Jean-Yves Thibaudet (b1961-France), who recently recorded part of the Alexander Desplat score for the film "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," returned to Los Angeles, where he resides, to perform the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2 in A Major with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. He gave a performance that was described by the music critic of the Los Angeles Times as "making the concerto sparkle with sustained brilliance." There were a few dropped notes that suddenly cropped up in just one unexposed tutti section during the Saturday performance that I attended, but that is a quibble. I only mention this because we are so accustomed to hear note perfect recorded performances by the current crop of pianists that we assume that they never hit a clunker. Yes, they do. However, with Thibaudet, the slips were very minor.
Here, Thibaudet plays the Liszt transcription of Tchaikovsky's Polonaise from Eugene Onegin.
It's a great opera, this scene opens an act to a ball in Pushkin-era St Petersburg.
MEpianist 2 months ago
These Liszt recordings by Thibaudet have always been my favorite of his. He's even more amazing in his recording Gounod Faust Waltz recorded at the same session. Very few living pianists (perhaps Hamelin?) can play passage work like this.
pianiplunker 2 months ago