know, I know how important these are. And I know how early and how far in advance these things need to be locked in to make everyone's life easier. I think I've learned a bit about the sometimes panicked scramble that happens to get a book published. I've learned about how hard it is to wrangle blurbs. And so I think I'm a little more forgiving of my publishers. But they've always been really great to me. But now I'm like, oh, my gosh, what can I do for you? How can I help you make this publication more of a success?Henry: Do you think that among literary people generally, there's a lack of appreciation of what business really involves in some of the senses you're talking about? I feel like I see a lot of either indifferent or hostile attitudes towards business or commerce or capitalism, late stage capitalism or whatever. And I sometimes look at it and I'm like, I don't think you guys really know what it takes to just like get stuff done. You know what I mean? Like, it's a lot of grind. I don't think it's a big nasty thing. It's just a lot of hard work, right?Brandon: Yeah, I mean, 1000%. Or if it's not a sort of misunderstanding, but a sort of like disinterest in like, right, like a sort of high minded, like, oh, that's just the sort of petty grimy commerce of it all. I care about the beauty and the art. And it's just like, friend, we need booksellers to like, sell this. I mean, to me, the part of it that is most to me, like the most illustrative example of this in my own life is that when I first heard how my editor was going to be describing my book, I was like, that's disgusting. That's horrible. Why are you talking about my race? Why are you talking about like my sexuality? Like, this is horrible. Why can't you just like talk about the plot of the book? Like, what is the matter with you? And then I had, you know, I acquired and edited this book called Henry Henry, which is a queer contemporary retelling of the Henry ad. And it's a wonderful novel. It's so delightful. And I had to go into our sales conference where we are talking to the people whose job it is to sell that book into bookstores to get bookstores to take that book up. And I had to write this incredibly craven description of this novel. And as I was writing it, I was like, I hope Alan, the author, I hope Alan never sees this. He never needs to hear how I'm talking about this book. And as I was doing it, I was like, I will never hold it against my editor again for writing this like, cheesy, cringy copy. Because it's like you, like, you so believe in the art of that book, so much that you want it to give it every fighting chance in the marketplace. And you need to arm your sales team with every weapon of commerce they need to get that book to succeed so that when readers pick it up, they can appreciate all of the beautiful and glorious art of it. And I do think that people, you know, like, people don't really kind of, people don't really understand that. And I do think that part of that is publishing's fault, because they are, they've been rather quick to elide the distinctions between art and commerce. And so like publishing has done a not great job of sort of giving people a lot of faith in its understanding that there's a difference between art and commerce. But yeah, I think, I think there's a lot of misapprehension out there about like, what goes into getting bookstores to acquire that book.Henry: What are the virtues of negative book reviews?Brandon: I was just on a panel about this. I mean, I mean, hopefully a negative book review, like a positive review, or like any review, will allow a reader or the audience to understand the book in a new way, or to create a desire in the reader to pick up the book and see if they agree or disagree or that they, that they have something to argue with or push against as they're reading. You know, when I'm writing a negative review, when I'm writing a review that I feel is trending toward negative, I should say, I always try to like, I don't know, I try to always remember that like, this is just me presenting my experience of the book and my take of the book. And hopefully that will be productive or useful for whoever reads the review. And hopefully that my review won't be the only thing that they read and that they will in fact, go pick up the book and see if they agree or disagree. It's hopefully it creates interesting and potentially divergent dialogues or discourses around the text. And fundamentally, I think not every critic feels this way. Not every piece of criticism is like this. But the criticism I write, I'm trying to create the conditions that will refer the reader always back to the text, be it through quotation, be it through, they're so incensed by my argument that they're going to go read the book themselves and then like, yell at me. Like, I think that that's wonderful, but like, always keeping the book at the center. But I think a negative review can, you know, it can start a conversation. It can get people talking about books, which in this culture, this phase of history feels like a win. And hopefully it can sort of be a corrective sometimes to less genuine or perceived less genuine discourses that are existing around the book.Henry: I think even whether or not it's a question of genuine, it's for me, it's just a question of if you tell people this book is good and they give up their time and money and they discover that it's trash, you've done a really bad thing to that person. And like, there might be dozens of them compared to this one author who you've been impolite to or whatever. And it's just a question of don't lie in book, right?Brandon: Well, yeah. I mean, hopefully people are honest, but I do feel sometimes that there is, there's like a lack of honesty. And look, I think that being like, well, I mean, maybe you'll love this. I don't love it, you know, but at least present your opinion in that way. At least be like, you know, there are many interpretations of this thing. Here's my interpretation. Maybe you'll feel differently or something like that. But I do think that people feel that there have been a great number of dishonest book reviews. Maybe there have been, maybe there have not been. I certainly have read some reviews I felt were dishonest about books that I have read. And I think that the negative book review does feel a bit like a corrective in a lot of ways, both, you know, justified or unjustified. People are like, finally, someone's being honest about this thing. But yeah, I think it's interesting. I think it's all really, I think it's all fascinating. I do think that there are some reviews though, that are negative and that are trying to be about the book, but are really about the author. There are some reviews that I have read that have been ostensibly about reviewing a text, but which have really been about, you don't like that person and you have decided to sort of like take an axe to them. And that to me feels not super productive. I wouldn't do it, but other people find it useful.Henry: As in, you can tell that from the review or you know that from background information?Brandon: I mean, this is all projection, of course, but like there have been some reviews where I've read, like, for example, some of the Lauren Oyler reviews, I think some of the Lauren Oyler reviews were negative and were exclusively about the text. And they sort of took the text apart and sort of dissected it and came to conclusions, some of which I agreed with, some of which I didn't agree with, but they were fundamentally about the text. And like all the criticisms referred back to the text. And then there were some that were like projecting attitudes onto the author that were more about creating this sort of vaporous shape of Lauren Oyler and then sort of poking holes in her literary celebrity or her stature as a critic or what have you. And that to me felt less productive as like a book review.Henry: Yes. Who are your favorite reviewers?Brandon: Ooh, my favorite reviewers. I really love Christian Lawrence. And he does my, of the critics who try to do the sort of like mini historiography of like a thing. He's my favorite because he teaches me a lot. He sort of is so good at summing up an era or summing up a phase of literary production without being like so cringe or so socialist about it. I really love, I love it when he sort of distills and dissects an era. I really like Hermione Hobie. I think she's really interesting. And she writes about books with a lot of feeling and a lot of energy. And I really love her mind. And of course, like Patricia Lockwood, of course, everyone, perhaps not everyone, but I enjoy Patricia Lockwood's criticism. You don't?Henry: Not really.Brandon: Oh, is it because it's too chatty? Is it too, is it too selfie?Henry: A little bit. I think, I think that kind of criticism can work really well. But I think, I think it's too much. I think basically she's very, she's a very stylized writer and a lot of her judgments get, it gets to the point where it's like, this is the logical conclusion of what you're trying to do stylistically. And there are some zingers in here and some great lines and whatever, but we're no longer, this is no longer really a book review.Brandon: Yeah.Henry: Like by the, by the end of the paragraph, this, like, we didn't want to let the style go. We didn't want to lose the opportunity to cap that off. And it leads her into, I think, glibness a lot of the time.Brandon: Yeah. I could see that. I mean, I mean, I enjoy reading her pieces, but do I understand like what's important to her at a sort of literary level? I don't know. I don't, and in that sense, like, are they, is it criticism or is it closer to like personal essay, humorous essay? I don't know. Maybe that's true. I enjoy reading them, but I get why people are like, this is a very, very strong flavor for sure.Henry: Now you've been reading a lot of literary criticism.Brandon: Oh yeah.Henry: Not of the LRB variety, but of the, the old books in libraries variety. Yes. How did that start? How did, how did you come to this?Brandon: Somewhat like ham-fistedly. I, in 2021, I had a really bad case of writer's block and I thought maybe part of the reason I had writer's block was that I didn't know anything about writing or I didn't know anything about like literature or like writing. I'd been writing, I'd published a novel. I was working on another novel. I'd published a book of stories, but like, I just like truly didn't know anything about literature really. And I thought I need some big boy ideas. I need, I need to find out what adults think about literature. And so I went to my buddy, Christian Lorenzen, and I was like, you write criticism. What is it? And what should I read? And he gave me a sort of starter list of criticism. And it was like the liberal imagination by Lionel Trilling and Guy Davenport and Alfred Kazin who wrote On Native Grounds, which is this great book on the American literary tradition and Leslie Fiedler's Love and Death in the American Novel. And I, and then Edmund Wilson's Axel's Castle. And I read all of those. And then as each one would sort of refer to a different text or person, I sort of like followed the footnotes down into this rabbit hole of like literary criticism. And now it's been a sort of ongoing project of the last few years of like reading. I always try to have a book of criticism on the go. And then earlier this year, I read Jameson's The Antimonies of Realism. And he kept talking about this Georg Lukács guy. And I was like, I guess I should go read Lukács. And so then I started reading Lukács so that I could get back to Jameson. And I've been reading Lukács ever since. I am like deep down the Lukács rabbit hole. But I'm not reading any of the socialism stuff. I told myself that I wouldn't read any of the socialism stuff and I would only read the literary criticism stuff, which makes me very different from a lot of the socialist literary critics I really enjoy because they're like Lukács, don't read in that literary criticism stuff, just read his socialism stuff. So I'm reading all the wrong stuff from Lukács, but I really, I really love it. But yeah, it sort of started because I thought I needed grown up ideas about literature. And it's been, I don't know, I've really enjoyed it. I really, really enjoy it. It's given me perhaps terrible ideas about what novels should be or do. But, you know, that's one of the side effects to reading.Henry: Has it made, like, what specific ways has it changed how you've written since you've acquired a set of critical principles or ideas?Brandon: Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is, part of it has to do with Lukács' idea of the totality. And, you know, I think that the sort of most direct way that it shows up in a sort of really practical way in my novel writing is that I no longer really want to be starting my books, quote unquote, in media res. Like, I don't want, I want my books to feel like books. I don't want my books to feel like movies. And I don't want them to feel like treatments for film. And so I want to sort of bring back all of what a novel can do in terms of its structure and in terms of its form and stuff like that. And so it means starting books, you know, with this sort of Dickensian voice of God speaking from on high, sort of summing up an era. And I think also sort of allowing the narrators in my work to dare to sum up, allowing characters in my work to have ideologies and to argue about those ideologies. I feel like that is a thing that was sort of denuded from the American novel for a lot of millennials and just sort of like trying to put back some of that old fashioned machinery that was like stripped out of the novel. And seeing what of it can still function, seeing, trying to figure out if there's any juice left in these modes of representation and stuff like that. And so like that, that's sort of, that's sort of abstract, but like in a concrete way, like what I'm kind of trying to resolve in my novel writing these days.Henry: You mentioned Dickens.Brandon: Oh, yes.Henry: Which Dickens novels do you like?Brandon: Now I'm afraid I'm going to say something else controversial. We love controversial. Which Dickens? I love Bleak House. I love Bleak House. I love Tale of Two Cities. It is one of the best openings ever, ever, ever, ever in the sweep of that book at once personal and universal anyway. Bleak House, Tale of Two Cities. And I also, I read Great Expectations as like a high school student and didn't like it, hated it. It was so boring. But now coming back to it, I think it, honestly, it might be the novel of our time. I think it might accidentally be a novel. I mean, it's a novel of scammers, a novel of like, interpersonal beef taken to the level of like, spiritual conflict, like it's about thieves and class, like it just feels like like that novel could have been written today about people today, like that book just feels so alive to today's concerns, which perhaps, I don't know, says something really evil about this cultural stagnation under capitalism, perhaps, but I don't know, love, love Great Expectations now.Henry: Why are so many modern novels boring?Brandon: Well, depends on what you mean by boring, Henry, what do you mean? Why?Henry: I mean, you said this.Brandon: Oh.Henry: I mean, I happen to agree, but this is, I'm quoting you.Brandon: Oh, yes. I remember that. I remember that review.Henry: I mean, I can tell you why I think they're boring.Brandon: Oh, yes, please.Henry: So I think, I think what you said before is true. They all read like movies. And I think I very often I go in, I pick up six or seven books on the new book table. And I'm like, these openings are all just the same. You're all thinking you can all see Netflix in your head. This is not really a novel. And so the dialogue is really boring, because you kind of you can hear some actor or actress saying it. But I can't hear that because I'm the idiot stuck in the bookshop reading your Netflix script. Whereas, you know, I think you're right that a lot of those traditional forms of storytelling, they like pull you in to the to the novel. And they and they like by the end of the first few pages, you sort of feel like I'm in this funny place now. And to do in media res, like, someone needs to get shot, or something, something weird needs to be said, like, you can't just do another, another standard opening. So I think that's a big, that's a big point.Brandon: Well, as Lukasz tells us, bourgeois realism has a, an unholy fondness for the, the average, the merely average, as opposed to the typical. And I think, yeah, a lot of it, a lot of why I think it's boring echoes you, I think that for me, what I find boring, and a lot of them is that it feels like novelists have abandoned any desire to, to have their characters or the novels themselves integrate the sort of disparate experiences within the novel into any kind of meaningful hole. And so there isn't this like sense of like things advancing toward a grander understanding. And I think a lot of it is because they've, they are writing under the assumption that like the question of why can never be answered. There can never be like a why, there can never be a sort of significance to anything. And so everything is sort of like evacuated of significance or meaning. And so you have what I've taken to calling like reality TV fiction, where the characters are just like going places and doing things, and there are no thoughts, there are no thoughts about their lives, or no thoughts about the things that they are doing, there are no thoughts about their experiences. And it's just a lot of like, like lowercase e events in their lives, but like no attempt to organize those events into any sort of meaningful hole. And I think also just like, what leads to a lot of dead writing is writers who are deeply aware that they're writing about themes, they're writing about themes instead of people. And they're working from generalities instead of particularities and specificities. And they have no understanding of the relationship between the universal and the particular. And so like, everything is just like, like beans in a can that they're shaking around. And I think that that's really boring. I think it's really tedious. Like, like, sure, we can we can find something really profound in the mundane, but like, you have to be really smart to do that. So like the average novelist is like better off like, starting with a gunshot or something like do something big.Henry: If you're not Virginia Woolf, it is in fact just mundane.Brandon: Indeed. Yeah.Henry: Is there too much emphasis on craft? In the way, in the way, in like what's valued among writers, in the way writers are taught, I feel like everything I see is about craft. And I'm like, craft is good, but that can just be like how you make a table rather than like how you make a house. Craft is not the guarantor of anything. And I see a lot of books where I think this person knows some craft. But as you say, they don't really have an application for it. And they don't. No one actually said to them, all style has a moral purpose, whether you're aware of it or not. And so they default to this like pointless use of the craft. And someone should say to them, like, you need to know history. You need to know tennis. You need to know business. You need to know like whatever, you know. And I feel like the novels I don't like are reflections of the discourse bubble that the novelist lives in. And I feel like it's often the continuation of Twitter by other means. So in the Rachel Kong novel that I think it came out this year, there's a character, a billionaire character who comes in near the end. And everything that he says or that is said about him is literally just meme. It's online billionaire meme because billionaires are bad because of all the things we all know from being on Twitter. And I was like, so you just we literally have him a character as meme. And this is the most representative thing to me, because that's maybe there's craft in that. Right. But what you've chosen to craft is like 28 tweets. That's pointless.Brandon: 28 tweets be a great title for a book, though, you have to admit, I would buy that book off the new book table. 28 tweets. I would. I would buy that. Yeah, I do think. Well, I think it goes both ways. I think it goes both ways. I somewhat famously said this about Sally Rooney that like she her books have no craft. The craft is bad. And I do think like there are writers who only have craft, who are able to sort of create these wonderfully structured books and to sort of deploy these beautiful techniques. And those books are absolutely dead. There's just like nothing in them because they have nothing to say. There's just like nothing to be said about any of that. And on the other hand, you have these books that are full of feelings that like would be better had someone taught that person about structure or form or had they sort of had like a rigorous thing. And I would say that like both of those are probably bad, like depending on who you are, you find one more like, like easier to deal with than the other. I do think that like part of why there's such an emphasis on craft is because not to sort of bring capitalism back in but you can monetize craft, you know what I mean? Like, craft is one of those things that is like readily monetizable. Like, if I'm a writer, and I would like to make money, and I can't sell a novel, I can tell people like, oh, how to craft a perfect opening, how to create a novel opening that will make agents pick it up and that will make editors say yes, but like what the sort of promise of craft is that you can finish a thing, but not that it is good, as you say, there's no guarantor. Whereas you know, like it's harder to monetize someone's soul, or like, it's harder to monetize like the sort of random happenstance of just like a writer's voice sort of emerging from from whatever, like you can't turn that into profit. But you can turn into profit, let me help you craft your voice. So it's very grind set, I think craft has a tendency to sort of skew toward the grind set and toward people trying to make money from, from writing when they can't sell a book, you know. Henry: Let's play a game. Brandon: Oh dear.Henry: I say the name of a writer. You give us like the 30 second Brandon Taylor opinion of that writer.Brandon: Okay. Yeah.Henry: Jonathan Franzen.Brandon: Thomas Mann, but like, slightly more boring, I think.Henry: Iris Murdoch.Brandon: A friend of mine calls her a modern calls her the sort of pre Sally Rooney, Sally Rooney. And I agree with that.Henry: When I'm at parties, I try and sell her to people where I say she's post-war Sally Rooney.Brandon: Yes, yes. And like, and like all that that entails, and so many delightful, I read all these like incredible sort of mid century reviews of her novels, and like the men, the male critics, like the Bernard Breganzis of the world being like, why is there so much sex in this book? It's amazing. Please go look up those like mid-century reviews of Iris Murdoch. They were losing their minds. Henry: Chekhov.Brandon: Perfect, iconic, baby girl, angel, legend. Can't get enough. 