Saint-Saens Liszt Horowitz Danse Macabre, Sean Bennett, piano

[shikhras]

The poor quality makes the pianist ghostly....but its real NICE

[emilianorue]

Wuooo! :O

[sdorr]

As in all aspects of Kultur, the majority prefer fast and loud to artistic, imaginative, correct, great aesthetics. It why Lang Lang draws so many, while musicians in the real major leagues are neglected..... there have been only a few exceptions Horowitz.....Kissin... who combine both extreme "virtuousity" with great musical storytelling.... Askenanazy too in earlier years....

[audreyhsux5727]

@sdorr since ur so professianal and everything, first learn how to spell Ashkenazy

[XxLovefistxX]

I felt like I was about to get a phone call telling me I was going to die in seven days after watching this video.

[sdorr]

This is a pianistic exercise rather than musical one. I certainly don't deny the virtuosity, but for pure musicality, as always, check out the Rubinstein rendition. BTW as Glenn Gould pointed out, it is easier to play these apparently fabulously difficult Lizst arrangements, than the polyphonic Bach keyboard pieces with correct musicality.... or even the Beethoven fugue in the Hammerklavier , which more difficult from every aspect than these "big" Liszt pieces. Male players have an advantage.

[kowalityjesus]

@sdorr I agree I suppose, even though I've never played Liszt. I think one of the reasons it is more difficult to play Bach on piano is because you have to regulate volume and invent that dimension of the music which Bach was not able to use. I hope Gould gave a big "if I don't say so myself" prefacing that statement :)

[azraelsgrave]

With the choppy video I agree it just matches .. though I would have went further and turned the video to b&w for a more aesthetic reason.

[1881Gordon]

This is brilliant. The poor quality video means that even the pianists hands reflected in the piano are having problems keeping up with him! Truly spine tingling stuff!

[paulostroff99]

Powerfully played.TY slam bennett for this special posting.

[joeyabbacil]

the piano plays a song of death

a dark, intense melody that

one can dance to

I dangle from strings and move in rhythm

I do not need to see the music

as my fingers glide along the keys

ghostly hands are there to guide me

[baltoman24]

Amazing playing- takes one's breath away- may Mr. Bennett have a wonderful career!

[sarasmind27]

the distortion is most delightful

[Denvermints]

Well done sir!

[oliveoyl64]

having played piano for years, i know what an nightmare this must have been to learn and to memorize to boot. this guy does a great job. i agree with dansemacabre17, the quality is lacking, but the way the frames jerk about gives this video a "ring" quality to it. creepy!

[darknipple]

what a shit version of a great classical piece. liszt horowitz has managed to destroy everything that saint-saens created, by trying to adherently increase the difficulty and trying to live up to the name of the piece. good fail, sir. originals = best

[lemmonleikko]

This clip is the best Danse Macabre performance on YouTube by far. The composition is my #1 favourite classical piece in case it's played with nothing but a piano. An orchestra waters down the ever-present, heavy feeling of mania that can only be brought forth with a piano that's hammered rather than pressed. And most pianists that I have spotted on YouTube play it too softly and tiltingly. Mr. Bennett really has power of expression! Brilliant!

[annelaplantine]

wow :)

[NathaPotter]

I can close my mouthe!!

it's amazing!

I want to meet you now!

[NathaPotter]

@NathaPotter can't*

[scout6686]

@NathaPotter that's what she said

[santoReska]

Eccezionale

[mdivisio]

increíble, me deja completamente fuera de lugar. Gracias por el upload:) thank you

[anniel93]

best piano version of danse macabre i've ever heard! :D

[FanOfYunaKim]

brillian pianist!......just need to work on accuracy

[catacracxi]

Set well as 7:23 minutes into his hands begin to smoke Take ;-).... 5 categories Bathing for you and THANK YOU:

[CaptScruffywhiskers]

Truly impressive..no sheet music! and the video adds to the disjointed nature of the piece..Brilliant..Cheers!

[themagikmuzician]

Wow this player is insane! The extra parts were a bit distracting, but the fact that he could pull it off is quite amazing. Extremely well done.

[JuJuBe15]

I don;t really like this version. The unnecessary flourishing distracts from the clean beauty of the piece. I will stick with the original orchestra Saint-Saen piece.

