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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
There is no way to describe this performance. It is simply too wonderful to put into words. I once saw Pollini perform the Bm sonata live and I shall never forget the experience. The recording is equally unforgettable. This is a performer without peer on the musical stage, in my opinion. Intellect, virtuosity and passion in perfect harmony. Dangerously on the edge of possibility. Buy it.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
extraordinary B minor sonata by Pollini
7 July 2007
Format:Audio CD
I have had this disc for years, but have recently begun listening again after migrating to Zimerman, Argerich, Brendel, et al. for some time. When I first pulled it out again, I was simply blown away by the surpassing depth and utter poetry of Pollini's playing, and am more so with each listen.
After the mysterious descending scales and sudden explosion of the Allegro energico, what is immediately remarkable here are the rough inner edges, with the repeated notes of the section marked "agitato" emerging insistently and ferociously. Indeed, at various points throughout the piece, Pollini's hands seem to have been overtaken by a kind of mechanical fury--only to give way, often instantaneously and unexpectedly, to the most ethereally beautiful playing. In any event, the first instantiation of the grandioso theme is magnificent, with the thundering chords delivered in a perfectly suspended balance of total control and possessed frenzy. At the end of this passage, the four questioning chords have the sound of a much-needed breath. At this point, the dolce con grazia emerges, utterly crystalline. Again, Pollini's playing is so simple--almost ascetically plain--one begins to drift upward into a quasi-unconscious space. I find myself holding my breath as Pollini moves into the cantando espressivo...
I will not go through each incredible passage in this recording, but must mention the beautiful control and instantaneous changes in tone and dynamics in the fugue, the wild and elemental energy in the rushing downward octaves at the end of the prestissimo section (which Pollini sounds barely able to keep under his fingers, even though he is obviously in complete control), and the rough-edged, uneven beauty of the returning grandioso theme. In that latter section, other pianists produce the usual, rather overwrought grandeur, while Pollini's version sounds, perfectly, like a series of quickly drawn breaths, perhaps reflecting the extraordinary exertions of the preceding section.
Finally, there is simply no other account on disc which achieves what Pollini does at the Sonata's conclusion. Pollini leaves increasingly long pauses between the three bright-sounding chords in the piano's upper register, which sound as if suspended in some unearthly space. During the extremely long pause into which the second of these chords expires, one drifts into a partly unconscious state, only to be pulled back suddenly to await that final dark b natural, which Pollini delivers after another long pause with a decisive parting groan. Where other performances of this piece--even excellent ones--merely play through the final notes, Pollini creates one of the most transcendental experiences in all of music.
After the mysterious descending scales and sudden explosion of the Allegro energico, what is immediately remarkable here are the rough inner edges, with the repeated notes of the section marked "agitato" emerging insistently and ferociously. Indeed, at various points throughout the piece, Pollini's hands seem to have been overtaken by a kind of mechanical fury--only to give way, often instantaneously and unexpectedly, to the most ethereally beautiful playing. In any event, the first instantiation of the grandioso theme is magnificent, with the thundering chords delivered in a perfectly suspended balance of total control and possessed frenzy. At the end of this passage, the four questioning chords have the sound of a much-needed breath. At this point, the dolce con grazia emerges, utterly crystalline. Again, Pollini's playing is so simple--almost ascetically plain--one begins to drift upward into a quasi-unconscious space. I find myself holding my breath as Pollini moves into the cantando espressivo...
I will not go through each incredible passage in this recording, but must mention the beautiful control and instantaneous changes in tone and dynamics in the fugue, the wild and elemental energy in the rushing downward octaves at the end of the prestissimo section (which Pollini sounds barely able to keep under his fingers, even though he is obviously in complete control), and the rough-edged, uneven beauty of the returning grandioso theme. In that latter section, other pianists produce the usual, rather overwrought grandeur, while Pollini's version sounds, perfectly, like a series of quickly drawn breaths, perhaps reflecting the extraordinary exertions of the preceding section.
Finally, there is simply no other account on disc which achieves what Pollini does at the Sonata's conclusion. Pollini leaves increasingly long pauses between the three bright-sounding chords in the piano's upper register, which sound as if suspended in some unearthly space. During the extremely long pause into which the second of these chords expires, one drifts into a partly unconscious state, only to be pulled back suddenly to await that final dark b natural, which Pollini delivers after another long pause with a decisive parting groan. Where other performances of this piece--even excellent ones--merely play through the final notes, Pollini creates one of the most transcendental experiences in all of music.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Great performance of the Liszt B minor sonata
7 Jan 2012
Format:Audio CD
Pollini's recording of Liszt's B-minor sonata is fantastic and does justice to this piece that stands out as one of the most interesting contributions to the sonata repertoire.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A commanding B minor Sonata - Pollini at his most passioante
13 Nov 2008
Format:Audio CD
Here in 1990 Pollini concetrates on two contasting aspects of Liszt, in a program he still plays in concert. On one hand we get Liszt's flamboyantly ambitious capstone to a career of breakneck virtuosity, the B minor Sonata. Pollini's account is supernaturally good, an enthralling exhibition of absolute technique and rare musical instincts. The piano is also rcorded well, which isn't always true from DG, so the full sonority of Pollini's wide-ranging dynamics comes through.
The other side of Liszt is his late, gloomy, spare pieces that do not so much paint pictures of a place (he did that masterfully in 'Annees de pelerinage') as paint elusive moods, most of them dark. If the Sonata exercises Pollini's passion, these skeletal late works exercise his intellect, since it takes a probing intelligence to decipher them.
In sum, I dn't know if Pollini's Liszt is the absolute best to be heard today, but I believed it while listening to this CD.
The other side of Liszt is his late, gloomy, spare pieces that do not so much paint pictures of a place (he did that masterfully in 'Annees de pelerinage') as paint elusive moods, most of them dark. If the Sonata exercises Pollini's passion, these skeletal late works exercise his intellect, since it takes a probing intelligence to decipher them.
In sum, I dn't know if Pollini's Liszt is the absolute best to be heard today, but I believed it while listening to this CD.
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