วีดีโอ

This is by far my favourite of the Four Impromptus! The feeling of utter solitude it evokes, as though you're walking along a moonlit path in the woods is so nostalgic, eerie and yet comforting (the photographs you put to it are lovely!). And Mr. Oldfather's rendition is easily the best (I find Mr. Kharitonov's too calculated and lacking the improvistory nature of the impromptu as a style, and Mr. Ornstein's music as a whole).

Sorry to signal it here but on Spotify there's a guy posting his music (it sounds like musing generated with AI) using Leo's name, and that's infuriating, he posted various Album like "Ornstein Oral Works" with AI generated Images, Please do something about it

As you can see, I hear this considerably faster than Kharitonov - although I adore the entire set of his performances. I seem to have inherited my father's tendency to play things fast. Listen, for example, to his off-the-cuff performance of the Bach Chaconne. And compare my rendition of "A Long Remembered Sorrow" with that of Janice Weber. But what would I know - I'm a rank amateur.

Very nicely played

based

All I can say is thank you for sharing what recordings exist of your father. I love his compositions and the performances I’ve heard all attest to his excellence as a musician. Even if he was a perfectionist I hope he would at least be happy to know how much they’ve inspired me and others!

Mr. Ornstein-- My father, Waldamar Dabrowski studied with your father I guess from some time in his teens, through Temple U. and possibly his two stints at Curtis, to which your father had recommended him for study. He ended up in electronics, learned during WWll, but played gigs with the boys for many years, and still played this fantasy impromptu beautifully in his mid '80s, passing in late 2003. He was quite amazed to find that your father had lived so long. He credited Pauline with teaching him how to sight read properly, and would often play Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninoff and many others in the evening to keep his reading chops up. I can barely play anything from the music, but pick things up quickly enough once I play them a few times, except the difficult stuff, and play at an art museum called Ellarslie, in West Trenton, on weekends, songs from the '20s-'50s, my own compositions (ragtime which I wrote years ago, some light classical sounding stuff, what I call "pretty music"... ) It is such a pleasure to hear your father playing this. My father didn't play things overly quickly though I'm sure he could. I can only imagine how much he learned from your father. Take care, stay well. Best to you, sir. GD

leo ornstein is just amazing....

Even at 94 years old this man still posts videos😮

The recordings you posted of Ornstein lately are awesome, I'm a decent sized fan of him already but they make me want to dive more into his works. Very great stuff! I love old school playing.

I was born in Bologna, Italy. I studied piano at the Milan Conservatory. Leo Ornstein's fourth Sonata was the first extended piece of music on which I put my efforts as a musician. I found it by chance (something like 15 years ago) on a Naxos CD recorded by Janice Weber. It was also the first quite dissonant music that came to my ears as a kid, and it fascinated me a lot - even before starting to play the piano. I wanted to study it, even though I didn't really understand the music - technically hard, mysterious, strange, new, foggy(?), but for reasons beyond my comprehension also deeply fascinating, irresistible. I bought a Dover edition containing a selection of pieces and I proposed the Sonata to my teacher. She said that, as far as she could tell, I would have been the first to play it, in the entire history of the Conservatory. Probably one of the very few students, in Milan, that made Ornstein's music a significant part of their education - I like to fiddle around with the thought that I am the only one, and I am very proud of it. For me it was the first real "piano-music" for my hands, containing a wide variety of very refined pianistic textures, and demanding a good control over form. I can't avoid thinking about the Sonata as the beginning of my inconstant, uncertain, sometimes painful, but also essential, deep, invaluable life path in music. Today I know that I owe to Leo Ornstein the foundation of my understanding of the piano and music in general. well that's me, just sharing, passing by a deep thank to Severo for keeping the legacy going <3

A 10 years gap between this video and the previous one. That's nice!

What a Father you had!!

It seems TH-cam has disabled the comments on your latest video of Laura Gould's lecture, but I'm really glad you're still uploading important pieces of media even 10 years after your last upload! Thank you Sir!