[YouFoolWarrenIsDead]

A...

[germmsss]

bravo!

dam sexy,

and im not gay

[jaymarcs]

WOW! It really goes to show you MUST wait for the entire video to load and to WATCH the entire sequence. I was so titillated (no dictionary) after 3 minutes in, I couldn't hold onto my mouse.... I realized the performer has "understood" the piece. After that, I was Sold!... Bravo! Breathtaking - Thank goodness video quality is not applicable here ;)

Thank you for Sharing Mr. Bennett!

[KPO6859]

Absolutely delightful. Finding this video - well, I hope this fine pianist had CDs because I am going to buy them all. For those who hear the influences of other composers, you are right on the mark. Other piece one can reference in here is Islamey - another stunning showstopper. Well, done, Mr. Bennett!! Wishing you the best for your future.

[tzrmike]

wake up!! he sits there for 15 seconds!!

[teamkilla]

@sjorshonders: there is no "too fast" in one's own interpretation of this piece. =)

I think the video film noise adds to the crazyness

[vince2velaux]

Bien que je ne mette pas en doute le talent de Sean Bennett, après avoir écouté l'interprétation de Tae-Hyng Kim qu'on peut trouver sur YouTube, je trouve l'interprétation de Bennett "bourrée" de fautes et de couacs... A part ça je n'ai rien d'autre à dire, si ce n'est que je suis contient de l'estrême difficulté de ce morceau, autant techniquement que musicalement. Apparemment, Sean Bennett ne s'était pas assez entraîné ! ;)

[sjorshonders]

you are like a fast train....:P amazing, but little too fast

[moysesnyc]

Would be too boring to listen if it were any slower. I think the speed is just perfect, plus, hot skills; it's a lot harder to play it faster.

[evgenijpro]

I love this music!! I first heard it as a kid in a cartoon and fell in love ever since!

[yautzu]

amazing!!

[heroicpolonaise]

5.46 doesnt sounds like rach3 begining?, and some other notes too after that that one? xD

he rocks!!

[SteinwayXR]

Fantastic!

[sandree7]

i actually dont like the horowitz version, but wel played ;).

[joshthemainman]

this is an amazing piece and top marks for the execution of it. I play this , but don't have this arrangement. I thought you were going to fly off the piano bench at one point. fantastic. thanks!

[lsik231l]

his videos always look possessed lol

[intellectual2]

well, from a mentally impaired, possibly autistic pianist....i should say this is good; very dramatic, like all good pianists should be.

[sutikingdom]

I don't see why people xhave rated you down- I think it's well funny!!

[W1window]

Dear su.,

Thanks for your response to my comment; "people have rated you down..." I think is incorrect, it only takes one person to mark all those responses as spam.

.

Therefore you are probably not alone, in finding something funny resonate with you.

.

This is truely a master pianist, but -it takes much patience to watch him, and this does distract one; the fault lies in the posting of this vt., someone somewhere, must have a better quality recording.

.

Cheers.

from,

del-boy.

[dansemacabre17]

The poor quality of this video makes it more amazing. It makes the song just that much more creepy. I love it.

[paparotzie]

@dansemacabre17  Me too!!!

[XBLFREAK]

Lol guys, you can't just type in music sheets on the net, those things are copy righted materials, only people with liscences or has permission has access to music sheets, like teachers and conductors, I think they have liscences for music, so yeah, I dont think you guys are going to find free music... Trust me, maybe all those noteworthy and audacity might work, but it wont show you the original piece...

[debiaptget]

No, you're wrong ! Copyright is not illimited in time ! If the author has been dead more than 70 years, the work is in the public domain in most, but not all, countries.

You can surf on free-scores [dot] com to get partitions

[dmcII]

XBLfreak, not true. Some pieces are now in the public domain. There's a couple places on the web were you can DL for free. Not sure if this is one of them though.

[yashil17]

lol, "music sheet"

[anlindale]

He looks like from Kidman's movie "The Hours". Macabre, really.

[nekftw]

haha video quality makes it look like hes shifting between timezones

[VikingBerserker]

Man, you are intense.

Do you just find and play everything that Volodos plays and learn them yourself?

