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In Reply to: RE: Forget overrated or underrated. Who are you personal favorite pianists past and present live and recorded posted by Analog Scott on November 26, 2014 at 19:10:21
...for sure he belongs to the most "underrated"...
“Somebody was always controlling who got a chance and who didn’t. - Charles Bukowski
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His Brahms Piano Concerto No.1 with Rattle isn't bad either.
I would have loved to see him live. I missed him at the CSO a few years back.
There's a very interesting story in connection with that Ravel recording, which I posted about here in 2010:
Why didn't Zimerman record BOTH Ravel concertos with the Cleveland (rather than recording the G maj. with Cleveland and the D maj [left hand] with the LSO)? Well, according to my source - whose name I can't reveal :-) - Zimerman was supposed to record BOTH Ravel concertos with the Cleveland, but during one of the sessions there, one of the orchestra's union reps ended the session too abruptly for Zimerman's taste, whereupon he slammed his score down on the piano and shouted that he would never make a recording with the Cleveland Orchestra again! Thus, the remaining (left hand) concerto had to be hastily arranged with the LSO!BTW, I was just listening to Zimerman's Chopin F-minor Concerto (with his hand-picked Polish Orchestra) a couple of days ago - that is surely a one-of-a-kind recording if there ever was one, in terms of the orchestra and the soloist: rubato, dynamics, balance all combine for a kind of expressive rhetoric like no other performance. (Of course, that doesn't mean that other performances can't be good too, but I don't think anyone else could afford to take the same approach, where the soloist and orchestra feel as one, despite the extreme expressive tempo manipulations and other rhetorical modifications - a result of Zimerman and the orchestra getting tons of rehearsal time and then touring with these concertos.)
Zimerman's Chopin Piano Concerto No.1 left me with a strong impression.
I love the way he tells the story in that piece in spite very stretched out 1st movement he had me captive what he's going to say next.I read somewhere that musicians in that orchestra were hand picked by him and that he stipulated that noone over 35 year old of age should be permitted. ( no way you can get away with this age discrimination in the US~! )
Interesting background story on the Cleveland Orchestra fiasco.
He's such a prima donna but man.. no doubt he's very talented. I don't like everything he does but what he does well offers unique way of looking at things.
Edits: 11/29/14
I don't think he will ever come back to the U.S.
If i've known this I would have made it to the concert come hell or high water...
Actually, I find that the "perfection" which many listeners attribute to ABM actually applies more truly to Zimerman. He's not as "extreme" as some other pianists I like, but the detailed finish of his playing is incredible IMHO. I don't often agree with The Gramophone (if only because their reviewers almost reflexively tend to support big label, big advertiser recordings!), but their praise of, say, Zimerman's Debussy Preludes on DG is very well founded: the exactitude of the rhythm and the transparency of the texture is fantastic. Even though I have a couple of great hi-rez recordings of these works (Koroliov on DVD-Audio and Bavouzet on 24/96 download), I'm also spellbound by Zimerman on plain old CD!
fds
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