I get a sweet nostalgic feeling listening to the section beginning at 0:49

Hey Mr. Ornstein, I would like to speak to you in private. Can you share your email or business number?

Perhaps the worst visual quality of a video possibly conceived, I can't see a single note.

Hello @severo ornstein I've been listening a lot to Leo's music for the last years, and it continues to amaze me. The more I listen to him the more I seem to hear certain recurring melodic leitmotifs in his pieces. For instance, using "A Morning in the Woods" as reference, I can at times hear strong similarities to phrases in some of the fantasy pieces and metaphors (and more). Seems like some sort of "signature" feeling or thought that serves as an entry point into infinitely contorting harmonic, rhythmic and melodic developments. Like some glimpse into the center of his creativity and muscle memory, even if that sounds a bit pretentious. Did Leo ever talk about revisiting certain melodic shapes, symbolic "figures" in his music or programmatic elements? Did he have some particular sequence of chords or phrases he was especially fond of? I am just curious to know anything related to his views on music, compositions and philosophy in general.

I love how THIS, is anger. And not his other 80 pieces with clusters and very very loud and angry sounding sections.

Ornstein is great. This sounds somewhat similar to Impressions of the Thames. Similar pauses and silences, same dynamic shifts.

Formidabile ascolto sempre e cerco di eseguire le sue interessantissime composizioni per piano. Grazie!

Hello @severo ornstein , do you happen to have recordings of your father's song "Lullaby" and "'Cradle song" please ? It would be a joy to listen to those. Thank you :)

Amazing!

A great performance and spectacular composition!

hey, this is a different tonality from the other versions of "Morning in the woods" that i listened to so far ! So which one is the "correct" one ?

EsSA 🇧🇷🇧🇷

Not many pieces of music make me tear up but this one almost always does :')

Very underrated. I would love to hear this live some day.

I didn't realise the uploader of this video was Leo Ornstein's son until I looked at the username. Great music, thank you for archiving it.

I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about how well Cecil Taylor and Ornstein would get along. They seem like kindred spirits to me.

Mi hanno incuriosito questi pezzi per violoncello e pianoforte perché lunedì prossimo faranno parte di un concerto della GOG a Genova. Sono contento che nella nostra città venga sempre divulgata la buona musica.

The greatest interpretation of this piece!!!!

What a gem!

10:59

💞

His playing was amazing.... Thanks for sharing this material! Best regards from Argentina, Buenos Aires.

I have read that he made some early acoustic recordings - do you have any?

They're all very hard pieces but very fun to play

Leo Ornstein is one of the best composer I've ever listened to. Colors, perfume, landscapes, emotions, everything. Absolutely incredible stuff!

I never heard of him until I found some memorabilia from when he played in Fort Worth Texas in 1916 and looked him up. Thanks for posting this incredible piece!!! Just incredible work

what happened to the first three sonatas? and who is the performer here?

I've been a fan since 2005 or so. Downloaded some of the pdf's and play them (they're very difficult) periodically. I also saw the PBS special on aging, which featured he and his wife and how they write/compose.

Very mid-eastern, or "oriental" sounding, like Bloch's work. is this piece semitic?

Too fast....but you do play with feeling ,especially in the end. I adore this piece .

This is serious playing. Quite stunning.

Bravo!!!!👏👏👏I am proud that I was born in the country where Your father was born.

That's a breathtaking piece !

This is my favourite work out of all of Leo Ornstein's waltzes. Truly amazing. I became aware of his work through Kharitonov's recordings on Toccata classics. Thanks very much for this.

Thank you very much Severo for sharing your father's music to the world. I first heard this piece on NPR Radio while driving to my hospital shift on a snowy, Vermont winter morning (4 A.M.!) I was so transfixed on the composition, I had to pull off the highway to give it a proper listen and for safety sake...AND I needed to know who composed it and who was playing it (Janice Weber in this case). Bought her CD immediately and play it regularly. Now that I've found found your You Tube channel, I will be doing a lot more exploration of Leo's extensive works.

This is absolutely a work of pure condensed genius.