Scott Peterson shoots a bunch of questions:
>I have the Borodin String Quartet's version of the Shostakovich string
>quartet cycle and love it. I recently found a great price on the Emerson
>String Quartet's version, however, and was wondering if anyone has heard
>it. Is it worth picking up on sale as an addition to the Borodins?
The ESQ is quite diffrent from the Borodins, generally applying faster
tempi, in my book often to fast. Their "intonation" is also absolutely
perfect, which at times gives a far to pollished output. The Borodins is
perfectly adept to the local colour of the music, they really understand
the ideomatic parts of Shostakovich music. Someone once said comparing
these recordings, whereas the Emersons create grate music, the Borodins
creates life. A small but ever so important diffrence coming to music.
If You are looking for a set of DDS quartes to add value to Your
understanding of these, then the Emersons will gve you several hours
of intersting comparison material.
>I've been enjoying Don Satz's review of various versions of Bach's "Art
>of the Fugue"--perhaps my single favorite piece of music--but he hasn't
>mentioned Tatiana Nikolaeva's piano version. I love her on Shostakovich's
>"24 Preludes and Fugues." Is her Bach as accomplished as her Shostakovich?
>(Obviously, it impressed Shostakovich himself.) The one criticism I've
>heard of her is that she tends to be slow. Her Shostakovich IS quite slow
>compared to Keith Jarrett's version.
I have only heard Nikolaeva play Bach live (Shostakovich as well), in
Stockholm in 1989, if I remember correctly - she was slower than anything
I had heard up till then, it was very intimate, but I should hardly be the
judge in this case as I really don't like Bach on "modern" instruments, I
find him (his music) especially gruesome on a Steinway. Her Shostakovich
op 87 Preludes and Fugues where wonderful, actually much better live than
either of her late recordings (Melodiya and Hyperion) of it. Her early
recording on Melodiya, which has (AFAIK) never resurfaced after its LP
stage, is the best recording of these, including the composers incomplete.
I am not especially impressed with Jarrett playing notated music, anything
he tuched comes trough as far to deliberate, really lacking everything that
makes his improvised playing magical. (I just love the Koln Concert)
>Is her "Art of the Fugue" also on the slow side? And does that matter?
What matters, is whether You like it slow or not? If her playing speaks to
You than who cares about the "speed"...
>And speaking of Shostakovich's "24 Preludes," does anyone have an opinion
>on Vladimir Ashkenazy's version?
Probobly the best set of the digital age, have some small edges - but
VA shows that he is still one of the best pianists around. In any case
I'm still waiting for someone like Mikhail Pletnov or Nikolai Demidenko
do record a set, these are the truly gratest of the now living Russian
pianists. But with the declining Universal Regime at DG and Hyperion having
the Nikolaeva set in their catalogue I think that an op. 87 from any of
thses would be a miracle.
BTW: Sherbakovs set on Naxos is ok, it could have been very fine but it
truly rests on the famous Naxonian lack of care for details, and the phone
in the G sharp minor fugue is not a helper.
>How about his Rachmaninoff 6 CD set (I saw that on sale as well)?
I dont really have a relationship with Rach's music anymore, we have sort
of drifted apart, the only thing of his I listen to with any regularity
these days is the Vesper.
as always,
peter lundin, musicologist, writer, human being @ gothenburg.se
Sjostakovitj Centralen - http://hem.fyristorg.com/DDS/
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