Sviatoslav Richter plays Chopin Polonaise-Fantasie Op. 61 (1/2)

[Tina29x]

I tried to play this piece and it is really hard. Even harder of Ballade 1. Legato, changing of notes constantly.. Hard!

[AlfaAxel]

@Tina29x :: Try some of this Fantaisie Polonaise, the slower parts fx. - and enjoy. Or try Ballade 3 :-) You mean constant change of accidentals? Modulations, tonality. Yes, that is why it sounds so subtle.

[Tina29x]

superb!

[ludvigop132]

On ne se lasse pas d'écouter les grands maîtres du passé ...

[djfunked]

The chords of a deep peaceful dream.....

Chopin where are you now..?

[gerardbedecarter]

I agree that this is one of Chopin's greatest compositions and that Richter does it justice!

[Poojoj]

This is a great performance, but you should also watch the live performance here on YouTube by Rafal Blechacz. In my opinion the best one out there. Type in "Rafal Blechacz Pianist" and it is parts 4 and 5 of 5. Incredible.

/watch?v=Uq3y7axx42k

[orchidcaroline]

to billyguns -

other than the opening, I do think it is one of the very best interpretations of this piece..

[advisorC101]

Has he recorded all of the polonaises?

[frapepsi]

grande maestro.

[slavyuu]

I wouud have applauded for hous if I'd been at that recytal.

[Ray0X0]

Great performance...

[lexo30]

Music does not get worse over time, or at any rate people have always thought that it's been getting worse over time, but if that's so, how can it be that great music continues to appear, even if the tradition of written (i.e. 'serious', 'classical') music no longer has the monopoly on it? If you don't think that good music is still being made, all I can say is that you aren't keeping up.

[rukashawn]

Bravo, this is the best interpretation i ever heard so far.

I salute u S. Ritcher

[kwastormayt]

I think music is one of the rare thins that didnt improve over time, this was an era of music gods

[mossfitz]

Ancient Roman music didn´t impress the writers very much; although there was a good deal written on other arts. I think there have been higher and lower periods in music. Its hard to imagine music reaching as high a level again as the `classical´ era. The field is harvested and there remains onlystubble even in modern popular music.

[lexo30]

'The field is harvested and there remains onlystubble even in modern popular music. '

I'm sorry, but I think that's nonsense.

[mossfitz]

I´m referring to developments WITHIN genres. Even the art of the Greek vase went from relatively simpe "primitive" beginnings, through classical sophistication on to mannerism, decadence and decline. Rock, taken as a genre emerging from jazz, bibop or whatever as rock and roll reached high-points in the 60s and 70s. Nowadays a good piece of rock works by surprising us that something almost like an original song can still be written in the genre. There is always renewal as new genres emerge.

[lexo30]

You make some excellent points, but I'm a little sceptical of the evolutionary model of artistic genres. The perception of the trajectory of a genre depends on who is doing the perceiving and when they're doing it. To take rock, Lester Bangs (an intelligent critic) dismissed the Beatles as pretentious lightweights. Rolling Stone now considers the 70s work of bands like Black Sabbath, AC/DC and ZZ Top to be classic, but back in the day it routinely slated those bands as dumb and sexist.

[lexo30]

In classical music, if we think of it as developing from simple beginnings through sophistication towards decline, that risks taking an arbitrary end point (say, Schoenberg) as the 'decline' and attempts to explain the previous development of the music teleologically. Schoenberg's music was not a dead end; it had a fructifying effect on many vital later developments. If you take almost anybody else as the decline, it's not hard to show how they too influenced later music. And so on.

[mossfitz]

I have similar problems with quasi Hegelian notions of "laws" of historical development. Patterns can be observed in hindsight but, for me, the whole problem of Schoenberg is that he believed (like Marx and many others) in such laws as a guide to how things SHOULD develop -

Subsuming Art (or anything else) to some IDEA of controlling history (of the human spirit) is.... just plain crap - Neverheless the demands of originality simply use up certain resources in every area of Art.

[lexo30]

Well, I'm not sure I follow you with the Hegel thing, never having majored in philosophy. But for me, the real test of Schoenberg's ideas must be, did they in any way enable him to make good music? I think that in Schoenberg's case, they did. The Piano Suite Op. 25, the String Trio Op. 45 and A Survivor from Warsaw are all 12-tone works but they are also all masterpieces. Whereas Hindemith revised his early works in the light of his later theories, and in most cases did not improve them.

[billyguns2]

I agree 100%; it's been mostly downhill. Much of the music written bewteen 1200 A.D. and 1650 A.D. has never been surpassed in greatness and originality, for example. The piano music of Chopin is also one of the high marks.

[lexo30]

'Much of the music written bewteen 1200 A.D. and 1650 A.D. has never been surpassed in greatness and originality, for example.'

So let me get this right: you're saying that *all* of the music of J.S. Bach (and his sons), Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Schumann, Bruckner, Brahms, Richard Strauss, Verdi, Debussy, Hindemith and Messiaen, not to mention EVERY other composer born since 1650, is simply inferior compared to...what, exactly? Palestrina? Tallis? Thomas Morley?