10 out of 10.Henry: Evelyn Waugh.Brandon: So Catholic, real Catholic vibes. But like, scabrously funny. And like, perhaps the last writer to write about life as though it had meaning. Hot take, but I'll, I stand by it.Henry: Yeah, well, him and Murdoch. But yeah, no, I think I think there's a lot in that. C.V. Wedgwood.Brandon: Oh, my gosh. The best, a titan, a master of history. Like, oh, my God. I would not be the same without Wedgwood.Henry: Tell us which one we should read.Brandon: Oh, the 30 Years War. What are you talking about?Henry: Well, I think her books on the English Civil War… I'm a parochial Brit.Brandon: Oh, see, I don't, not that I don't, I will go read those. But her book on the 30 Years War is so incredible. It's, it's amazing. It's second to like, Froissart's Chronicles for like, sort of history, history books for me.Henry: Northrop Frye.Brandon: My father. I, Northrop Frye taught me so much about how to see and how to think. Just amazing, a true thinker in a mind. Henry: Which book? Brandon: Oh, Anatomy of Criticism is fantastic. But Fearful Symmetry is just, it will blow your head off. Just amazing. But if you're looking for like, to have your, your mind gently remapped, then Anatomy of Criticism.Henry: Emma Cline.Brandon: A throwback. I think she's, I think she's Anne Beattie meets John Cheever for a new era. And I think she's amazing. She's perfect. Don't love her first novel. I think her stories are better. She's a short story writer. And she should stay that way.Henry: Okay, now I want you to rank Jane Austen's novels.Brandon: Wait, okay. So like, by my preference, or by like, what I think is the best?Henry: You can do both.Brandon: Okay. So in terms, my favorite, Persuasion. Then Mansfield Park. Sense and Sensibility. Pride and Prejudice. And then Emma, then Northanger Abbey. Okay.Henry: Now, how about for which ones are the best?Brandon: Persuasion. Pride and Prejudice. Mansfield Park. Emma,.Sense and Sensibility. Northanger Abbey.Henry: Why do people not like Fanny Price? And what is wrong with them?Brandon: Fanny Price is perfect. Fanny Price, I was just talking to someone about this last night at dinner. Fanny Price, she's perfect. First of all, she is, I don't know why people don't like her. She's like a chronically ill girl who's hot for her cousin and like, has deep thoughts. It seems like she would be the icon of literary Twitter for like a certain kind of person, you know? And I don't know why they don't like her. I think I'm, I am becoming the loudest Mansfield Park apologist on the internet. I think that people don't like Fanny because she's less vivacious than Mary Crawford. And I think that people are afraid to see themselves in Fanny because she seems like she's unfun or whatever. But what they don't realize is that like Fanny Price, Fanny Price has like a moral intelligence and like a moral consciousness. And like Fanny Price is one of the few Austen characters who actually argues directly and literally about the way the world is. Like with multiple people, like the whole, the whole novel is her sort of arguing about, well, cities are this and the country is this. And like, we need Parsons as much as we need party boys. Like, like she's arguing not just about, not just about these things like through the lens of like marriage or like the sort of marriage economy, but like in literal terms, I mean, she is so, she's like a moral philosopher. I love Fanny Price and she's so smart and so sensitive and so, and I guess like maybe it's just that people don't like a character who's kind of at the mercy of others and they view her as passive. When in fact, like a young woman arguing about the way the world should be, like Mary Crawford's, Mary Crawford's like kind of doing the above, not really, not like Fanny. But yeah, I love her. She's amazing. I love Fanny Price. And I also think that people love Margaret Hale from North and South. And I think that when people are saying they hate Fanny Price, what they're picturing is actually how Margaret Hale is. Margaret Hale is one of the worst heroines of a novel. She's so insufferable. She's so rude. She's so condescending. And like, she does get her comeuppance and like Gaskell does sort of bring about a transformation where she's actually able to sort of like see poor people as people first and not like subjects of sympathy. But Margaret is what people imagine Fanny is, I think. And we should, we should start a Fanny Price, like booster club. Henry, should we? Let's do it. It begins here. I just feel so strongly about her. I feel, I love, I love Fanny.Henry: She's my favorite of Austen's characters. And I think she is the most representative Austen character. She's the most Austen of all of them, right?Brandon: Yeah, I mean, that makes great deal of sense to me. She's just so wonderful. Like she's so funny and so observant. And she's like this quiet little girl who's like kind of sickly and people don't really like her. And she's kind of maybe I'm just like, maybe I just like see myself in her. And I don't mind being a sort of annoying little person who's going around the world.Henry: What are some good principles for naming literary characters?Brandon: Ooh, I have a lot of strong feelings about this. I think that names should be memorable. They should have like, like an aura of sort of literariness about them. I don't mean, I mean, taken to like hilarious extremes. It's like Henry James. Catherine Goodwood, Isabelle Archer, Ralph Touchett, like, you know, Henry had a stack pole. So like, not like that. But I mean, that could be fun in a modern way. But I think there's like an aura of like, it's a name that you might hear in real life, but it sort of add or remove, it's sort of charged and elevated, sort of like with dialogue. And that it's like a memorable thing that sort of like, you know, it's like, you know, memorable thing that sort of sticks in the reader's mind. It is both a name, a literary, a good literary name is both a part of this world and not of this world, I think. And, yeah, and I love that. I think like, don't give your character a name like you hear all the time. Like, Tyler is a terrible literary name. Like, no novel has ever, no good novel has ever had a really important character named Tyler in it. It just hasn't. Ryan? What makes a good sentence? Well, my sort of like, live and let live answer is that a good sentence is a sentence that is perfectly suited to the purpose it has. But I don't know, I like a clear sentence, regardless of length or lyric intensity, but just like a clear sentence that articulates something. I like a sentence with motion, a sense of rhythm, a sense of feel without any bad words in it. And I don't mean like curse words, I mean like words that shouldn't be in literature. Like, there's some words that just like don't belong in novels.Henry: Like what?Brandon: Squelch. Like, I don't think the word squelch should be in a novel. That's a gross word and it doesn't sound literary to me. I don't want to see it.Henry: I wouldn't be surprised if it was in Ulysses.Brandon: Well, yes.Henry: I have no idea, but I'm sure, I'm sure.Brandon: But so few of us are James Joyce. And that novel is like a thousand bodily functions per page. But don't love it. Don't love it.Henry: You don't love Ulysses?Brandon: No, I don't… Listen, I don't have a strong opinion, but you're not going to get me cancelled about Ulysses. I'm not Virginia Woolf.Henry: We're happy to have opinions of that nature here. That's fine.Brandon: You know, I don't have a strong feeling about it, actually. Some parts of it that I've read are really wonderful. And some parts of it that I have read are really dense and confusing to me. I haven't sort of given it the time it needs or deserves. What did you learn from reading Toni Morris? What did I learn? I think I learned a lot about the moral force of melodrama. I think that she shows us a lot about the uses of melodrama and how it isn't just like a lesion of realism, that it isn't just a sort of malfunctioning realism, but that there are certain experiences and certain lives and certain things that require and necessitate melodrama. And when deployed, it's not tacky or distasteful that it actually is like deeply necessary. And also just like the joy of access and language, like the sort of... Her language is so towering. I don't know, whenever I'm being really shy about a sentence being too vivid or too much, I'm like, well, Toni Morrison would just go for it. And I am not Toni Morrison, but she has given me the courage to try.Henry: What did you like about the Annette Benning film of The Seagull?Brandon: The moment when Annette Benning sings Dark Eyes is so good. It's so good. I think about it all the time. And indeed, I stole that moment for a short story that I wrote. And I liked that part of it. I liked the set design. I think also Saoirse Ronan, when she gives that speech as Nina, where she's like, you know, where the guy's like, what do you want from, you know, what do you want? Why do you want to be an actress? And she's like, I want fame. You know, like, I want to be totally adored. And I'm just like, yeah, that's so real. That's so, that is so real. Like Chekhov has understood something so deep, so deep about the nature of commerce and art there. And I think Saoirse is really wonderful in that movie. It's a not, it's not a good movie. It's maybe not even a good adaptation of The Seagull. But I really enjoyed it. I saw it like five times in a theater in Iowa City.Henry: I don't know if it's a bad adaptation of The Seagull, because it's one of the, it's one of the Chekhov's I've seen that actually understands that, like, the tragic and the and the comic are not meant to be easily distinguishable in his work. And it does have all this lightheartedness. And it is quite funny. And I was like, well, at least someone's doing that because I'm so sick of, like, gloomy Chekhov. You know what I mean? Like, oh, the clouds and the misery. Like, no, he wants you, he wants you to laugh and then be like, I shouldn't laugh because it's kind of tragic, but it's also just funny.Brandon: Yeah. Yes, I mean, all the moments were like, like Annette Bening's characters, like endless stories, like she's just like constantly unfurling a story and a story and a story and a story. Every scene kind of was like, she's in the middle of telling another interminable anecdote. And of course, the sort of big tragic turn at the end is like, where like, Kostya kills himself. And she's like, in the middle of like, another really long anecdote while they're in the other room playing cards. Like, it's so, it's so good. So I love that. I enjoy watching that movie. I still think it's maybe not. It's a little wooden, like as a movie, like it's a little, it's a little rickety.Henry: Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure. But for someone looking to like, get a handle on Chekhov, it's actually a good place to go. What is the best make of Fountain Pen?Brandon: That's a really good, that's a really, really, really good question. Like, what's your Desert Island Fountain Pen? My Desert Island Fountain Pen. Right now, it's an Esterbrook Estee with a needlepoint nib. It's like, so, I can use that pen for hours and hours and hours and hours. I think my favorite Fountain Pen, though, is probably the Pilot Custom 743. It's a really good pen, not too big, not too small. It can hold a ton of ink, really wonderful. I use, I think, like a Soft Fine nib, incredible nib, so smooth. Like, I, you could cap it and then uncap it a month later, and it just like starts immediately. It's amazing. And it's not too expensive.Henry: Brandon Taylor, thank you very much.Brandon: Thanks for having me. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

