Dan Schmidt ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

>Madge made a recording of Opus Clavicembalisticum a long time ago; I
>don't know if this is a new recording or a reissue of the old one,
>though I imagine the latter.  I've heard that it's slower than Ogdon's,
>which makes sense since Ogdon's recording is 4 CDs and this is 5 (hmm,
>though from the playing time it seems as if it could fit on 4).

Madge's 1983 recording was substantially shorter than Ogdon's.  JO's
weighed in at 4 3/4 hours and I think GM's was just over 4.

The composer's original estimate, BTW, was around 2 1/2 hours IIRC!

>...  Ogdon hurtles through the score like a man possessed.  A lot of
>accuracy is sacrificed and his perfomance brings to mind God sight-reading
>through the piece; it sounds ragged and there are wrong notes everywhere,
>but it's impressive.

He was not a well man when he made the recording, although as you
doubtless know, he'd first played the work nearly 30 years earlier - to
its dedicatee, Hugh M'Diarmid, apparently the only time he ever heard the
work.

>Still, I'd like to hear an accurate rendering of the score.

Have you ever looked at the score? I don't think an accurate rendering is
physically possible by a single pianist.  The final page IIRC extends to
something like six staves.

Deryk Barker
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