I love this composer's work, but have until now, only ever heard guitar interpretations. Colourful and evocative as they are, the piano gives a clearer view of anyone's music IMO.
I loved it ! Thank you for this upload! As a pianist and composer I see such beauty in the way he plays his music. But I need to say that as the final sound is the one he had in mind and not the written approximate form, unless he himself had any issues with his playing (which I strongly doubt), one must consider this as the "correct" way these pieces should be played, though any other interpretation is always welcome! I cannot understand the complaint over his playing the way he intended! Would one have been more satisfied if he would have written it differently, maybe an exact transcription of his playing (instead of giving us a fairly simple score), which is what many of today's composers might have done?
Contrametric rubato and arpeggiation was a 19th-century feature in pianistic style, very common in the performance style of the time. The evidence is found in early recordings. It is not a Catalan trend...Listen to Reinecke's playing, for example. What some call 'mannerism' and 'bad playing' others call it performance style of 19th century piano playing. At that time, no one thought it was bad playing. Pianists might need to consider if they want to follow historically informed approaches when performing some piano works, or not. It is a performance choice.
Wonderful note, Carolina-- very helpful. I still find the constant, unrelenting arpeggiation to be a distraction I cannot yet get beyond. Perhaps with more listening I can become accustomed to it. The music, however, is sublime.
Paderewski was renowned, and reviled even in his own time, for this mannerism. He couldn't play a two-hand chord as a simple chord to save his life. Yet they made him Prime Minister of Poland. Go figure
This contrarubato was a manner that even Mozart did performing his sonatas and concertos. Nowadays it's considered outdated but when done correctly and with good taste in small quantity it sounds absolutely gorgeous.
From the information given above, I am guessing it's the composer himself. For all that that might seem to be the final authority on how to play the music, I must say I have almost never heard a worse performance of any music than this. He has that dreadful habit of some pianists of habitually playing the left hand before the right hand, which strikes me as nothing more than an irritating mannerism or affectation - and the gap between the two hands is bigger here than I have ever heard in any other pianist. Especially in the slower passages, it is so frequent it is almost the norm rather than an occasional technique; and, although found less in the faster passages, still too frequent. (Any occurrence is too frequent, though!) What a pity. The music is attractive, and it seems well-played, too, apart from this fatal flaw - to my mind, so fatal that I can say that it is otherwise well-played, yet one of the worst performances I've ever heard. As it is, I found it unlistenable, and I couldn't stay with the whole thing, and ended up just sampling it. I wonder if the whole series of his recordings of his own music (about 5 C.D.s' worth, I believe) is like that. And, yet again, I wonder why it is so surprisingly common for pianists to play like that.
@@MJE112358132134 Normally I dont make micro criticisms about ones playing that might differ from my own approach or taste. However, in the case of Prelude 1 I found the delay between left and right hand totally distracting from the performance.
My piano teacher, Rosa María Kucharsky, was an alumnus of Mompou and commented extensively on this stylistic feature of "inter-hand rubato". Although any negative perception of it is respectable as a subjective criterion, objectively such was the way he created his music and that he intended others to play it and there is ample proof of this, starting with the present recording.
Lequerica do you know if Mompou (some of whose melodies are undoubtedly influenced by local folk melodies) would have minded if an interpretator of his works used so much “inter-hand rubato” it obstructed the intended rhythmic/harmonic effect of the original source material?
![Frank Martin - Eight Preludes for Piano (1947-48) [Score-Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/N6c1v8yXTdQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Prelude 2 - 1:44
Prelude 3 - 5:58
Prelude 4 - 8:37
Prelude 5 -11:19
Prelude 6 - 13:26
Prelude 7 - 18:26
Prelude 8 - 20:57
Prelude 9 - 23:50
Prelude 10 - 26:00
I love this composer's work, but have until now, only ever heard guitar interpretations. Colourful and evocative as they are, the piano gives a clearer view of anyone's music IMO.
i didn't know anything about guitar versions, thanks for the info ;)
Thank you for these delights. Wistful and heartfelt. 💜
I loved it ! Thank you for this upload! As a pianist and composer I see such beauty in the way he plays his music. But I need to say that as the final sound is the one he had in mind and not the written approximate form, unless he himself had any issues with his playing (which I strongly doubt), one must consider this as the "correct" way these pieces should be played, though any other interpretation is always welcome! I cannot understand the complaint over his playing the way he intended! Would one have been more satisfied if he would have written it differently, maybe an exact transcription of his playing (instead of giving us a fairly simple score), which is what many of today's composers might have done?
Contrametric rubato and arpeggiation was a 19th-century feature in pianistic style, very common in the performance style of the time. The evidence is found in early recordings. It is not a Catalan trend...Listen to Reinecke's playing, for example. What some call 'mannerism' and 'bad playing' others call it performance style of 19th century piano playing. At that time, no one thought it was bad playing. Pianists might need to consider if they want to follow historically informed approaches when performing some piano works, or not. It is a performance choice.
Wonderful note, Carolina-- very helpful. I still find the constant, unrelenting arpeggiation to be a distraction I cannot yet get beyond. Perhaps with more listening I can become accustomed to it. The music, however, is sublime.
Paderewski was renowned, and reviled even in his own time, for this mannerism. He couldn't play a two-hand chord as a simple chord to save his life. Yet they made him Prime Minister of Poland. Go figure
This contrarubato was a manner that even Mozart did performing his sonatas and concertos.
Nowadays it's considered outdated but when done correctly and with good taste in small quantity it sounds absolutely gorgeous.
The 6th prelude is so mesmerizing 13:26
based Mompou
Sounds like there is a chorus FX on the whole sound file. Whats wit that?
It's probably just the recording quality, some form of distortion perhaps. This is from some old CDs of Mompou playing his own music
Maybe, just maybe, I was recorded in a room with a lot of resonance for this specific purposes.
11:21
23:50
Who is the pianist?
From the information given above, I am guessing it's the composer himself. For all that that might seem to be the final authority on how to play the music, I must say I have almost never heard a worse performance of any music than this. He has that dreadful habit of some pianists of habitually playing the left hand before the right hand, which strikes me as nothing more than an irritating mannerism or affectation - and the gap between the two hands is bigger here than I have ever heard in any other pianist. Especially in the slower passages, it is so frequent it is almost the norm rather than an occasional technique; and, although found less in the faster passages, still too frequent. (Any occurrence is too frequent, though!)
What a pity. The music is attractive, and it seems well-played, too, apart from this fatal flaw - to my mind, so fatal that I can say that it is otherwise well-played, yet one of the worst performances I've ever heard. As it is, I found it unlistenable, and I couldn't stay with the whole thing, and ended up just sampling it.
I wonder if the whole series of his recordings of his own music (about 5 C.D.s' worth, I believe) is like that.
And, yet again, I wonder why it is so surprisingly common for pianists to play like that.
@@MJE112358132134 Perhaps that's just how he prefers to play it, no less.
@@MJE112358132134 Normally I dont make micro criticisms about ones playing that might differ from my own approach or taste. However, in the case of Prelude 1 I found the delay between left and right hand totally distracting from the performance.
My piano teacher, Rosa María Kucharsky, was an alumnus of Mompou and commented extensively on this stylistic feature of "inter-hand rubato". Although any negative perception of it is respectable as a subjective criterion, objectively such was the way he created his music and that he intended others to play it and there is ample proof of this, starting with the present recording.
Lequerica do you know if Mompou (some of whose melodies are undoubtedly influenced by local folk melodies) would have minded if an interpretator of his works used so much “inter-hand rubato” it obstructed the intended rhythmic/harmonic effect of the original source material?