THE UNEQUAL PHRASING IN ALL MUSIC IS CALLED PORTAMENTO, KEITH HILL RELEASED A BOOK ON PORTAMENTO THIS YEAR. IT ADDS GREAT INTEREST TO THE MUSIC

@@ronwalker4849 WHY IS THIS ALL CAPITALIZED

@@adamjnotthecongressmanschi7026 It’s his way of show anger through words

@@adamjnotthecongressmanschi7026BECAUSE YOU’RE A FOOL

I couldn’t agree more.

Completely agree

+Jérémie Kann Ben Sadoun Really ? It's not a violonist ????

+Fox I don't even think Heifitz is a Violonist :O

No, Heifetz was an accordeonist

I couldn't have put it any more succinctly, Jérémie

Artist. The absolute finest of that kind.

7 years after.. the repetition is not in the score, and I don't know anyone else who plays it, so I guess he might "invent" it :)

Alba Lajus Funnily enough, Volodos plays the repetition too. But agree, nothing in the score. Bit odd to add it.

@@inkorect I think he got inspired by Michelangelis recording, who was his Idol

+Fernando Villegas Unlike any other!

Don't worry, so does the rest of the world =)

True that.

hey ***** i came here for the second movement =) i guess it really echoes strayhorn's chelsea bridge.. do u have this maurice's papers? please help me @ contatodomorello@gmail.com

***** just found ;_ good luck on the good work l;

***** If you are asking about sheet music for the Valses, I just got "Le Tombeau de Couperin and other works for solo piano", a book from Dover Publications. I got it at Amazon. Pretty cheap.

As mentioned in the comments above, this is a copy of a copy of the original recording. It’s the only one available on KZfaq and was downloaded directly from Youku about eight years ago. No one else seems to have it so this is the best we’ve got.

@@davidofpiano423 I was going to ask. Zimerman mentioned in 2007 that he was very proud about this performance and it was going to be released on DVD. Unforntunately it wasn't, and all we have is some poor copies. I also have the entire recital in one part (1h12m) but it's in even worse quality. I remember watching this recital in 2011 on YT. I assume from yet another source.

True me too actually

Agree. He is not intimate enough. Partly due to all the echo on the recording, though.

Valses Nobles et Sentimentales were written first

So the fact the the Valse sounds similar is due to his particular harmony and style or is he intentionally referencing to them?

Jacopo Barberis Definitely more due to his harmony and style. Sorry it took me a year to reply lol.

davidofpiano423 better late than never. Is this an actual saying, I translated it literally from italian lol

+Jacopo Barberis Didn't want you waiting another year - Yes, that's a popular saying in English.

Amazing Performance!

+Jaime Reyes Well, Michelangeli was not bad either don't you think - also considering that Richter himself praised him as best Ravel's interpreter ever ;) I think this performance by Zimerman is very nice and echoes Michelangeli's, with a more lucid and contemporary approach but maybe less "impressionistic" sonorities and phrasings.

First of all, Richter praised his G major concerto, not Ravel in general. But I prefer Michelangeli's interpretation of the Valses to all others as it highlights a certain abstractness about this work. There's nothing about Michelangeli's playing of the Valses that's "impressionistic", if anything Zimerman is probably closer to that.

Haha, he still has got the old Beatles haircut. He must be a great fan of them

+sanjosemike "Zimerman's tempi are not very waltz-like"- I really agree. When I listened to this I thought to myself, Oh Zimerman- a great poet, but not a very great dancer. There is an elegance and a French/ Ravelian kind of understatement that I yearned for but missed.

+sanjosemike Keep in mind that the genre of the Waltz grew far beyond it's original dance form during the 19th century. Much like the Prelude and the Mazurka, the Waltz became a vehicle for composers to explore new harmonic and formal territory, so the idea that they should be danced to doesn't necessarily apply here.

+davidofpiano423 Precisely.

Also Ravel seems to play around with the traditional waltz - taking traditional elements and exaggerating/caricaturing them so that it can sounds bizarre and grotesque in parts. He does the same thing in La Valse.

I.e. it's not supposed to be danced to and that's partly what makes it so bizarre

Ravel's piece is really not a set of waltzes. As with all of Ravel's dance compositions (La Valse, Bolero), he idealizes them and makes them dreamlike. I have played La Valse for 20 years and understand the Ravel concept of waltz from living with this piece. There are moments when it is just a waltz, but then the waltz goes from dream to destruction over its period of 15 minutes. Ravel is rubato personified. He reaches into the dream and doesn't just present a tinkly waltz. This is a symphonic metamorphosis of a waltz. Ravel writes for the dream and what you end up is a spiritual experience more than a musical experience. Ravel lived musically in another dimension!

Yes, or Gieseking, Perlemuter, Louis Lortie or ABM

I love Alexandre Tharaud's interpretation too!

And Alexis Weissenberg : phenomenal !

Who cares about your taste...? if you aren't able to recognize and find perfection on this performanc it says a lot about your lack of knowledge in music.

Have to disagree. Rubinstein plays it like Schubert, which I suppose is appropriate. Slightly stilted but not really French. This performance is weird. I love Zimerman's Chopin and Schubert, but here he's playing the little watchmaker like Scriabin. Yes, the two were contemporaries but they require diametrically opposed playing styles. Scriabin requires the notes to fly and the pianist with them using all sorts of bravura and extreme rubato. With Ravel he keeps the pianist in the air, just by playing straight. A lot of the passages just don't work unless you do play them straight. In that Roge and Perlemuter give more rounded performances of this one.

@@mikehutton3937 Style I think is something that comes later. Style is more the shape of the playing, its verve and sweep. See Toscanini for this. But here I am speaking about the touch, the tone, the way the hand actually rests on the piano for a split second before playing and the weight of the whole body adjusts accordingly in that short time and caresses the sound. That is something that is unique to Rubinstein. He actually shared that secret with Maurizio Polini as he said so himself in an interview and Ziimmerman was a 'student' of Rubinstein but it seems that neither of them have the patience to put that into full operation. Maybe that is what Rubinstein himself did when he took 3 years off from concertising at the age of 47.

​@@adriancook7078 Zimerman's touch is pretty much unsurpassed, partly because he use his own customized piano so he has more control. His exceptional touch allows him to bring out internal melodies lacking in pretty much everyone else's performances, and this performance is a case in point. But here the trouble is not the tone (conpromised by the recording, but crystalline and deep when you can get past the excessive reverb in the recording) but the interpretation. Ravel doesn't work properly unless you play it straight and fluid. Zimerman does a Barenboim with this at times, and I almost can't hear Ravel as a result. The last waltz is particularly disturbing - Ravel's timings are very specific, and the waltz loses coherence with all the unspecified tempo changes. In contrast Rubinstein plays it without the necessary fluidity and it sounds stilted and lacking in elan. This is Ravel, not Brahms (or Debussy for that matter). Tone comes after style. Rubinstein's technique is more to do with stamina than tone. The primary advantage it gives you is that you can maintain your strength so you don't have to resort to hammering the keys in loud passages. If you look at Zimerman's hands, they're as close to the keyboard as anyone's, including Rubinstein's. He is using Rubinstein's technique. There is no hammering - no "Bang" as you put it other than the effect caused by the recording. If you want to be really picky you shouldn't really be playing Ravel on a Steinway. A Pleyel has a warmer and lighter tone and is much more suitable.