If you do, where do you get the music sheets?

[davisville17]

If you're talking about all the Horowitz arrangements he's playing, don't connect that with Volodos, relate it to Horowitz, and you can buy them online, I'm not sure where to get them free, I'd also like to know! lol

[maxmaster38]

This video is awesome!He plays the piano very well.

[PinkyMistress]

what a talent!!!!!! one of the best performance on youtube

[ohstanmoore]

a machine could easily play this music - but the fact that a human does - gives all of us hope. This amazing piece - from memory!

[davidellinsworth]

is that guy a machine or what???? it amazes me what human beings are capable of at times... but this is just not of this world!! phenomenal talent

[guitarjc]

very well played, but would have sounded nice with a violin duet detuned to Saint Saens augementation

[Brassfinch]

I love how jerked this is, seems almost like he's possessed.

[loves2listen]

**THUMBS UP**

[arthursulit]

Great performance! For the audience, U should do a slow-mo top view of your fingerings, like the Liszt-Beethoven's 5th on youtube com/MusicLessons2

[asdf1646]

nice, shame the quality of the video is very poor though

[tefanK]

haha this video creeps me the hell out. Really fitting to the music. Such a haunting piece. Greatness!

[eyemdking]

i thought this was the nightmare before christmas song wtf not the Danse Macabre i was looking for then

[rachskald]

Did you even bother to listen beyond the first 30 seconds? If you did, I find it hard to believe you actually said this... thats like listening to an emperor song and saying it sounds like slipknot

[Darkluniux]

Is not our fault that Tim Burton used some music made with inspiration of danse macabre. This music is beyond that movie, there are many danse macabre by differents composser, so donnot reffer to it as only one piece. By the way one that you might search for is Franz Liszt's Totentanz (macabre danc ein german).

[Ladyblue17]

nice i've never seen it played on the piano before. i once played it at band and belive me those long runs are hard!

[Prematurj]

Bravo!

[kohryusan]

Creepy fucking video.

[raas96]

unreal, love this piece.

[TheBoredTyrant]

how do they make it look so easy >.>

[silentnocturne]

mad accuracy O.O

[bucheronkiller]

Camille Saint-Saens really was a saint.

[kat1989]

hmmm have a strange urge to go and watch Jonathan Creek, lol where would clasical music be without tv to popularise it

[Ladyblue17]

ha yeah ^_^

[raven1234]

wow... the piece sounds really difficult...

[TRINA139]

This is seriously amazing.

[sosaltyfree]

Beautiful.

[tatou1]

This piece is pure madness !

[danielsanbebe]

ignorance is bliss... hehehe very gud video. i can do it with my left foot ;)

[shilloshillos]

Can we learn the proper jargon, ladies and gentlemen? A song is a piece of music that is being sung. Obviously this is NOT that. Its a composition, a piece of music, a Symphonic Poem, a Piano piece, NOT A SONG, dammit!

[gogolflagen]

I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW!!! I hate it when people call pieces that arent sung 'songs'! AAAAARRGH, the ignorance!!

[Wergild]

Agreed.

[taintedvisage]

Yeah I agree. Its a great song.

[ThaSchwab]

Yes, I've always loved this song. In a full orchestra, though.

[nietz]

Awesome song. I've never heard about Sean Bennett, but he's really awesome. And this is one of Säens' best songs.

[musicianlhj]

Wow! What a speed! Although the song is not really nice...

[Jerrez]

his tempo is very good , I heard a few recordings of bennett and wasn't surprised but this one is very good!!!!

[cziffra1980]

I like the playing in this one. Much better control of sound and more musical than some of the other Horowitz arrangements here. It's not the camera that makes the Carmen sound dynamically limited, because this actually comes across very well, despite the sound quality. The lyrical sections are nicely shaped.

[pianoman1984]

is this true to the score as written by Horowitz? I have a player piano roll of this piece played by Horowith himself, but it differs slightly

[MisterAgurk]

thats because on the piano-roll recording (it's from the early 30's) horowitz plays the original liszt-transcription!

he wrote his own transcription (known as the liszt-horowitz transcription) later in the 40's and thats the most common version everyone plays nowadays.

[pianoman1984]

Ok, Many Thanks....