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 [log in to unmask]