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Post by Andy EvansThis came up on another thread, and I pulled out my recordings of
Etudes Symphoniques and Fantasy to have a listen. I have a Brendel
coupling which is OK for a starting point. Don't like Kissin in
Fantasy.
So I'm inspired to ask what your favourites are in these two pieces.
A full list of favorites is too big a job right now, but Richter,
Gilels, Sofronitsky, Cortot, and Cherkassky are some of them in the
Etudes.
A Fantasy that more people should know is the one Bashkirov recorded for
Melodiya, which I recently discovered is not the same as the one EMI
released. The Melodiya is much more spirited and less cut-and-dried.
Gorgeous and utterly original, particularly in the first movement.
Someone in the thread mentioned Annie Fischer on EMI. It isn't bad, but
her BBC Legends performance is of near-desert-island caliber. A year or
two ago I exposed an experienced Schumann aficionado to it -- he loved
it, but was at a complete loss to guess who it might be.
For Richter, it's good to know both the EMI and the Prague performance
released by Multisonic, which exceeds the former in volatility.
"Starting point" is just about the right term for Brendel in these
works. The etudes are more his sort of thing and he does an OK job. The
Fantasy strikes me as an experiment that fails badly and ought to
convince all comers not to repeat it.
SE.