Aldo Ciccolini's Nocturnes

Discussion in 'Classical Music' started by Rodrigo de Sá, Sep 4, 2004.

  1. Rodrigo de Sá

    Rodrigo de Sá This club's crushing bore

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    Dear all.

    I'm back - at least for a while. So let me renew myself a little and speak of a composer I don't particularly like: Chopin.

    As some of you remember, I am hooked on counterpoint, and melodies usually bore me stiff. Now I always had a weak spot for the Nocturnes, but could never find a version I liked. I would like them poetic but spare.

    I just found THE reference. There is a new recording by Aldo Ciccolini of the Nocturnes in Cascavelle. It may be a little difficult to find, but it is well worth the effort. It is an intensely poetic version and yet he doesn't display his heart unabashedly as, for instance, dear Maria João Pires does; even the sissy bits in the top soprano sound convincing and there is not one occasion when I dislike it.

    The sound itself is a treat. That, of course is because Ciccolini is one of the truly great pianists of our time, but part of it must be attributed to the piano in which he plays. It is a Fazioli. It is a longer instrument than most and has an unbelievably transparent sound. There is nothing of the grey lifelessness of your ordinary (!) Bechstein, nothing of the shrill sound of a Bösendorfer, and nothing of the technicolour effects of the American Steinways. I like it better than a German Steinway: the tenor zone in a Steinway is kind of blunt. With the Faziolli you only get a sensation of space, freedom, and unreserved power (Ciccolini, of course, never uses all this power).

    I was so engrossed by this record that I didn't rest until all my friends had listened to it. Most people did agree with me. Only a pianist girlfriend said nothing about the piano: 'it's Ciccolini, not the piano'. Now I feel a little pianist-typical conceit here, although she may be right.

    Anyway, one to definitely treasure.

    PS: Edited to add.

    I said alnost nothing about the interpretation itself. It is poetic, archetypical - prototypical emotion. All the sadness and nostalgy of the music are absolutely there, and yet there is no obscene display of emotion. It is nothing like Pollini, who is rather dry for my taste. It is very moving music, deeply felt, but you you will not find any histrionics. A very pure and mature version. A great master shows us how music should sound. It is perhaps the best record I bought this year (and believe me, I did buy a lot of records!).
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 4, 2004
    Rodrigo de Sá, Sep 4, 2004
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  2. Rodrigo de Sá

    bat Connoisseur Par Excelence

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    The super-pianist Dinu Lipatti recorded Nocturne in D flat in 1947.
     
    bat, Sep 14, 2004
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  3. Rodrigo de Sá

    titian

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    RdS
    I have the five piano concerts of Camille Saint-Saens with Ciccolini and I like his interpretation very much. If you have the opportunity by the set. I have the LP-Version but I bet there are also on CDs.
    As contrast I like to hear also the interpretation of Philippe Entremont.
    I never heard Ciccolini playing Chopin though.

    cheers

    Titian
     
    titian, Sep 18, 2004
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  4. Rodrigo de Sá

    Rodrigo de Sá This club's crushing bore

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    Dear Titian: It is plain marvelous. And in your system you may be able to get all the nuances the miraculous Fazioli piano (played by Ciccolini, of course) is capable of.

    And yes, I'm in search of other records by him. He is an artist of absolute integrity. One of the interpreters I admire the most. An introvert, takes music seriously, doesn't care much for applause and certainly lives in a marvelous emotional world.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 19, 2004
    Rodrigo de Sá, Sep 19, 2004
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  5. Rodrigo de Sá

    pe-zulu

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    Dear RdS

    The topic Chopin is apparently not interesting for the members
    of this forum. May lack of response be the reason for your vanishing contribution as a hole? Sometimes it may be difficult to see what is hiding behind the title of a thread, as when the thread below: "Sony CD-players and french CD's" became a veritable harpsichord-versus-piano-thread. Your opinion would
    have been very interesting, but now it is rather "post festum" .

    Even if I as a child was fed with lots of Vienna-classic and romantic music, this never became my great passion, except for Beethoven. Many years ago I got an almost complete-works Chopin Vox-box and listened extensively and intensively to Chopin for over two months. The etudes, the preludes and sonatas were my favorites, but to some extent the nocturnes and the mazurcas as well. The performer of the nocturnes was Ingrid Haebler, - coming from Haydn and Mozart she avoided undue romanticism and her performance was straight and natural. I especially liked the first three nocturnes op.9, the beginning of the first giving an impression of being somewhere where things already are going on, the second with the strong moonlight-character. And the rest, well most of them variations of the op.9.in some way.
    Almost ten years ago I got Aldo Ciccolinis recording of Beethovens piano sonatas 28,29,30,31 and 32. He has recorded all 32 in the 1980ies for the Italian label Nuova Era (not available for the moment I think). I have just re-listened to 29 and 32. As Beethoveninterpreter I would compare him to Walter Gieseking: straightforward, beatiful bell-like sound, but not much poetry. They both fail in comparation with fx Kempff, not to say Barenboim or the like. I dont think I can recommend Ciccolinis Beethoven on the basis of this.
    Judged from your words it might be interesting to listen to his Chopin, but how can I manage it, when there is so much other and certainly more attractive music crying to get heard?
    Venlig hilsen
     
    pe-zulu, Oct 13, 2004
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  6. Rodrigo de Sá

    joel Shaman of Signals

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    Ah, I read that as Ciccolina's nocturnes. Nevermind.
     