Pollini i la sonata "Hammerklavier". Coincidint amb l'aniversari del naixement de Ludwig van Beethoven, un any m

Eine CD von Maurizio Pollini - vorgestellt auf NDR Kultur.

durée : 00:11:44 - Le Disque classique du jour du mardi 19 novembre 2024 - En juin 2022, Maurizio et Daniele Pollini se sont rendus à la Herkulessaal de Munich pour enregistrer un nouvel album studio consacré à trois aspects essentiels de la musique pour piano de Schubert : les sonates, les cycles de pièces courtes et la musique pour piano à quatre mains.

durée : 00:11:44 - Le Disque classique du jour du mardi 19 novembre 2024 - En juin 2022, Maurizio et Daniele Pollini se sont rendus à la Herkulessaal de Munich pour enregistrer un nouvel album studio consacré à trois aspects essentiels de la musique pour piano de Schubert : les sonates, les cycles de pièces courtes et la musique pour piano à quatre mains.

durée : 00:59:51 - En pistes, contemporains ! du dimanche 08 septembre 2024 - par : Emilie Munera - Au programme l'altiste Antoine Tamestit, le pianiste Maurizio Pollini, la violoncelliste Hadewych van Gent - réalisé par : Céline Parfenoff

durée : 00:59:51 - En pistes, contemporains ! du dimanche 08 septembre 2024 - par : Emilie Munera - Au programme l'altiste Antoine Tamestit, le pianiste Maurizio Pollini, la violoncelliste Hadewych van Gent - réalisé par : Céline Parfenoff

