Ashkenazy plays Sonata No.7 Op.64 "White Mass"

[justmercuriciodide]

Ashkenazy's best performance is of the 8th. Other highlights are the 1st, the concerto, Prometheus, and the third movement of the third. Try Glemser for this one. Ashkenazy's recorded performances of the Rachmaninov unrevised second sonata and the 2nd Prokofiev concerto's first movement are unparalleled. Many contemporary pianists have tried their hand at the Rach sonata and failed. Despite it being such a competition workhorse, high-quality performances of the piece are hard to come by.

[RWinkley02124]

What Ashkenazy achieves in this recording which many pianists with quicker 'clock times' don't is a sense of space occupying time and vice versa - Universe opening to universe

[4785689]

vladimir horowitz played this in early 30's

[titusbeertsen]

That moment at 1:00 is so special, like you suddenly realise the whole world is empty around you...

[fisherroastedpeanut]

@titusbeertsen I agree. It is one of my favourite parts of this sonata.

[MarcheseCadmio88]

If you have the score of this sonata, take a look at the end: you'll notice a D8 (which does not exist on a piano!) repeated for 4 times.

It is not a joke: Scriabin himself noted in the manuscript "This note doesn't exist on the piano, for now"

[SwiftAccipiter]

@MarcheseCadmio88 Excuse me, I think the D8 note is in Scriabin's 6th sonata...

[MarcheseCadmio88]

@SwiftAccipiter Also. Both in 6th and 7th.

[SwiftAccipiter]

@MarcheseCadmio88 OK, I think I use the corrected edition so that I didn't find the D8 notes in the 7th sonata because the editor had corrected the D8 notes into C8.

[adrypiano]

>This piano sounds so metallic, come on, even if Ashkenazy is a good pianist, this recording doesn't make justice to Scriabin...

[sshuck]

I love this recording. The climactic ascent and decline halfway through the piece is heaven-splitting in this man's hands.  Thanks for posting!

[malcuzynski]

I love this piece, and, for me, Ashkenazy is by far the best mainstream superstar interpreter of it.

How brilliant is it that someone like Scriabin could have walked this planet ( in a fetching dinner jacket) and committed to notation such fleeting glimpses of another warmer world?Thank God there were no computer games in his lifetime - and also that he wasn't an investment banker instead of a composer.

[sshuck]

Agreed, his version is my favorite.

I was just tempted to respond to your last remark - you can be BOTH an investment banker and a composer...if you're Charles Ives!

[rancodanca]

@malcuzynski who knows. maybe he would have been an excellent investment banker that would have solved poverty :p

[pureaKero]

Simply amazing! This was my first listening of this piece ever (i have heard most of his other sonatas and etudes), and this is by far his best piece ever! Unlike other nontonal works, this one feels stable and structured, the sounds produced sound 'right' (for lack of a better word). Pure Genius!!!!!!!

[777cc777]

this is really perfect..

but have a few more listens to the 8th... Sofronitsky, Ashkenazy, Laredo, Amato... can't ascribe words asides 'perfection' or something equally banal there too

[redrothko]

great sense of direction and discipline!

[Test2Bear]

20th Century music is absolutely bizarre. We're studying it in my music theory class. There's no boundry for it. And I love that.

[ebowass]

check out this bizarro 21st Century band, Mass Echo, and discuss...

[p0lyph0ny]

Thanks for the excellent & interesting information you provided in the video summary. The seventh and the eighth sonatas are all too infrequently played.

[fisherroastedpeanut]

to me it's just a great pleasure...:)

[777cc777]

for us tooooooooooo

[cattleman6420012000]

This is very interesting.Ashkenazy is a fantastic pianist with very deep understanding of what he plays.

[odoenov]

I'll drink to that, cheers