    joel, Oct 14, 2004
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  7. Rodrigo de Sá

    titian

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    Ciccolina? :confused:
     
    titian, Oct 14, 2004
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  8. Rodrigo de Sá

    joel Shaman of Signals

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    Yes. Ciccolina (or Cicciolina) is a former radical party deputy in the Italian Parliament.
     
    joel, Oct 14, 2004
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  9. Rodrigo de Sá

    Markus S Trade

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    It's Cicciolina, born Ilona Staller. She's great at counterpoint.
     
    Markus S, Oct 14, 2004
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  10. Rodrigo de Sá

    joel Shaman of Signals

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    Ah yes, what a performer. She was a very versatile multi-instrumentalist as well, I believe. Quite a feat.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 14, 2004
    joel, Oct 14, 2004
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  11. Rodrigo de Sá

    cookiemonster

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    cookiemonster, Oct 14, 2004
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  12. Rodrigo de Sá

    Rodrigo de Sá This club's crushing bore

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    DEar Pe-Zulu:

    No, I didn't abandon the forum. Only I never read the hi-fi forum... My interest is music, and as I have found a hifi system I like, and as I am not a tweaker or upgrade maniac I really don't read most of the stuff written here about hifi. (By the way: this means no disrespect: most of the forum members know I acknowledge their help when I was in the process of finding a pair of suitable speakers for my amp).

    But it is a fact that I tend only to reply to the classical music threads. I completely ignored the thread you mentioned and I am sorry for it. I never played the piano well, but I know the instrument (i mean, from a performer's point of view) and I'm sorry I missed the thread. So thanks for calling my attention to it. Even if it is post-festum, if I have something original to contribute, I will.

    I agree Ciccolini is not ideal in Beethoven. But then, Beethoven is so special... And it seems to me it must be terrible to be able to grasp the early sonatas and the late ones - I mean, it needs a great amount of versatility.

    I don't know Haebler's Chopin. But my taste was indeed very influenced by her Mozart performances. A very great artist.

    Concerning the Nocturnes, I must say I never really liked Chopin completely. Sometimes yes, most often not. I remember I reacted very ambiguously to the Maria João Pires' set of the Nocturnes. It was marvelous, but in a sense it was obscene - in the original sense of the word: I cannot begin to understand how she exposes herself so much.

    Now Ciccolini's version is extremely poetic (because the music is poetic) but rather austere: he lets the music speak, and he vanishes as a medium. But what a medium. Also, he is the only pianist I know to be able to make the marvelous Fazzioli piano shine. All the deffects I find in a Steinway (the predominance of the treble, the lack of polyphonic resolution in the medium and bass) or a Bechstein (the thick, grey sound) just disappeared. Now that is a piano in which I would like Bach to be played (I know Angela Hewitt plays a FAzzioli, but I cannot really like her playing): it seems just perfect. And Chopin benefits from it too: I have a very old (an antique, really) Pleyel piano, from about 1870, and the effect of playing Chopin (or even Bach) is completely different from playing it on a Steinway (I lived for some years in Brazil, in a huge palace [no, I'm not rich: it just happens my father is an ambassador] where I had dayly access to a Steinway, so I know the instrument rather well).

    So this particular record took my fancy.

    But, as you say, there is so much music to listen that I like better than Chopin... I am currently engrossed with Guillaume Dufay (or Dufaÿ), still trying to make out how Machaut (Machault?) connects to radiant gothic (I think I more or less can understand it, but still... I'll post when I think I have understood it).

    Many thanks for your very kind post. I'll try to keep an eye on the threads.

    Yours,

    com todo o respeito pelos seus interessantes comentários,

    RdS
     
    Rodrigo de Sá, Oct 14, 2004
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  13. Rodrigo de Sá

    Rodrigo de Sá This club's crushing bore

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    Joel, you anglo-persian-japanese-anarchist-budhist mongrel, :respect:

    :D :D

    Also, Cicciolina was not that interesting! A bag of bones with a lot of holes...

    But PLEASE, do not turn this thread into a Cicciolina discussion one!!!

