Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / The Best of 2024

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The Best of 2024 · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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This is Jed Distiller and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
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recordings. Before we begin, I'd like to thank those who have been supporting this podcast
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from the beginning and those who've made it possible for the Piano Maven to thrive. We're
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going to begin our second season on the first day of the year on January 1st, 2025 by launching a
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special daily or almost daily mini series. I'm not quite sure how often we'll run it, but there will
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be frequent episodes. And on this mini series, I'm going to be recommending recordings of Beethoven's
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32 piano sonatas. And each day, I will recommend two recordings for each sonata without repeating
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a pianist. So that means 32 sonatas and 64 pianists. And I have some good news. We are now
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monetizing this podcast and accepting subscriptions through my Piano Maven sub stack page in order
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to cover production expenses, which are crucial to keep the Piano Maven alive and thriving as we
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launch our second season. A paid subscription to my sub stack page enables us to chat about things
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which is https colon two slashes that go to the right. And that's Jed Distler music. That's all
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one word Jed Distler music dot substack.com. You will be glad that you subscribed. I can assure you,
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of course, you can subscribe for free. And you still get to hear all of the podcast episodes
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on all major podcasting platforms. But I will be directing all commentary and feedback to my
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sub stack page from YouTube. I tend to get most comments via YouTube. Anyway, let's move on
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because this is our last podcast for 2024. And our last one in the first season. And I thought it
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would be appropriate to talk about 2024 is memorable piano releases and reissues. It's
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certainly not going to be a comprehensive survey, but I thought I would talk about some releases
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that really, really impressed me this year. One of the first releases of 2024 that I reviewed
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was a disc by Bezod Abdoremov called Shadows of My Ancestors. And it contains one of the best
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recordings I've ever heard of Prokofiev's 10 pieces from the ballet Romeo and Juliet in the
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composer's own piano arrangement. And there's also a wonderful and really evocative cycle of
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piano pieces by the composer Dilaram Sajdaminova that's called The Walls of Ancient Bukhara
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that was written in 1973. And also on this disc, Bezod Abdoremov plays Maurice Ravel's Gaspartalan
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Wee. It's a really first rate interpretation. And I think that his headlong and really quite
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diabolical way with the final movement Scarbo rivals Eva Pogorelich. And that is a strong statement
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for me. Also from 2024, there was a two disc set on the Deutsche Grammophon label,
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featuring Danil Trifonov and his one time teacher and mentor Sergei Babayin playing the two Rachmaninov
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suites for two pianos. Babayin, oh not Babayin, who transcribed this, oh Danil Trifonov transcribed
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the adagio from Rachmaninov's Second Symphony in a beautiful, beautiful arrangement that they play.
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And also Trifonov and Babayin play the symphonic dances of Rachmaninov and the composer's two
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piano arrangement. It's a marvelous disc. I mean, some of the tempos are hair raising
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leaf fast, but the control and finesse and sheer elegance of the playing is really quite wonderful.
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There also were two box sets by Australian eloquence called the Piano Library. And each of these
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sets consisted of various piano releases that for the most part had not gained official release
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before on Compact Disc. One of the box sets contains recordings originally issued on the
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Westminster and American DECA labels. And this is a set that contains recordings of Yorg Davis,
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Edith Farnady, Clara Hosco, Nina Milchina, Raymond Luenthon, Beno Moiseevich, Egon Piatri,
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and Carlos Zecki. And that's really worth checking out. But it was the other box set,
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the other piano library set containing recordings issued by Deutsche Grammophon that I actually
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found more interesting, mainly in terms of the repertoire. And it contains pretty much the
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entire series of releases that Deutsche Grammophon brought out in the late 1970s, early 1980s,
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in a mid-price series called Concours, which mostly featured live performances by young competition
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winners, many of whom would go on to successful careers, such as Boris Bloch, Mikhail Feierman,
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Stefan de Groot, Diana Kasko, Eva Poblowska, Alexandra Longkwich, David Lively, and George
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Louis Pratt. And it's good to have this whole wonderful series available again. There also
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were some live recordings from the Warsaw Chopin competition with Vladimir Ashkenazi and Michel
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Bloch that are included in the set. Also in the set is a previously unpublished recording of
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Debussy's Prelude's Book One with Dino Cianni. It's not to be confused with a slightly later
