Daniel Barenboim

There is a new boxed set of DVDs out now of Barenboim playing and conducting from the piano
all five Beethoven concerti in Germany last year. If you can get over the slightly gimmicky aspect
of conducting from the piano, the music that he educes from the score is astounding.
I've been listening to these concerti for over 25 years and he brings out textures and colors
I've never heard in them. I guess this it what happens when a Beethoven expert gets total
control over the performance! Plus the video quality is fabulous.

 

Oh yes, I have those too I'm a compulsive shopper. If you get the boxed set you also get
two extra DVDs with him giving master classes on six different sonatas to six different young
pianists, one of whom happens to be Lang Lang. He tries to teach Lang Lang about all the
orchestral textures in the Pathetique sonata. Those master classes were real eye openers
for me regarding Music (with a capital M).

This series of concerts were the first time anyone has recorded the entire collection of
sonatas for video, and he did this all in something like two weeks.
On one of the DVDs after playing one of the sonatas (I think it's the one with the Appasionata)
he almost collapses from the effort. I may edit this last statement when I find the right one

 

...make sure you bring something good to read to pass the time.

 

Lang Lang? Ewwwww...

I did see the PBS special of him playing the Beethoven Sonatas though... outstanding performances, to say the least. I can only wonder how somebody can be that good...

 

I saw him playing Beethoven, too. Ain't PBS grand? :lol:

 

If the US has PBS, Germany and France have the tv channel "arte"
And I saw Barenboim playing Beethoven sonatas on the arte (the stage was Staatsoper Berlin Unter den Linden, where he works as the general music director). How could be one such a marvellous pianist and at the same time a great conductor?!!!

 

Cool.

Barenboim is just such a joy to hear...and to watch!