Rob Delaney is a comedian, writer and actor who is best known for the television series Catastrophe, which he co-wrote and co-starred in alongside Sharon Horgan. He has also appeared in Hollywood blockbusters including Deadpool and Mission Impossible. Rob was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in Marblehead on the north shore. He studied for a degree in Musical Theatre at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and began writing comedy material after he graduated. In 2014, he moved to London to co-write and shoot the first series of Catastrophe and has been in the UK ever since. The series won Rob and Sharon a BAFTA and a Royal Television Society Award for comedy writing. In 2016 Rob's one-year-old son Henry was diagnosed with a brain tumour and after undergoing surgery and intense treatment Henry died in 2018. In the throes of his grief Rob wrote his best-selling book A Heart That Works which was a tribute to his son, his family and the NHS.Rob lives in north London with his wife and three sons. DISC ONE: Galician Overture - The Chieftains DISC TWO: This Is To Mother You - Sinéad O'Connor DISC THREE: Chopin, Nocturne No 11 in G minor. Composed by Frédéric Chopin and performed by Maurizio Pollini (piano) DISC FOUR: Bluer Than Midnight - The The DISC FIVE: Hey - Pixies DISC SIX: Fire in the Hole - Steely Dan DISC SEVEN: Plainclothes Man - Heatmiser DISC EIGHT: Rock Lobster - The B-52s BOOK CHOICE: The Collected Works of Alice Munro LUXURY ITEM: A piano CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: This Is To Mother You - Sinéad O'ConnorPresenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Entretien téléphonique réalisé par Eliane Pérus. Echange toujours aussi passionnant, à écouter........Pierre REACH est  co-fondateur et directeur artistique du Festival PIANO PIC avec Christophe BAILLET .Pianiste, concertiste de renommée internationale, pédagogue, il vient de terminer le 3°et avant-dernier coffret des sonates de Beethoven , énorme travail de plusieurs années. Passeur passionné, il dirigera à partir du mois d'octobre une classe de perfectionnement consacrée aux sonates de Beethoven à l'Ecole Normale Alfred Cortot à Paris.Il évoque le grand pianiste italien Maurizio POLLINI, décédé en mars dernier car cette 27°édition du Festival est dédiée à ce grand musicien.Cette manifestation se déroulera du 15 au 27 juillet 2024. Premier concert au Pic du Midi; Beaucoup d'invités prestigieux dans cette édition avec la venue d'Alexandre THARAUD, de l'Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse et de bien d'autres . Un concert à la Centrale pénitentiaire de Lannemezan avec François-René DUCHÂBLE, 4 Conc'Air gratuits à Bagnères, une conférence, un concert de jazz.Vous retrouverez toute la programmation avec ce lien : Programme 2024 | Festival Piano Pic (piano-pic.fr)Extraits musicaux que vous entendrez durant ce podcast :1/ Maurizio POLLINI "Prélude op 28 n°4 in E Minor Largo" de CHOPIN2/ Caroline SAGEMAN “Polonaise” de CHOPIN3/ Pierre REACH Sonate n°24 op78 "A Thérèse" Allegro de Beethoven4/ Nicolas STAVY “Nocturne op 63” de FauréHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Andrés Amorós cierra el ciclo dedicado a este gran pianista italiano, esta vez a través de piezas de Beethoven y Schubert.

Andrés Amorós continúa con el ciclo dedicado a este gran pianista italiano que redescuiró a Chopin.

Andrés Amorós inicia un ciclo dedicado al gran pianista italiano que redescubrió a Chopin.

1828. De 28-jarige Frédéric Chopin kampt met een zwakke gezondheid en overwintert in Mallorca. De vakantie valt in het water, want er is geen zon te bespeuren en de componist moet maanden op een piano wachten. Met zijn vriendin George Sand vindt Chopin onderdak in een klooster in Valldemossa waar hij zijn 24 pianopreludes componeert. Tegen Chopin zijn zin hoorde George Sand de regendruppels vallen in het ritme van de vijftiende prelude. moeilijke woorden: prelude uitvoering: Maurizio Pollini

durée : 01:33:57 - Relax ! du jeudi 02 mai 2024 - par : Lionel Esparza - A la Une de Diapason ce mois-ci : L'organiste Benjamin Alard, une rencontre avec Sheku Kanneh-Mason, un hommage à Maurizio Pollini...

Milena Busquets publica 'Ensayo general', una treintena de textos breves y ligeros sobre los hijos, el amor, el deseo, la madre o la propia escritura. Contado con mucho humor y poso, en formato de columnas, pero con una mayor profundidad. De ahí nos vamos a Alcalá de Henares con la exposición del dibujante Nicolás Martínez Cerezo, creador de 'La gorda de las galaxias'. Comisariado por Gerardo Vilches. Viajamos hasta París con nuestro corresponsal Antonio Delgado para visitar otra exposición en la que descubrimos que los aztecas son en realidad mexicas. Nos despedimos junto a Martín Llade para recordar al pianista italiano, fallecido en marzo, Maurizio Pollini.Escuchar audio

a cura di Claudio Ricordi

Ir dar vienas In memoriam šią savaitę. Regis tik ką buvo atsisveikinta su pianistu Maurizio Pollini ir pasiekė žinia, kad eidamas 80-uosius metus mirė garsus vengrų kompozitorius ir dirigentas Péteris Eötvösas. Antroje laidos dalyje – leidybinės naujienos. Čia ir Mendelssohnas, ir du kontrabosai, ir Charleso Lloydo džiazas, ir netikėtas lietuviškų sutartinių projektas!Ved. Domantas Razauskas

A cura di Carlo Centemeri. Speciale specialissimo di Labirinti Musicali in diretta per ricordare Maurizio Pollini nelle parole di chi l'ha conosciuto e ci ha lavorato; saranno con me Salvatore Sciarrino, Giacomo Manzoni, Carlo Fontana; non mancheremo poi di parlare della figura del pianista Pollini, con Luca Chierici. E ovviamente abbondanza di ascolti dalle cose più o meno note del suo repertorio!

Oggi a Cult: l'attore, regista e sceneggiatore Gael Garcia Bernal al micorofno di Barbara Sorrentini; le note del Quartetto della Scala, la voce del sovrintendente Meyer e del pubblico che hanno tributato omaggio a Maurizio Pollini nel foyer del Teatro alla Scala; Marcos Morau, fondatore della acclamata compagnia La Veronal, parla di "Firmamento" in scena al FOG Festival di Triennale Teatro; il glossario in 50 voci "Elfologia" (ed. Scalpendi), sul 50° del Teatro dell'Elfo, curato da Alessia Rondelli e commentato da Elio De Capitani...

Gestern ist die Leipziger Buchmesse mit 283.000 Besuchern zu Ende gegangen. Die Kulturseiten ziehen Bilanz. Außerdem würdigen sie Maurizio Pollini als einen der größten Pianisten des 20.Jahrhunderts. Der Italiener ist im Alter von 82 Jahren gestorben.

durée : 00:58:52 - Maurizio Pollini et Chopin - par : Aurélie Moreau - La mort de Maurizio Pollini laisse un grand vide dans le monde de la musique. Virtuose inégalé du piano, Pollini a marqué par sa précision technique, son sens de l'expression et sa profondeur artistique, particulièrement dans l'œuvre de Chopin.