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recording that he made that was published by Deutsche Grammophon. Also there's a recording of the
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second piano sonata by Pierre Boulez with the pianist Claude Heffler. I didn't even know about
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this recording. It came out in the early 1970s. It would be superseded by the Maurizio Polini
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recording from the late 1970s, but it's still good to have this. And also in this set is a 1963
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Schumann recital by Veronica Joicham. And there are two CDs worth of Chopin by the Hungarian
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Polish pianist Julian von Karoli. Also here are the two Beethoven sonata albums by Eli Nye from
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the 1950s. And here the Appascianata sonata's last movement, Repeat, is restored. It was actually
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left out of an earlier CD release because they wanted to get the contents of these two LPs onto
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one CD, so they got rid of that repeat. But here we have two CDs with the repeat intact for what
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it's worth. There are two albums in this collection by a pianist who I never heard of before. Her name
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was Zola Me Schaulis. And I did an episode fairly recently where I talked about five piano recordings
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on Deutsche Grammophon of Bach's Goldberg variations because I thought that there only were five
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piano recordings of the Goldbergs on this label. Well, I was wrong because there's actually a sixth
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that comes from 1971 and featured Zola Me Schaulis. And it's a really nice recording. It doesn't have
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any of the repeats, but it's a really good, no frills, very honest, very direct, really attractive
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performance. And she also made a Bach recording a few years later containing some, but not all,
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of the Bach tocatas. And again, I had no idea this disc existed, and it's a marvelous release.
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Also in this collection is something that has been on CD before Roberto Tzidon's recording of the
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Ives Concorde Sonata. And also there was a disc with Eric Tenberg playing the Rager Telemann
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variations. It's not the most interesting piece and the performance is okay. But what you really
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want this disc for is Paul Baumgartner's recording from the early 1950s of the Beethoven Diabelli
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variations. This is an absolutely first class interpretation. And Australian eloquence had
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reissued the Tenberg and Baumgartner performances on a single disc quite a few years ago, but it's
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good to have it in this collection. Now for my next release of 2024 that I think is quite important,
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whether or not you respond to the epic length and impossibly thick piano works by Sorobji,
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you really have to hand it to those pianists who fervently believe in this repertoire,
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and who spend hours on and mastering the music's impossibly elaborate intricacies.
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Probably the most familiar of these big Sorobji pieces is Opus Clavichem Ballistikum. And for
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years it was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's longest non-repetitive
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piano piece. Of course there are much longer non-repetitive piano pieces by Sorobji. But in
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any case it's Opus Clavichem Ballistikum or OC as we like to call it, that probably is the best
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known of these. And it was the pianist Jeffrey Douglas Madge who gave the modern world premiere
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of OC in 1982. That performance came out on LP only. And then there was a later performance of his
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that came out on Biss on CD. But then there was John Ogden's studio recording on the Altaris label.
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However, there is a new studio recording by Don Vandavalle. And I think by far it is the most
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accurate and most meticulous and most thought out interpretation in terms of pacing and dynamics
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and character, not to mention accuracy. And it's on the Pasakai label. And this is not music you're
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going to want to listen to every day. But this five disc set of Don Vandavalle playing Sorobji's
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Opus Clavichem Ballistikum is a standard setting recording of a work that does have quite a lot
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of significance. The Marston label released a fascinating collection containing mostly unpublished
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live recordings featuring the pianist Robert Goldsand. Robert Goldsand was born in Vienna in
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1911 and he died in New York in 1991. He studied with two Franz Liszt pupils, Morts Rosenthal
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and Emil von Zauer. He launched his American career in 1927. And he was active as a soloist
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and as a teacher for decades. Although Robert Goldsand made a good number of commercial recordings
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in the 1950s for the concert hall label, they really do not show Goldsand that is best and
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at his most inspired. But a collection of live recital recordings that exist tell another story
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altogether. My dear friend Donald Manildi, who is the curator of the International Piano Archives
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at Maryland, did a wonderful job curating a three disc anthology from Marston called from Goldsand's
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concerts that really does his artistry justice. There's a lot of wonderful material here, the
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Clementi F-Shart Minor Sonata for instance, the Six Liszt Paganini etudes, and there are some
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Chopin etude performances that are so much more inspired than those in his 1950s studio recordings.
