The pianist is filmed in a sort of vast ante-room, conspiciously not of the type one might expect to hold an audience (no stage, no seating and a sad-looking hat/umbrella stand occupying the foreground of one recurrent camera angle). (In contrast, Hamelin in his Godowsky paraphrases of Chopin for Hyperion shows how a transcendental technique can render 'difficulty' beside the point and look beyond it into purely musical considerations -but this entails no kind of caution whatsoever.) Here, textures collapse under their own weight or become such a conscious issue that a sense of line (absolutely crucial to these pieces) all but disappears. He plays the notes -but SO slowly and with a deadly circumspection which is the very antithesis of what the occasion demands. Unfortunately, however, Schliessmann's playing of these intricate and demanding works is catastrophically cautious. This might reflect well enough upon the pianist in one sense: Godowsky himself was a fastidious artist, concerned to minimise all outward show of effort and possessed by all accounts of a Zen-like calm meditative centre, probably such as Marc-Andre Hamelin demonstrates in his recital appearances nowadays. I can comment only on the Strauss/Godowsky performances, since listening to these (admittedly the reason why I was curious enough to buy a second-hand copy in the first place) has so far deterred me from trying the rest -there are plenty of inspired Chopin exponents in the world as it is.Īnyone hoping for a high-wire bit of pianistic spectator sport should look elsewhere. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click "Continue without accepting" to reject, or "Customize Cookies" to make more detailed advertising choices, or learn more. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Cookies store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. Your choice applies to using first-party and third-party advertising cookies on this service. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. But where Ken Russell came up with idea to put Nazis and Hitler in the film…I’ll never understand.We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences, and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice. The only redeeming quality is seeing a naked, young Roger Daltrey! I can also say that all of Liszt’s women/lovers in the film actually existed in real life and that his daughter really married composer Richard Wagner. Even Ringo Starr, who plays the part of The Pope and who had been praised for many of his previous acting roles is mediocre at best.īoth the acting and the music in this film are terrible. The posters for Lisztomania even promoted this movies as ‘ Tommy’s Tommy‘! Unfortunately, even with Roger Daltrey as the star in this film too, this movie doesn’t even come close to the genius of Tommy and makes one think that Russell should have quit while he was ahead. Lisztomania, was written and directed by Ken Russell, the same guy who had already directed The Who’s classic – Tommy. Or, if you prefer, here is a video of Bugs Bunny playing Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody: I’ve always enjoyed the music of Franz Liszt and you’ve probably heard it yourself. 1886) was the rock star of his day! In April 1844, while reviewing the European music scene that season, writer Heinrich Heine coined the term ‘ Lisztomania‘ to describe the frenzy and fainting that occurred when Liszt performed. Several months ago, I went to a lecture that compared the Beatles to classical composer Franz Liszt.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |