Let's see

This performance is pure gold.

😢😢😢💔

Could you please explain what attracts you to this music? Does this composition have any meaning beyond demonstrating great technique? It doesn't even sound like something to listen to for fun. It doesn't even sound like music.

@@user-gp8ot4xs4f uhm excuse me?

@@user-gp8ot4xs4f This work is magnificent. It contains so much affected happiness, nostalgia, yet hopeful nostalgia. Some moments are just pure, simple, charming beauty.

Not to sound like a snob, but it takes a higher appreciation of music to love a piece like this. That is not to say anybody can’t enjoy music like this tho. Liszt is often thought of as a someone who was simply a virtuoso who made everything unnecessarily difficult. While that is true for some of his compositions, Norma is truly unbelievable. It is taking essentially an entire orchestra + chorus and putting it through a single instrument. And I think certain parts of this piece are beautiful even if you dont like Liszt (4:10, 6:45, 8:00, 10:41, 13:15, 13:52)

15 year olds are playing this..

yeah

Agreed! I mean, it doesn’t get much more impressive than that….

Absolutely

Maybe they were just in awe.

and at 13:15

I don't think Liszt would have been envy, as he did not have that attitude. He was supporting and lifting up his contemporaries, musicians, composers, although several times without any appreciation. About technical skills, I guess Liszt could have more of a composing, "improvising" focus on his techniques than a perfectionist "letter to letter" one, but most of what he could be doing was exceptional from spectacularity and sounding. Liszt's skills must have been really extraordinary, if he could take such a piece like Feux Follets and many others as improvisation (of course this latter was not improvised but a rework from Op1 etudes), but I mean he had that very wide skill set taken from the Karl Czerny "school".

Have you heard Giuseppe Albanese's recording? It's a must.

Liszt wasn't the envious type. He was comfortably superior to everyone

Please don't develop opinions about one of the most amazing piano composers in history if you have never even read a single Liszt article. We're talking about someone who was VERY socially active, inspired millions into the future, and gave credit to every individual pianist & composer that shaped him. Even basement dwellers like Alkan are noted by Liszt to have great technique in which he would adopt into his own works. When Chopin died, Liszt went above and beyond to make sure his name would echo through time. Via a eulogy, never ending name drops, and publication of many Chopin works long after his death. Like get real. Liszt was the student of greatness itself. In no world is such a person envious over some young guy in the 1980s performing one of his pieces well. How do you derive the conclusion of Zoltan being a genius, superman, super human, divine, etc-- While comparing it to Liszt, the person who transcribed this to solo piano to begin with...? O.o sit down kid you are another product of societal ignorance.

I disabled the comments long ago and only reenabled them a month ago or so.

@Mathews196 oh

@@ValzainLumivix lefhls

@@pleasecontactme4274 Bellini

@Mathews196 lol

To be fair, competition culture, and this middle-of-the-road/unchallenging/watered-down mainstream style you’re talking about still existed and was widely accepted in 1987 although perhaps the influence and recognition of previous generations (for one thing, Horowitz was still alive) were still looming in the background. It’s like the beginning of terminal cancer, when the illness itself is there, but the symptoms are less prominent. Have to say, Kocsis’s style was very divisive and unconventional even in his prime. Some of his recordings were panned and elicited outrage from establishment journalists and figureheads (like the Chopin Complete Waltzes CD). I think he existed in this weird limbo where he wasn’t a bog-standard, “politically correct” concert pianist like Zimerman but also wasn’t a complete hack/snake-oil salesman who could bamboozle millions that he was a misunderstood genius like Gould or Pogorelich. People didn’t know what to do with him.

​@@Kris9kris Regarding the presence of middle-of-the road, watered-down playing, you're probably right- but even competition playing in the 80's and 90's was head and shoulders above what it is today- and I remember it quite vividly. If it had been anything like today's homogenized playing, I probably wouldn't have remembered any of it. As for Zimerman, Gould, and Pogorelich, Zimerman left us some genius and strikingly vivid recordings- the Brahms 2nd concerto, the Grieg concerto, Liszt's Totentanz, Chopin's third ballade, etc., while Pogorelich left us with magnificent recordings such as Ravel's Gaspard, Prokofiev's 6th sonata, Balakirev's Islamey, Chopin mazurkas, and some shorter Brahms pieces, like the B minor rhapsody, etc.; there's probably plenty more of that caliber. Now which young pianists today can pull off such repertoire CONVINCINGLY and with artistic originality??! As for Gould, I often admire him for his intellect rather than his artistic merit, but his Bach and Mozart were unique and second to none. Suffice it to say that it is suspected that he could hear AND UNDERSTAND three or even four conversations simultaneously- which would truly make him a freak of Nature as well- and would explain some things..... :-)) And I have heard the entire Kocsis recording of the waltzes that you mentioned- I'll agree that they're quite un-idiomatic and "un-chopinian" at times, but still, they are played with great gusto. So what if he was unconventional? .....at least he had spirit and personality - and was a hell of a pianist as well.... :-))

Try this - it can be done! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gdl3f9Cjt5amhqc.html

@@Kris9kris This is a really interesting summary of Kocsis's appeal (or not). I've just bought the Chopin CD that you mentioned, hoping to be surprised by the interpretations, and I certainly was! I'm happy to hear a great pianist's personality coming through, and Kocsis achieves this - some would say at the expense of the composer's intentions. But Kocsis would have been the last person to ever ride roughshod over a composer's works - quite the opposite. It's sad that he experienced so much unfavourable criticism from fellow musicians, who could have accepted his highly individual style and appreciated his integrity.