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You can find this release, which is called Robert Goldsand, The Lost Recitals, exclusively from
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Marston Records. And I put a link in the podcast description for you to go to the Marston website
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and buy this release, and I really encourage you to do so. I think Marston Records deserves so much
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support. I mean the thoroughness and the integrity that goes into all of their historic releases
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is just without peer. I also enjoyed a release from Challenge Records by Alessio Box,
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entitled Forgotten Dances, and it's a really well curated recital of music inspired by dance
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in polished yet stylish and inspired performances. You get a vigorous Bach A Minor English Suite that
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I think gives Martha Argorich a run for her money. There's Bartok's Dance Suite, the Ritual Fire Dance
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by Defia, and there's a beautifully thought out and symphonically oriented reading of Maurice
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Ravel's Love Vols. It's a performance I really love. It seems to begin from almost nothing,
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but it builds in long paragraphs with subtle yet indisputable forward momentum. And you know,
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so many pianists tend to pull Love Vols about in all directions and draw attention to themselves and
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poke around with inner voices at random, but Alessio Box knows better, and this is a marvelous disc.
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Next, the second volume in a survey of piano music by the Chinese composer Ghe Gan Ru
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attracted me quite a lot. This second volume features Ghe Gan Ru's 12 etudes for Extended Piano,
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composed for and played by Yiming Zhang. These pieces explore a wide gamut of extended techniques
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such as using the hands on the strings of the piano to strum and pluck in all kinds of different ways,
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placing objects on or in between the strings to create evocative percussive effects. In a way,
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this music expands on the kind of extended techniques explored in great depth by composers
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like Henry Cowell and John Cage and George Crum. But what I find interesting about Ghe Gan Ru is
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that when he uses these extended techniques, they never seem to be ends in themselves. They have
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musical and emotional expression all the time, almost as if the sounds coming from the instrument
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absolutely have to be those specific sounds and no others. And of course, a disc like this,
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needs the best possible engineering. And that we do get on this highly recommendable release on the
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grand piano label. Definitely check it out. I also want to mention a release on the ever best label
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featuring the pianist Craig Rootenberg playing many, many, many portraits by Virgil Thompson.
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Virgil Thompson composed portraits from life, meaning that you would sit in a chair across from him
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and you could read, you could sleep, but you couldn't talk. And then Virgil Thompson would
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put his pencil to manuscript paper. He wouldn't use a piano and he would just look at you in the
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chair and he would compose. Now, not all of his portraits necessarily resemble the portrait
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subjects, but it's a fascinating group of compositions. He wrote more than 150 portraits,
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most of them for piano. And Craig Rootenberg has not recorded them complete, but he recorded, I would
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say, maybe three quarters of them. And he does wonderful, wonderful work. After all, Craig Rootenberg
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was a protege of Virgil Thompson and he himself was a portrait subject. So this is definitely a
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release that adds to the catalog. It's a real contribution to the recorded discography. And
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finally, I'd like to recommend a release by the Swiss pianist François Xavier Poiseur. And he's come
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out with this six disc set in anticipation of the Ravel 150th birthday celebration that's happening
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in March. And this is a collection that contains every composition by Ravel that involves the piano,
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from solo works to the two concertos to chamber music and to songs. Actually, it's all the music
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that Ravel had published. There are a few unpublished pieces in there, but essentially it is the
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complete Ravel Canon with piano. And everything is gorgeously engineered and all of the performances
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are absolutely first rate. Poiseur is a pianist who essentially is a classicist. He doesn't go for
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momentary thrills or titillation. And the focus and the maturity that I find in his interpretations,
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I think will really stand the test of time. And there's also a beautiful booklet with great
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annotations and artwork. This is a real collectible, I think, and I think it belongs in every serious
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Ravel collection. I gave this release a rave review and gramophone and I posted a link to my
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review in the episode description. I really think you should seriously consider getting this release.
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So all of the recordings I've been talking about count among the year 2024's most memorable
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and recommendable releases and reissues. Of course, I could have included a lot more and I know that
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you have particular favorites that I did not mention and I would like to know what they are.
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I'd like to know what you think are the best releases and reissues from this year. Please let
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me know. Go to my substack page and let's have a chat about that. This is Jed Dissler for the
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Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings. And I thank you for joining me this
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first season. And if you would consider subscribing to my Piano Maven substack page,
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it would be of great help to our Piano Maven community as we begin our second season with the
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special daily or almost daily podcast mini series covering recordings of the 32 Beethoven Piano
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Sonatas. So have a very happy New Year, be well, stay safe, and show kindness to one another.