[Christer]

Not a huge Brendel fan myself but skimming through that masterclass honestly don't find his manner particularly offputting or out of place. Sometimes these publicly shared classes are presented more for the audince entertainment/education using the students as a prop but I think Brendel seems more interested to getting into the guts of the piece/performance. At least in my limited experience of music instruction it's fairly common didactic style*- senior music students will likely already be thick skinned with it- and seems fitting for a masterclass where the relationship w/ the student is more or less impersonal, there are time constraints, and one of the primary advantages of which is getting an up close technical view on how a particular master plays a particular thing.

*not to suggest that it's always a good/effective style

Good post! I fully agree,and as a beginner pianist but rather seasoned music lover, and ex teacher I enjoyed this masterclass like many others.
Ok, telling the budding pianist, pupil that he played certain parts as if he was bored may not be the kindest thing to say ,but maybe it made him "listen up" and pay more attention to things he was understating and had played a bit mechanically before Brendel explained and most importantly, showed, how he preferred these parts played.
Showing by example is imho the best way to teach music interpretation.
And only musicians who actually play an instrument very well themselves, can do that. There are things in music that simply can not be explained in words.
I'm not sure I buy Brendel's explanation of those introductory Gs intended to sound as tympani strokes,but they sure sound nicer that way than the hard hitting way the student initially played them imho.

I also liked how Brendel really stressed the syncopations.

But my one and only recording of this work is a Philips LP with Claudio Arrau and he really dug into those deep bass passages and syncopations.
Since I absolutely suck at sight reading sheet music, I often turn to Synthesia tutorials on YT to learn or at least get a taste of the parts I can learn of such superhuman, from a technical point of view, works as Liszt's Sonata.
Here are two I found :Insane Piano Piece - Liszt Sonata in B minor - YouTubePiano Sonata in B minor // LISZT [Piano Tutorial] (Synthesia) - YouTube
PS. As usual I personally haven't really made it past the intro and selected beautiful melodic passages of the first movement. But Synthesia can be a great shortcut to get started. And gradually it gets more and more easy for me to "read" synthesia before actually playing it, than notes in unkown sheet music.
When as in Liszt's Sonata I for example see a g octave or a melody line rolling down in synthesia I can sort of hear it coming before it happens,but the little black dots on, or between the lines on white paper are more difficult for me.
No,I did not teach music.
My own formal musical training was extremely basic and I never played any instruments in my youth.
Thanks "heaven" or rather YT, for Synthesia.

Finally,to get back on the topic of Masterclasses,I mostly find them very interesting indeed, and watch loads of them, both piano and conducting classes like the recent ones from the Concertgebouw with Ivan Fischer, a conductor I have watched closely in rehearsal and at sessions and who impressed both there and then, and equally much, with the conducting students at the Concertgebouw.
I especially enjoy Barenboim's Masterclass series on the Beethoven sonatas which imho, reveal a lifetime of learning and experience with those masterworks.
Cheers CC

 

[Christer]

I listen a lot to western classical music but also a lot of Eastern classical and in particular Indian classical music. Sitar, tablas and such instruments. I really like Ravi Shankar and his amazing daughter Anoushka Shankar and Hariprasad Chaurasia on Indian flute and similar . But apart from one single album of Indian classical music, Surya Daya, which I downloaded from native dsd.com I don't have any hi res downloads of music from these genres.
All others are either cds or cd rips.
Anybody here who knows of a source of World Music and Indian Classical music as HI RES downloads? Not streaming.
YT is already full of interesting stuff musically but dynamics and SQ are often too compromised imo.
Cheers CC

 

[thejewk]

I've recently gone on a bit of a Classical music bender. I got the urge to listen to Ligeti, who I hadn't listened to for a while, worked through his entire oeuvre then got stuck listening to his String Quartets on repeat. As a result I started searching for other quartets, and now I'm digesting Shostakovich's cycle, which is frankly mind blowing.

Simultaneously, I watched some documentaries about Ligeti and he mentioned Ockeghem's polyphonic works as an influence, and I ended up getting an 8CD set of the Hilliard Ensemble doing various motets and masses from the Franco Flemish polyphonic choral composers. Great stuff.