(00:00:54) Er war einer der ganz grossen Pianisten der letzten Jahrzehnte: Maurizio Pollini. Nun ist der Italiener im Alter von 82 Jahren gestorben. Wir würdigen das Werk des Meisterpianisten. (00:06:22) Stück «Der vergessene Prozess» am Theater an der Effingerstrasse in Bern: Eine Aufarbeitung des Prozesses gegen die Verbreitung antisemitischer Hassschrift. (00:10:48) Auswahl für das Schweizer Theatertreffen 2024: Eine breite Palette aus allen vier Landesteilen im Mai. (00:14:41) 25 Jahre «The Matrix»: Funktioniert der Science-Fiction-Film noch oder geht er in die «Quarterlife Crisis»? (00:19:02) «Mars Express »: Ein französischer Animationsfilm im Stile japanischer Science-Fiction.

Oggi a Cult: il doc di Daniele Vicari "Fela il mio dio vivente"; la mostra su Cezanne e Renoir a Palazzo Reale di Milano; Claudio Ricordi racconta di Maurizio Pollini, a partire da uno dei suoi "archivi musicali" e Giuseppe Califano parla dell'eredità che ha lasciato alle nuove generazioni...

durée : 01:58:49 - Le Bach du dimanche du dimanche 24 mars 2024 - par : Corinne Schneider - Au programme de cette 289e émission : hommage à Maurizio Pollini dont on apprend le décès survenu le samedi 23 mars 2024 à l'âge de 82 ans ; la Passion selon Saint-Marc (Dresde, 1767) de Gottfried August Homilius (1714-1785), un élève de Bach ; et les 75 ans de la basse allemande Klaus Mertens. - réalisé par : Emmanuel Benito

Weiß, Lisa www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Fazit

durée : 01:58:47 - Maurizio Pollini, les années 1960-1990 - par : Philippe Cassard - Artiste majeur, Maurizio Pollini (1942), dont le répertoire immense va de Bach aux compositeurs contemporains. - réalisé par : Philippe Petit

Vratz, Christoph www.deutschlandfunk.de, Kultur heute

SynopsisOn today's date in 1832, Polish pianist and composer Frederic Chopin made his concert debut in Paris at the Salle Pleyel. Among the enthusiastic audience members was another composer-pianist by the name of Franz Liszt, who would rapidly become Chopin's close friend and advocate.Chopin dedicated his recently completed Piano Etudes to Liszt, and Chopin once wrote to a friend, “I am writing without knowing what my pen is scribbling, because at this moment Liszt is playing my etudes and putting honest thoughts out of my head. I should like to rob him of the way he plays them!”The failure of the Polish Insurrection of 1831 had driven a large number of Polish refugees to Paris, where they joined émigré groups of Italians and Austrians who had also fled political repression at home for the more liberal, welcoming atmosphere of the French capitol.Increasing ill health and crippling stage fright made Chopin's public concert appearances in Paris rare events. When Chopin did perform in public, he liked to share the stage with a sympathetic singer like Pauline Viardot-Garcia, or a fellow pianist like Liszt. Despite his fame, Chopin's concert appearances in Paris numbered less than a dozen.Music Played in Today's ProgramFrederic Chopin (1810-1949): Etude No. 10; Maurizio Pollini, piano DG 413 794

durée : 00:58:38 - Maurizio Pollini, la maîtrise absolue - par : Aurélie Moreau - Maurizio Pollini, pianiste au talent exceptionnel, suscite l'admiration par son intense concentration musicale, son sens de la perfection, sa fidélité aux partitions et son approche du répertoire, à la fois rigoureuse et pleine d'imagination.

His understanding of Classical music is genuine and vigorously mesmerizing. Immerse yourself in the musical world of the orchestral director of the Tiroler Symphonieorchester Innsbruck, Maestro Kerem Hasan, one of today's most exciting young British conductors. Bestowed with fine intellect, magnificent talent, and passionate sensitivity he will guide you with the elegancy and precision of his baton on how movement and imaginary can elevate an orchestra to higher levels. He'll talk about the German-Austrian tradition, Opera, Crossovers, and the drive, and authenticity needed to conduct masterfully equipped musicians of grand orchestras. Experience Brahms, Gustav Mahler, the grand pianist Maurizio Pollini, and Dutch Conductor Bernard Haitink through his eyes and join him on the Podium to talk about classical music's narrative, its decoding, and the role of mystery, persuasion, chemistry, gestures, and silence when interpreting and transmitting the composer's message.

durée : 00:18:59 - Disques de légende du mardi 14 novembre 2023 - Maurizio Pollini enregistre les Préludes de Chopin en 1975 sous le label Deutsche Grammophon. Passion et désolation, soleil et détresse, tendresse et mort certaine, Maurizio Pollini n'a pas son pareil pour percer les mondes ouverts par les Préludes.

Polaco de nacimiento, Frédéric Chopin fue un niño prodigio del piano, lo que le llevó a abandonar el ducado de Varsovia siendo muy joven, con sólo 20 años, para instalarse en París. Allí se convirtió en una celebridad por su dominio absoluto del instrumento. En París entabló amistad con otros grandes pianistas como el húngaro Franz Liszt y tuvo una legión de admiradores en toda Europa entre los que se encontraban algunos de los mejores compositores. Pero no se dejaba ver demasiado. Huía de las grandes representaciones, prefería en su lugar los ambientes íntimos de los salones parisinos en los que ofrecía recitales para una selecta audiencia. Vendía también sus composiciones y daba clases de piano que eran muy demandadas. Pero Chopin no era una persona fácil. A lo largo de su vida padeció una tuberculosis recurrente y era de carácter retraído y extremadamente emocional. En su correspondencia personal, buena parte de la cual ha llegado hasta nosotros, descubrimos un hombre muy sensible, pero también orgulloso y en ocasiones terco, conocedor de su genialidad y propenso a las depresiones. Todo eso se refleja en su música, transida de melancolía y expresividad. También lo podemos ver en la compleja relación que mantuvo con el sexo opuesto, algo que marcó toda su vida adulta. Tuvo dos grandes amores. Primero la polaca Maria Wodzińska, con quien llegó a comprometerse y mantuvo una relación de más de tres años. Llegó incluso a pedirle matrimonio, pero la familia se oponía ya que consideraba que el joven pianista no era un buen partido para ella, que pertenecía a la nobleza polaca y que, por lo tanto, debía aspirar a más. Tras la ruptura, Wodzińska se casó con un aristócrata polaco pero el matrimonio duró muy poco, en unos pocos años la relación se tornó imposible y se divorciaron. El segundo fue con la escritora francesa Aurore Dupin, más conocida por su pseudónimo George Sand. Se conocieron en 1836 en París. Ella era seis años mayor que él, ya había estado casada, tenía dos hijos y había coleccionado las aventuras con escritores famosos como Prosper Mérimée y Alfred de Musset. Para entonces ya era muy conocida en los ambientes literarios parisinos y tenía fama de “femme fatale”. Chopin no pudo resistir el embrujo de una mujer tan inteligente que hacía gala de semejante independencia y libertad de criterio. No tardaron en convertirse en amantes y emprender juntos un viaje a Mallorca ya que creían que el clima de la isla sería beneficioso para la tuberculosis de Chopin. No fue así, aquel invierno mallorquín fue húmedo y frío. La vivencia de la pareja terminaría en las páginas de un libro que Sand dio a la imprenta cuatro años más tarde. El corto periodo en Mallorca resultó duro, pero extremadamente productivo. La relación con George Sand se mantendría hasta casi el final de su vida. Para entonces la tuberculosis apenas le dejaba trabajar y eso hizo descender su producción. A pesar de ello, era ya reconocido como uno de los mejores compositores de Europa y el pianista más reputado. Murió con sólo 39 años en París convertido en una leyenda. Nos dejó más de 230 obras y en todas ellas el piano es el protagonista. Hoy es uno de los compositores más interpretados y también de los más apreciados por el público. Para hablar de él y de su música nos acompaña hoy en La ContraHistoria María Valverde, una joven pianista española que acaba de regresar de Budapest y que interpretará las siguientes obras de Chopin: - Estudio Op. 25 nº1 - Nocturno Op. 27 nº2 - Vals Op. 64 nº8 - Nocturno Op. 62 nº1 - Polonaise fantasie op. 61 - Impromptu Op. 66 Discografía: - "Chopin: The Complete Recordings" por Martha Argerich - https://amzn.to/474xUtl - "Chopin: 24 Etudes Op.10 & Op.25" por Maurizio Pollini - https://amzn.to/473dUXX - "Chopin: The Complete Nocturnes" por Daniel Baremboim - https://amzn.to/3SdibE4 - "Rubinstein Plays Chopin" por Arthur Rubinstein - https://amzn.to/49172w6 · Canal de Telegram: https://t.me/lacontracronica · “Hispanos. Breve historia de los pueblos de habla hispana”… https://amzn.to/428js1G · “La ContraHistoria de España. Auge, caída y vuelta a empezar de un país en 28 episodios”… https://amzn.to/3kXcZ6i · “Lutero, Calvino y Trento, la Reforma que no fue”… https://amzn.to/3shKOlK · “La ContraHistoria del comunismo”… https://amzn.to/39QP2KE Apoya La Contra en: · Patreon... https://www.patreon.com/diazvillanueva · iVoox... https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-contracronica_sq_f1267769_1.html · Paypal... https://www.paypal.me/diazvillanueva Sígueme en: · Web... https://diazvillanueva.com · Twitter... https://twitter.com/diazvillanueva · Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/fernandodiazvillanueva1/ · Instagram... https://www.instagram.com/diazvillanueva · Linkedin… https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernando-d%C3%ADaz-villanueva-7303865/ · Flickr... https://www.flickr.com/photos/147276463@N05/?/ · Pinterest... https://www.pinterest.com/fernandodiazvillanueva Encuentra mis libros en: · Amazon... https://www.amazon.es/Fernando-Diaz-Villanueva/e/B00J2ASBXM #FernandoDiazVillanueva #piano #chopin Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