    :)
     
    Rodrigo de Sá, Oct 14, 2004
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  14. Rodrigo de Sá

    joel Shaman of Signals

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    I'll move along quietly, Constable.
    BTW, how about a Dufay and Machaut thread? I very much enjoy the work of these two.
     
    joel, Oct 14, 2004
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  15. Rodrigo de Sá

    Rodrigo de Sá This club's crushing bore

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    I'd very much like to, but I'm still trying to understand Machaut. Dufay is much easier.

    But I think between ourselves (I mean, the classical team) we can make something of it... Pe-Zulu is currently interested by that kind of music, too.

    Have you tried Pérotin? I have a feeling that you might like it. Of course, it is very different from everything else (although is a way I find it necessary to know his music to understand Machaut's), and there are not a lot of records with his music.
     
    Rodrigo de Sá, Oct 15, 2004
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  16. Rodrigo de Sá

    joel Shaman of Signals

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    I love Pérotin's music. The man was a genius. The question is, whose version does one take: the glossy dynamism of Hillier or the slower solemnity of Binchois (who is a bit too keen on female voices IMHO).
    I would love to hear an ensemble Organum version, though. Marcel Peres seems to achieve an equilibrium between solemnity and dynamism, and I prefer the way he balances the voices (not the right way of saying this, but I hope it makes sense). Just my feelings about this.
    Last week I picked a 20LP box set of "Cantus Gregorianus" as sung by real monks and nuns. For all their technical imperfections, I can't help thinking that these people bring something to devotional music which none of the scholarly groups can match...
     
    joel, Oct 15, 2004
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  17. Rodrigo de Sá

    pe-zulu

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    Dear RdS

    Music compared to architecture is a difficult topic, but if you reach to a theory I am very interested in hearing about it.

    As to different pianos: I dont know if there is anyone suited for Bach. Comparation with harpsichord sound is without sense, and to justify playing Bach on piano, you have to regard it as a
    sort of "better" clavichord, and I think this is why the Bachworks which survives a pianorendering best, are the works which tend to sound tolerable on clavichord (Inventions,some of the WTC,
    the French suites, -but certainly not the Partitas,the Goldbergs or the French ouverture). Pianosound makes partlistening difficult, -well pianists compensate by accentuating the important voices, but I think that this is just the opposite of polyphony.
    This is what Sviatoslav Ricther in his WTC does all the time.
    Another thing is the tendency to hammering staccato, when pianists try to play non legato, a touch which is mandatory with Bach, but difficult to realise on piano, probably because of the slower action of the repetitionmechanism on a piano, compared to the fast speed of a harpsichord action - or am I completely wrong? Your words about Steinway and Bechstein were wery precise, but I have never heard a Fazzioli. The most convincing Bach-on-pianoplayer I have heard is Wolfgang Rübsam (again - this man is something quite extraordinary) on Naxos.But this is not only a question of instrument (dont remember what he uses),
    but more a question of playingstyle.

    It would be interesting with a Machaut-thread. If I am to start it, I need a little more study, -it is a difficult topic as you know.
    Venlig hilsen
     
    pe-zulu, Oct 16, 2004
    #17
  18. Rodrigo de Sá

    pe-zulu

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    A small addition.
    Rübsam plays a Bösendorfer piano. An instrument with a rather dry character and a treble which is not dominating. He attacks it rather softly.
     
    pe-zulu, Oct 16, 2004
    #18
  19. Rodrigo de Sá

    Tom Alves

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    FWIW I too had a serious dislike of Chopin. I actually found it painful to listen to as a yoof. Al that is in the past and why? Radio 3 Building a Library. I heard they recommended recording by Lívia Rév which is seriously moving. Suddenly Chopin became music and I've been hooked ever since. I still rate the Lívia Rév recordings above all others I've heard.
     
    Tom Alves, Oct 18, 2004
    #19
  20. Rodrigo de Sá

    tones compulsive cantater

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    As a Bach lover and a non-musician, I have to disagree with this. I have Goldbergs on both piano and harpsichord, and I enjoy both. I started with Gould, but I found his idiosyncracies hard to cope with after a while (not to mention his moaning - the sign of a better quality stereo is that the moaning becomes more perceptible!). I finally settled down with Murray Perahia, whom I find very good. His English Suites are also very good.

    The works, it seems to me, have to be accepted on different terms when played on harpsichord or piano, and I think that Bach is robust enough to be playable on both and enjoyably heard on both. To say that music must be played thus, but not thus, seems to me to run the danger of putting it in a strait-jacket and making it a museum piece. I realise that you can take things too far the other way, but in the case of piano-harpsichord interchange, I can't see a problem. It's the same with, say, a modern valved clarino trumpet v. a valveless baroque type. When used properly, there's no problem (e.g., in Brandenburg No.2, you put a modern trumpet at the far end of the studio, so that the recorder player can actually be heard).
     
    tones, Oct 18, 2004
    #20
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