Albeniz Iberia No 6 Triana Rubinstein Rec 1931

[juanmaMCMLXXXII]

¡Correee! Que prisa por acabar...

[luizfernandg]

I think the people here have given him a worse time than he deserves! Not too bad! But true, he can play and has played much, much better than that! In some cases he is a reference even today: Chopin Sonatas, Fantasia op. 49... He is one of the few to have solved the great problems of these pieces. Is there a better recording of Chopin's Sonata 3?

[Thracozaag]

@luizfernandg Kapell

[brianCIM]

@donaldcallen you are spot on Khagar! Listen to live from Moscow and you will hear possibly the most ravishing tone i have ever heard. He is my favorite all-time pianist and his recordings are of course remarkable but they don't capture the sound, temparment and spontaneity of his live performances.

[Thracozaag]

What a fantastic performances, love all the textual emendations.

[KhagarBalugrak]

@donaldcallen, Rubinstein sometimes just phoned in recordings and performances. Like how he plays the Chopin concertos - he just mechanically blows through the music at a breakneck tempo with no nuance at all. However - I have heard Rubinstein play marvelously as well, i.e. his recordings of the Chopin nocturnes. Rubinstein was such a hit or miss pianist - and that's fine with me in the end, cause that means we all get to hear incredible recordings and can ignore the bad ones.

[josetato]

unique interpretation but definitely dont agree with him (Rubinstein) I mean it doesnt even feel spanish and the whole suite is trying to evoke different aspects of spain. Sorry Rubinstein, donno what the hell did you did with the piece....sorry for my english.

[bucephalus48]

The comments here convey one idea; Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. You are UNIQUE, just like everyone else, etc.

[davidgray2]

@donaldcallen I happened to think this is masterful piano playing after 2 notes. I don't know the piece; the performance may be awful from *that* perspective...but I still think this is inimitable, unapproachable piano playing.

[SFbatteriste]

I am not a pianist nor do I know anything abAlout piano technique. I got turned on to to the Iberia Suite after listening to De Larrocha on the radio. As a result, I have several of her discs and a orchestra version of the Suite which I love to listen to. It appears to me that in comparing the two versions, Rubinstein's and De Larrocha's, that Rubinstein appears to loping along pretty fast.

[chusomen]

Oh my God!!! It's unbelievably fast. Nonsense. Believe me, I'm a spanish pianist, I've heard and played this piece many times. I'm so disappointed because it's Rubinstein. Alicia de Larrocha or Esteban Sánchez are best performances of this piece. Probably Rubinstein didn't know much about spanish music when he recorded this.

[Braveheart89]

Es rápido pero hace muchas trampas. Por cierto, ellos dos se conocían. Rubinstein fue una vez a casa de Albéniz a tocar. Tocó Triana, y estuvieron bromeando acerca de las trampas que hacía en la obra. De hecho fue si no me equivoco la nieta de Albéniz quien desenmascaró esas trampas. No obstante, un gran pianista...

[relaischat]

if you guys hadn't said anything i would never have known that this performance was too fast and too many wrong notes........that just goes to show how wonderfully rubinstein plays. I just got ALL the atmosphere of that lakadazical spain which Alicia CANNOT convey. She just doesn't have that mastery of technique AND imagination AND culture AND the ability to see one's own history WHILE playing. So!

[NOSEhow2LIV]

In this case, i think it DOES matter about the specific piano writing. However spirited,here too much flies by very fast in a generalised way. I can't agree withAulicExclusiva about "metronomic & timid" Alicia de Larrocha! Hearing her live was always a life-enhancing experience,and Ruby himself admired her as a revelation in this repertoire.

[AulicExclusiva]

@donaldcallen Funny, my mother was a Spaniard and she much preferred Rubinstein's (and Iturbi's) playing of Spanish music to the rather metronomic and timid de Larrocha. There was little colour in de Larrocha's playing.

For all the mishaps in this 78, I find it enormously full of gusto and R's characterictic sexiness.

[NOSEhow2LIV]

@AulicExclusiva Iturbi, yes, a most brilliant player, and one of the greatest in extrovert repertoire. Ruby was marvellous to hear live,(probably as your mother did?),but some records don't convey the full "gusto& sexiness", but rather the faults! That's the problem here for me. Alicia,i found, gave the full color, rythm & excitement both live and on record.

[KennYWooD2]

@AulicExclusiva you lost all credibility when you stated that there was little color in de Larrocha's playing (not to mention metronomic and timid).

[kellymich]

Now now fellas. it is certainly not as good as Larrocha. But has anyone excelled a Larrocha or Segovia in their artistry of Spanish music ? Rubinstein even admits in his autobiography that in his early years some pieces he played satisfied the audiences of the time, but not him. He had to develop his artistic and even his technical skills. What is nice to know is that an artist that turned out to be as great as Rubenstien could grow so much.

[chu71]

@kellymich Yes, Esteban Sánchez

[JGonzalezGUS]

@chu71 YES! I have Esteban Sanchez CD of Iberia (and other Spanish music). I like it better than Alicia de LaRocha. I had the pleasure of meeting Esteban in the mid-1960's. We had the very same teacher: Dna. Julia Parody, in Madrid.

[gtimny]

The late great Alicia de Larrocha truly owned these pieces but it seems to me pointless to carp about Rubinstein's playing of Iberia in his own way. First, he freely admitted that he didn't play them as written. second he was playing these pieces as early as 1915, nine years after they were written and after Albeniz' death in 1909 was just about the only one playing them. I think in those days Rubinstein probably didn't take them too seriously. No one else did either Hindsight is always 20-20

[cynic150]

This may have some wrong notes, but who cares? The tremendous flair and command are just so exhilerating. Maybe a bit fast at the start. I think the original score rather over-crammed with notes anyway, personally. I heard that even Albeniz's own family liked his performances as they said he played "like daddy used to". De Laroche is excellent too.

[patriciofmolinak]

amazing technique used in a very bad way.

[Beckmesser2]

And your ideal performance is played by,

who? Or favorite performance?

[troppofiato1]

@Beckmesser2 The ideal and greatest Iberia interpreter is Alicia De Larrocha. Rubinstein himself said so after her NYC Iberia in the mid 60's that launched her international career.

[Beckmesser2]

@troppofiato1 I agree but not because of Rubinstein's anointment. His pronouncements regarding other pianists are suspect. He evidently was not jealous of Larrocha's success playing the music of Spanish composers which he had mostly dropped from his repertoire by the mid 60's.

[marcohorowitz8]

yerp, he's dropping loads of notes

[NeoMalikov]

I think the tempo's great! It flows really well. The phrase seems unrestrained and natural. Too bad it's practically impossible to play all the notes at this speed.

[goat1981]

can you all tell he is playing something other than the original Albeniz version??! this has been heavily simplified.

[RDSerebrianny]

Thank you, Beckmesser2 has already included that information in Rubinstein's own words in the info pane.

[toiletkid77]

wow waaaay to fast.

[Amatherasu1789]

Nice of course...but Córdoba must be the best...

[GetMeThere1]

Very nice!