Thanks for this!

True

So beautiful!!

ok

same!! i love listening to this part of the piece, especially Zoltan playing

Most certainly

Look at 8:21 , he looks as if "yeah... I did this in kindergarten"😂

@@aseempawaskar LOL 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

he died :(

Definitely

Please do not try to compare Kocsis with LangLang. LangLang will never be like Kocsis.

@@DavidBallpianist shut up you insufferable pretentious snob

@@thesaucegroup1877 bravo! „Le style est l' homme même”. 😂

@@DavidBallpianist yeah cuz they're different ppl lmao

Pro QBr tozer is better

@@fredericchopin6445 i originally listened to that. i feel this is better(apart from few parts where it sounds better in tozer's performance). i guess choosing b.w. tozer of this depends from person to person. i personally really liked this one. but tozer's is what i listen to since the audio quality is better

@A SEVENTH? NO? hmm i guess it's more of a personal preference thing, i like it equally in this one

@@pleasecontactme4274 hi

@@pleasecontactme4274 was a seventh here?

Not to mention having to remember a monstrous piece like that and play live without mistakes

Me 2

Agreed!!

Of course!

Yesss

He definitely has impeccable technique, I loved th sound of his trills earlier in the piece and he does take on a flight at the 11 mark. But I do feel he never gave the audience much of a chance to breathe, and he was unsteady in a number of places, where he spontaneously picked up the tempo.

If you just listen you may not realize it but a look into the score reveals that this piece is devilishly difficult

this part is Transcendental

No, the hardest part is at 10:41

@@KingUnic Not really no

@@Just_a_Piano_ i played the piece. Did you?

You could probably check the performance of Michele Campanella, too! 😆

@@Felix_Li_En Michele Campanella has become one of my favorite pianists to listen to recently. I’ll check it out, thanks! (I see you everywhere btw lmao)

@@MyPianoArchives Probably because I'm a Liszt Follower. 😌

I find the best way to experience music, except opera, is with my eyes shut. Otherwise there are so many distractions. I find that the camera work of almost every videoed performance is so distracting as to be completely unbearable.

@@duncanrichardson2167 Here's a thought. On videoed performances, close your eyes.

What's Guerra guerra?

@@liebesleid It's the part of the piece that starts at around 12:12. Type "Guerra Guerra Norma" into the KZfaq search bar and you'll get the corresponding part of the opera "Norma" by Bellini upon which it is based. I agree -- it's not actually Liszt's melody, but it's the type of dark motif that certainly could have been written by him.

@@mt3545 thank you lmao, I didn't know they had names for certain parts of the piece

@@liebesleid Well, in truth, it's not really parts of the piece that have names, but parts of the opera it's based on, which is very common for opera ("El Toreador" in Carmen, for example). And because this is "reminiscenses" on the opera, the part of the piece essentially takes the name of that part of the opera.

@@liebesleid Liszt takes thematic material from certain operas (Norma, Don Giovanni etc) and transcribes it for piano, but also makes it his own. He does have pure piano transcriptions which are brilliant as well, like the Beethoven symphony transcriptikns

Between us: I don’t own the rights to this video, but sure, you go ahead.

@@Kris9kris thx sir

@@Kris9kris but as the son of this highly esteemed pianist, you deserve to.

What project?

Moan? This is absolute fantastic amazing music and an incredible pianist playing it

@@isner_lew1834 exactly, the moans are with pleasure, that's why they sound so fucking good

@@johnkrammer3673 yes

what is sopra and sotti

sotto*

BoZZigmupp sopra means over and sotto means under.

@@suremate :0 thanks

Those last four pages are definitely hard but the hard part, for me at least, is 10:40

the whole piece is a nightmare

@@ms77619 They're not, I assure you. Liszt arpeggios are often more impressive than really difficult. Left hand is barely nothing.The hardest part of the score is around 12:48

@@MrThrond If you think they’re not difficult than why don’t you go ahead and post a video of you playing them? Also note my key phrase ‘for me at least’

Check who alkan is and this commentory section will become a whining section

Hi

Hi

yes very good

Well his fingers can.

you should see sheng cai's version of this he plays this almost twice as fast with twice the emotion

@@TF2Starlight But not nearly as good as Zoltan

@@inkognito8400 how so? For me, personally sheng cais performance is better

@@TF2Starlight Are you serious?Zoltan‘s phrasing is much more natural. Cai misses notes, rushes through many sections like there is no tomorrow. He strikes me more as racehorse than a pianist in his interpretation. I like Cai, but I find his interpretation appalling

@@damoonfarzi toxic

Cringe

seriously?????????????

Are you serious?? this is one of the best interpretations I’ve heard of this piece. Have you actually heard other recordings of this?

The only person who could play it better is probably Liszt himself lmao

Musically is ok, but Benjamin Grosvenor takes the cake

Hamelin. His technique is the best in the world (better than argerich's). But people say his interpretations are bad. I don't think so

Wouldn’t you say it’s very Lisztian?

@@pianisthenics No, it’s super unmusical and it seems like he doesn’t know Bellini’s Norma at all. This is really awful playing.

@@ladivinafanatic Are you trolling or just weird?

ok

@@Mereaux why did you feel the need to make this comment?

Gongofh

@A SEVENTH? NO? hii

@A SEVENTH? NO? omg lol