In this episode, we discuss recordings of “Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Opp. 101 & 106” by Maurizio Pollini, “Clara & Robert Schumann: Piano Concertos” by Beatrice Rana & Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Yannick Nézet-Séguin, “Beethoven, Schumann, Franck” by Renaud Capuçon & Martha Argerich, “The Source” by Kenny Barron, “Solemn Moments” by The Christopher Lucas Wilson Trio, and “The Heavy Hitters” by Mike LeDonne, Eric Alexander, Jeremy Pelt, Vincent Herring, Peter Washington & Kenny Washington.   The Adult Music Podcast is featured in: Feedspot's Best 60 Jazz Podcasts   Episode 102 Deezer Playlist   “Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Opp. 101 & 106” (Deutsche Grammophon) Maurizio Pollini https://open.spotify.com/album/3ZV0BCtPGQ5W7gESiXb8wG https://music.apple.com/us/album/beethoven-piano-sonatas-opp-101-106/1651884386   “Clara & Robert Schumann: Piano Concertos” (Warner Classics) Beatrice Rana, Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Yannick Nézet-Séguin https://open.spotify.com/album/1N1wu91bavegZTqzKc9Irp https://music.apple.com/us/album/clara-robert-schumann-piano-concertos/1655782702   “Beethoven, Schumann, Franck” (Deutsche Grammophon) Renaud Capuçon, Martha Argerich https://open.spotify.com/album/5lXD2xfntBspFkioroSd6g https://music.apple.com/us/album/beethoven-schumann-franck/1650381581   “The Source” (Artwork Records)  Kenny Barron              https://open.spotify.com/album/5e2gQsP9jvj5telqe9zERG https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-source/1659443592   “Solemn Moments” (Casa De Jazz Records)  Christopher Lucas Wilson Trio https://open.spotify.com/album/7K6dCF2g9xubIU51NNdPq3 https://music.apple.com/us/album/solemn-moments/1659199217   “The Heavy Hitters” (Cellar Live) Mike LeDonne, Eric Alexander, Jeremy Pelt, Vincent Herring, Peter Washington & Kenny Washington. https://open.spotify.com/album/4bYbjJktFFjj7WQjDg0iN0 https://music.apple.com/us/search?term=Mike%20LeDonne   Be sure to check out these other podcasts:  "SOMETHING came from Baltimore"   Jazz, blues, and R&B interviews from Tom Gouker. Famous Interviews and Neon Jazz  Features a wide range of artists, musicians, writers, creatives and business folks from around the globe.   "Same Difference: 2 Jazz Fans, 1 Jazz Standard" Johnny Valenzuela and Tony Habra look at several versions of the same Jazz standard each week, play snippets from each version, discuss the history of the original and the different versions.    

Synopsis The first Piano Concerto by Brahms received its premiere public performance on today's date in 1859 with the Hanover Court Orchestra under the direction of Brahms's close friend Joseph Joachim and its 25-year composer as soloist. That first night audience had never heard anything quite like it. In his biography of Brahms, Jan Swafford describes what was expected of a piano concerto back then, namely “virtuosic brilliance, dazzling cadenzas, not too many minor keys, [and nothing] too tragic.” “To the degree that these were the rules,” writes Swafford, “[Brahms] violated every one of them.” His concerto opens with heaven-storming drama, continues with deeply melancholic lyricism, and closes with something akin to hard-fought, even grim, triumph. Rather than a display of flashy virtuosity, Brahms's concerto comes off as somber and deeply emotional. A second performance, five days later in Leipzig, was hissed. "I am experimenting and feeling my way,” Brahms wrote to his friend Joachim, adding, "all the same, the hissing was rather too much." Now regarded a dark Romantic masterpiece, it's important to remember how long it took audiences to warm to Brahms' music. The American composer Elliott Carter recalled that even in the 1920s, Boston concert goers used to quip that the exit signs meant, "This way in case of Brahms." Music Played in Today's Program Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15 - I. Maestoso - Poco più moderato Maurizio Pollini, piano; Berlin Philharmonic; Claudio Abbado, cond. DG 447041 On This Day Births 1899 - Russian-born American composer Alexander Tcherepnin, in St. Petersburg (Julian date: Jan. 9); Deaths 1851 - German opera composer Albert Lortzing, age 49, in Berlin; 1948 - Italian composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, age 72, in Venice; Premieres 1713 - Handel: opera "Teseo" (Julian date: Jan. 10); 1725 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 111 ("Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh allzeit") performed on the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany as part of Bach's second annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1724/25); 1816 - Cherubini: "Requiem," in Paris; 1880 - Rimsky-Korsakov: opera "May Night," in St. Petersburg, Napravnik conducting (Julian date: Jan. 9); 1904 - Janácek: opera "Jenufa" in Brno at the National Theater; 1927 - Roussel: Suite in F for orchestra, in Boston; 1929 - Schreker: opera "Der Schatzgräber" (The Treasure Hunter), in Frankfurt at the Opernhaus; 1930 - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 3 ("May First"), in Leningrad; 1936 - Gershwin: "Catfish Row" Suite (from the opera "Porgy and Bess"), by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Alexander Smallens conducting; 1947 - Martinu: "Toccata e due canzona" for chamber orchestra, in Basel, Switzerland; 1968 - Bernstein: song "So Pretty" (a song protesting the Vietnam War) at Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) in New York City, with singer Barbra Streisand and the composer at the piano; 1968 - Allan Pettersson: Symphony No. 6, in Stockholm; 1988 - Christopher Rouse: Symphony No. 1, by the Baltimore Symphony, David Zinman conducting; Links and Resources On Brahms