[billyguns2]

I said no such thing, as any person with reading ability or any measure of intelligence can plainly see. I was responding to mossfitz's comment; I said "MUCH of the music has never been surpassed..", NOT "Much of the music is GREATER THAN..," which is what you imply that I said. Perotin, Dufay, Lassus, and Monteverdi are particular standouts for me. Debussy is one of my favorites, and certainly Bach/Mozart/Beethoven/Handel are giants. I am so tired of being misunderstood by YT readers.

[lexo30]

You wrote 'Much of the music written bewteen 1200 A.D. and 1650 A.D. has never been surpassed in greatness and originality, for example.' This means, whether you like it or not, that you think that *nothing* that comes after 1650 is greater or more original than *most* of the music composed during that 450-year period. This means that *no* later composer is *more great* or *more original* than a very great number of mediocre earlier composers (plus a few early masters, I grant you).

[billyguns2]

You have it quite correct: I think that there is no composer after 1650 that wrote anything more original than the great composers of the earlier era ,although there are many equally as original. Originality is not common among composers, as you no doubt know.

[lexo30]

I think that you're too hung up on this 'originality' thing, but be that as it may, if you can't hear that Haydn, Beethoven, Wagner and Debussy all staked out harmonic and structural territory that nobody else had come anywhere near before, then I'm sorry for your ears.

[billyguns2]

What is your problem? Have you had too much to drink, or are you just a control freak who has to be "right" about everything all the time? OF COURSE Haydn and Beethoven introduced daring and original things, and Debussy was one of the great originals of all time, as well as Berlioz and Mussorgsky. The dissonances in Dufay and Monteverdi are also daring and innovative. You really are too much!

[lexo30]

In any case, you are backtracking: you originally included 'greatness' as the thing that most composers before 1650 had, but now you are only talking about 'originality'. The two have little in common. Paul Hindemith's finest work is not necessarily his most original, and the same goes for a lot of composers.

[billyguns2]

YOU are the one who kept harping on the originality aspect of my original coment; you are now being ridiculous and are obvioulsy a crazy-making person who delights in torturing other people. Do you work for the government or are you a member of some damnable secret society?

[lexo30]

Calm down.

[lexo30]

(I disagree that originality is a useful criterion in gauging the worth of a composer, btw. J.S. Bach was stylistically conservative compared to his sons, but a greater composer than any of them. Josef Hauer came up with composing with 12 tones before Schoenberg, but Schoenberg's 12-tone music is better than Hauer's.)

[Damzified]

I have to take lexo30's side on this one, billyguns2's original comment really didn't make much sense. Now if you'd said 1700-1850 no one would have complained, though personally I'd go as far as 1950 to include the likes of Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Debussy and Ravel. And if you think about it, 1950 is not so long ago, so I take it great music is still being written.

[clem4705315]

a different reading, try Ivan Moravec's version of this piece. my favorite.

[Maldesoada]

i think he plays too fast, some parts he could feel more the music.

[Canizarezqw]

I fucking love the beginning

[mdoub]

much preferred over horowitz

[sippindrank214]

great piece I enjoy his recordings at the Dallas Symphony & Opera

[billyguns2]

Richter is the only pianist in my listening experience who gets the opening page of this magnificent piece absolutely right. The small notes are played as equal quarters, as written, giving the opening a fantasy-like, dreamy quality which surely Chopin intended. I think this is Chopin's greatest composition, and Richter does it full justice here,.

[orchidcaroline]

@orchidcaroline

@billyguns2

Personally I think the opening chords could be much bigger, to show the contrast.. The opening chord should start off forte, and the forte should continue into the fermata, just before rising immediately afterwards into piano and, as you say, very fantasy-like. He opens the piece far too softly in my opinion.

[emilovius]

The introduction resembles a lot the Rubinstein's performance(s).

Regarding the style of the opening chords, well, if you prefer

'bigger' sound then check Horowitz, he's really hitting them like

a woodcutter.

[billyguns]

@orchidcaroline I can see how you would come to that opinion; I think the overall conception is masterful.

[dalecampbl8]

@billyguns2 Richter is the greatest pianist of the 20th century. Better than Horowitz and Rubenstein.

[gerryrains]

This is such a beautiful way to start the evening - listening to Sviatoslav Richter playing Chopin's Polonaise-Fantasie.

[notichka]

To be honest I don't like all of Richter's recordings , but this one is absolutely genial !!

[reverserelativity]

This is just so beautifully done...thank you for sharing. :)

[flugelmaniac]

this proves beyond a doubt that Richter could be a superb Chopinist.....

[beryllium2]

could?

[flugelmaniac]

Yes , I say he 'could' because I do not like some of his playing of Chopin, it can be

quite aggressive and brutal, but at other times like this, absolutely superb.I believe his playing also got much better when he was older.

[ashraniyyah]

you invented a word there: Chopinism

;-)

[fandik353]

better is Chopianist :-)

[flugelmaniac]

Pianists who know the art of producing good tone and projecting it seem to be quite rare,

but Richter is very skilled at this

[medmai]

you are absolutely right, of the today living pianist Alexei Volodin is definetively one of them. Do you know him?