Rzewski Question

[Philo]

I don't know if this is the exact board for this, but I'm wondering if anyone can his recordings of Mendelssohn?

[Mandryka]

I don't know if this is the exact board for this, but I'm wondering if anyone can his recordings of Mendelssohn?

I have searched and searched for this but I don't believe a recording exists

[Philo]

I have searched and searched for this but I don't believe a recording exists

I was hoping that someone might have recorded it, in bootleg format, when he performed.

[Mandryka]

Yes. Me too. But so far no success. Have you seen his programme note, about water abnd the kabala?

If you're interested in Mendelssohn then the essential recording is Maria Grinberg's.

[Philo]

Yes. Me too. But so far no success. Have you seen his programme note, about water abnd the kabala?

If you're interested in Mendelssohn then the essential recording is Maria Grinberg's.

I've not see his program note. Can you copy and paste or is it easily searchable?

Thanks for the recommendation. I'm most interested in Rzewski mainly because I think it will be so idiosyncratic.

[Mandryka]

The 'Songs Without Words' are usually seen as trivial salon pieces, a
mixed dish to be offered as light refreshment in an otherwise serious
program. I see them rather as a single unified work: a systematically
constructed secular oratorio for piano, a musical Bildungsroman,
painting a ranibow of life's changing patterns and emotions within an
unchanging structure of repetitive cycles.
If there is a single dominant theme, it is water: the naturalistic
evocation of babbling brooks in spring that opens each cycle, or the
splashing of oars that ends it. But other unifying links recur
constantly: the descending fourth or tritone, for example, or the
anapestic phrase structure that reappears everywhere: two short
repetitions followed by a longer answer.
In order to make the larger form perceptible, I choose fast tempi.
(The duration might vary from 90 to 100 minutes.) I see Mendelssohn as a
radical: a revolutionary romantic, but also firmly anchored in classical
rationality. He always returns to the chorale, somehow a symbol of
Reason in a time of social upheaval.
Why call it "songs without words?" Does that mean there are words?
Schumann thought so, maybe. Could it have something to do with the
Hasidic _niggun_? Apparently not. If there were words, they were
deliberately suppressed. Why? Is it about a secret? Is the Duetto at the
end of the third cycle a simple love song, or a mystical allegory? These
are all questions I cannot answer; but I try to ask them in my playing

Here's Grinberg

http://www.youtube.com/v/Al-tUbtb4G8

[Philo]

Here's Grinberg

http://www.youtube.com/v/Al-tUbtb4G8

Thanks. Man, I really want to hear that Rzewski even more after that program note. I'll listen to Grinberg later today.

[OE1FEU]

There is a video of a recital where Fred plays two 'Lieder ohne Worte', among other pieces:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY2P7abQQC4