durée : 01:58:17 - Pépites pour le Nouvel An - par : Philippe Cassard - Des "joyeux anniversaire !" en cascade pour les 122 ans de Michelangeli (décédé en 1995), les 92 ans d'Alfred Brendel et les 81 ans de Maurizio Pollini, tous nés le 5 janvier. Plus quelques surprises dansantes de grands pianistes d'autrefois... - réalisé par : Pierre Willer

durée : 01:29:42 - En pistes ! du mercredi 04 janvier 2023 - par : Emilie Munera, Rodolphe Bruneau Boulmier - Ce matin, nouveau tour de piste en compagnie du pianiste Holger Falk mais aussi de Maurizio Pollini interprétant Beethoven ou encore le dernier enregistrement de la violoniste espagnole Lina Tur Bonet.

Beethoven – The Late Sonatas Opp. 101 & 106 marks the completion of Maurizio Pollini's survey of the five late piano sonatas. His landmark 1970s recordings of these works were recognized at the time with a Gramophone Award. A few years ago the pianist decided to revisit the five sonatas, and in 2019 made an acclaimed second recording of the final three at the Herkulessaal in Munich. Now he has returned to the same hall to record Opp. 101 and 106 – among the most technically challenging and musically adventurous works in the concert repertoire. Deutsche Grammophon will release his new album today.The quixotic nature of Beethoven's A major Sonata, Op. 101 and the complexities of the “Hammerklavier” Sonata, Op. 106 offers infinite scope for interpretation. “Every Beethoven piano sonata is a different world,” observes Maurizio Pollini. “He finds a different character in each one, from the first to the last. Each is unique.” The A major Sonata, he adds, “is very free”. Drafted in the summer of 1815 and completed the following year, its four movements are markedly different in style and substance from those of the composer's earlier sonatas for piano. “It's a great challenge to understand and play it,” says Pollini.The scale of the challenge, however, pales beside that set by Beethoven in the “Hammerklavier” Sonata. The work was so difficult that it remained unperformed in public following its publication in 1819 until the young Franz Liszt showed the way seventeen years later at Paris's Salle Érard. Pollini describes it as the “greatest Beethoven sonata”. Its slow movement alone is almost as long as all four movements of its companion piece on the album. “You can think also of the funeral march of the ‘Eroica' Symphony – these are perhaps the two greatest movements Beethoven ever composed,” suggests the pianist. The transition into the fourth and final movement's fugue, a sublime Largo, dissolves ordinary perceptions of time and space as if opening the door to an otherwise inaccessible spiritual dimension. It prepares the way for a three-voice fugue sustained and developed over a sequence of contrasting episodes that combine to lift the music out of its historic context and leave it sounding fresh for all time.Track Listing:1 Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101: I2 II3 III4 iV5 Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-Flat Major, Op. 106 Hammerklavier - I. Allegro6 II. Scherzo. Assai vivace7 III. Adagio sostenuto8 IV. Largo - Allegro risolutoHelp support our show by purchasing this album  at:Downloads (classicalmusicdiscoveries.store) Classical Music Discoveries is sponsored by Uber. @CMDHedgecock#ClassicalMusicDiscoveries #KeepClassicalMusicAlive#LaMusicaFestival #CMDGrandOperaCompanyofVenice #CMDParisPhilharmonicinOrléans#CMDGermanOperaCompanyofBerlin#CMDGrandOperaCompanyofBarcelonaSpain#ClassicalMusicLivesOn#Uber Please consider supporting our show, thank you!Donate (classicalmusicdiscoveries.store) staff@classicalmusicdiscoveries.comThis album is broadcasted with the permission of Crossover Media Music Promotion (Zachary Swanson and Amanda Bloom).

Mussorgsky, shaken by the passing of his friend, the artist Victor Hartmann, turned his grief into music, composing his lavishly evocative 10-movement suite inspired by Hartmann's sketches. Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Ravel's iconic orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition. 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition winner Eric Lu joins the CSO in Mozart's dark-hued final piano concerto. The program opens with Franck's supernatural thriller The Accursed Huntsman. Pianist Maurizio Pollini has withdrawn from this engagement; a statement from his management notes that “Maurizio Pollini is very disappointed to announce that for medical reasons, he is required to cancel his upcoming American tour.” Ticket holders are invited to a free preconcert conversation featuring Carl Grapentine in Orchestra Hall 75 minutes before the performance. The conversation will last approximately 30 minutes. No additional tickets required. Learn more: cso.org/performances/22-23/cso-classical/muti-conducts-pictures-from-an-exhibition

Jess's guest this week is composer Isobel Waller-Bridge. Best known for her work in TV and film, Isobel has scored The Split, Fleabag, Emma, Vita & Virginia and many more, but she's also a prolific composer for the theatre and is known for her evocative contemporary classical and electronic music for the concert hall. Jess and Isobel sit down for a listening party of the music they love the most - Isobel offers some stunning moments of calm by Hinako Omori and Emily Hall and a tuba jam by Sons of Kemet, while Jess interupts the peace with Sibelius at his most joyously epic, an intimate song by Noah Yorke and possibly the funkiest string quartet ever written by Ravel. Playlist: EMILY HALL: Mantra SIBELIUS: Symphony no.2 - finale [Oslo Philharmonic, Klaus Mäkelä (conductor)] HINAKO OMORI: Yearning RAVEL: String Quartet - 2nd mvt 'Assez vif' [Quator Ebène] SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS: Open Your Eyes CHOPIN: Nocturne no.8 in D flat major, op.27 no.2 [Maurizio Pollini (piano)] NOAH YORKE: Trying too Hard (Lullaby) SONS OF KEMET: To Never Forget the Source

Fredrich Kuhlau was admired by Beethoven and is known as "the Beethoven of the flute." He wrote his gorgeous Fantasy in D major for solo flute in 1820 during a four-month stay in Vienna. Perhaps the Danube river provided inspiration for this silky, rippling Romantic music...Georg Philip Telemann, Fantaisie No. 12, performed by Karen KevraFredrich Kuhlau, Fantasy, Op. 38 in D major, Adagio, performed by Karen Kevra J.S. Bach, Fantasia in G minor, BWV 542, performed by Hans-André Stamm-organ  Beethoven, Choral Fantasy, Op. 80, performed by Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir, Eudenice Palaruan, Choral Director, Tengku Irfan, piano https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AXnA7-TD4QBeethoven, Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27 No. 2 "Moonlight" - I. Adagio sostenuto performed by Maurizio Pollini-piano Beethoven, Symphony #6 "Pastorale" - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras, conductorPlease support the show.Artwork: Danube landscape near Regensburg, by Albrecht AltdorferSupport the show