If you love classical music as much as I do I am sure you know of Rachy and Proky and if you have been a long time student of classical piano like myself you know their concerti very well . I wonder though if you know of the Canadian genius known as ANDRE MATHIEU ? I regularly listen to Performance today ( www.performancetoday.org ), YES I am an NPR geek have have been so since I was a child in school On friday while I was running late to get somewhere I turned it on and heard the most amazing music and instantly thought is this a Prokofiev piece I have never heard before ? I was so entranced by this contemporary masterpiece had I NOT been running late as previously stated I would have pulled over to the side of the road & reveled in its beauty and majestical compliexity. I post this here in the interest of sharing, because I know there are fans of Rachmaninov and Prokofiev who like me have not heard this composition and it is worthy of the same respect of the heretofore mentioned composers . MATHIEU was a child piano prodigy and even plaved a recital at CARNEGIE HALL at the tender age of 13. He like all geniuses was tortured emotionally and this gave way to alcoholism and he tragically died at the young age of 39 (same as CHOPIN) My ignorance to him and his prolific catalogue astounds me cause I know and have played many compositions by some of the most obscure composers . The piece I speak of in bravura tones is the 4th Piano concerto in Eminor by ANDRE MATHIEU ! He is known as the Canadian Mozart and has been rightly compared to RACHMANINOV who called the composer a genius Here is a link where you can listen to it, but I think the link will be viable until the end of this week only ! http://performancetoday.publicradio.org/?month=11&day=27&year=2009 Once on the page look where it says HOUR 2 and click listen. The concerto starts at the 15:00 mark . If you love this as much as I did plz make a small donation to your local NPR affiliate for their amazing breadth of programming they offer to us for free ! HH
Loved it! Thanks for the tip! I am also digging through the entire Hyperion series The Romantic Piano Concerto, which features incredibly wonderful but virtually unknown gems of the genre from a variety of composers, most notably Arensky and Bortkiewicz. Hyperion Records - The Romantic Piano Concerto
You are very welcomed and great meating you as well and what a hot gallery you have man ! Sure thing, this sounds like something I need to check out as well . I love discovering masterpieces I don't know, I feel like a kid on Xmas morning LOL HH
Like Ratchy and Porky? :biglaugh: To amuse myself, I like to pronounce the name of the former as "Ratchmatchinatch" ("a" as in "cat" in every occurrence) -- partly because I find the established transliteration "Rachmaninov" so annoying. It should be "Rakhmaninov." "Ch" is the letter combination used for transliterating the Russian "ч," as in "Chekhov" (Чехов or "Rostropovich" (Ростропович): it is pronounced like the "ch" in "chip." "Рахманинов" has "х," which is transliterated as "kh" (pronounced like the "ch" in "Bach"). I've never heard of this guy Mathieu, nor did I know about the Web site. Thanks for the information, HH. Also, now I've got a funny name for Prokofiev too.
My pleasure man Inclined to knock music ? I don't get what you mean by that ! Is there a certain genre of music called KNOCK which I am not aware of are could you be saying you KNOCK all music in general ? HH
Makes me wonder about those HUGE hand spans, and their correlation... No, not going there. Thanks for the thread on a great topic.
Pretty obscure stuff. But I note they have some wonderful pianists ... Marc-André Hamelin, Stephen Hough, Peter Donohoe, etc. Should be interesting. I'll be looking into that.
Thanks for the link. I listened to it twice this afternoon while I was sketching some ideas for the next project. It was nice, and somewhat inspirational!