 

[CanadianMaestro]

I listen a lot to western classical music but also a lot of Eastern classical and in particular Indian classical music. Sitar, tablas and such instruments. I really like Ravi Shankar and his amazing daughter Anouska Shankar and Hariprasad Chaurasia on Indian flute and similar . But apart from one single album of Indian classical music, Surya Daya, which I downloaded from native dsd.com I don't have any hi res downloads of music from these genres.
All others are either cds or cd rips.
Anybody here who knows of a source of World Music and Indian Classical music as HI RES downloads? Not streaming.
YT is already full of interesting stuff musically but dynamics and SQ are often too compromised imo.
Cheers CC

https://www.prostudiomasters.com/search?cs=1&q=Ravi+Shankar#quickview/album/33773
https://www.prostudiomasters.com/search?cs=1&q=Ravi+Shankar#quickview/album/47025
https://www.prostudiomasters.com/search?cs=1&q=Ravi+Shankar#quickview/album/36298

General "World Music" for browsing:
https://www.prostudiomasters.com/search?cs=1&q=world+music

 

[CAJames]

More physical media:

I might be biased because I grew up in LA and for years the only professional orchestra I heard live was Mehta's LAPO, but I really like this. Mostly late romantic repertory with tempos on the quick side ( but never rushed). And the sound is uniformly demonstration quality, the "Decca Sound" at its finest.

 

[CanadianMaestro]

^ Mehta's Mahler #2 with the VPO on Decca is a gem. A reference among #2's.

 

[CAJames]

^ Mehta's Mahler #2 with the VPO on Decca is a gem. A reference among #2's.

Yes, I saw him do Mahler 2 in LA in the 80's and it was excellent. The Mahler 3 and 5 in this set (which I had never heard before) are very good too, esp. if you like your Mahler on the quick side.

 

[Quinto]

In Brendel mood..

 

[JediMa70]

I got the DSD version of this and It's a fantastic listening, I love her style (but it's not a surprise when it's bout Vivaldi) and the quality is just terrific!

 

[Quinto]

 

[Quinto]

Still my favorite Hammerklavier.. (live!)

 

[Raketen]

Think someone mentioned this one not long ago. Nice perf of Brahms piano concerto no. 1 by the mighty Cleveland Orchestra and George Szell feat. Leon Fleisher
(streaming service SQ of this not great, though maybe that's also why there's a $2.00 sticker on this photo of a STEREORAMA vinyl sleeve)

 

[Brahmsian]

There are only a few operas I'll listen to all the way through, or even an entire act at a time and those are mostly Mozart and Wagner.

Just listened to Janowski’s Ring Cycle for Pentatone. Not the best voices ever assembled but phenomenal conducting/playing. Propulsive forward momentum. Warm, rich sound. Very easy to listen to for long stretches.

I like baroque & early music.

Recently discovered a great Spanish label (Glossa) that specializes in baroque. Apart from the recommendation below, check out what Vashegyi does with Rameau for the same label.

Kind of an interesting phenomenon I've only recently noticed: presented like an album but no physical media version- a streaming service playlist more than a traditional 'best of' compilation. Could be put together by an algorithm for all I know, but it has a yellow label and a brand name performer so it seems like a safer bet when perusing the billions of Various Artists - 'Fall Piano Classics', 'Schoenberg for Infants' and 'Bassoon Moods to Self-Flagellate to' albums that propogate on such services (and render any search for popular composers by name essentially useless).

Which streaming service do you use? Qobuz makes classical music a priority. What a difference!

You're not wrong about the clipping, and I'm hearing it a lot more now that I'm doing more listening on headphones. I guess I'm just pretty easy going when it comes to sound and I'm able to mostly listen through the clipping if the recording is mostly good. Same with surface noise on an LP.

What headphones are you using? I enjoy the HE400i, HE560, and ESP95X but like to hear what other classical music enthusiasts listen with.

 

[CAJames]

...What headphones are you using? I enjoy the HE400i, HE560, and ESP95X but like to hear what other classical music enthusiasts listen with.

HD-650 hooked up to a Woo Audio WA22. I like the combo a lot, and use the WA22 as a preamp as well.

 

[Brahmsian]

HD-650 hooked up to a Woo Audio WA22. I like the combo a lot, and use the WA22 as a preamp as well.

650 was my classical music headphones for about two years. Great with vocals. But I found the soundstage all wrong for orchestral music. They were also a tad dark/warm for my taste, and the sound was too smooth for its own good IMO. I found that they lacked texture and did not convey that energy and power that I like experiencing. Still, good headphones.