A treat for those who like classical piano

Have you heard the Vikingur Olaffson album that pairs Ramsay and Debussy?  Thanks for the link

I’ve heard only the YouTube version of the Rameau & Debussy which has been highly regarded by so many folks. This was my first exposure to Rameau’s music so I can only compare it to Beraia’s YouTube performance. Not being  knowledgeable of Rameau’s music I can only say that I was much more drawn into Beraia’s ’performance’, which to me was, perhaps, a more ’romantic’ one. Her connection to the music was, by appearances anyway, more obvious than that of Olaffson and I enjoyed just watching it and as an introduction to Rameau’s music.

It would be interesting to hear both pieces as they were recorded on CD’s to see if either’s performance survived as presented on YouTube. I’ll have to order the CD’s and I will.

OP, since you're new to Rameau, I'll offer a recommendation.  Try Rameau's Une Symphonie Imaginaire, recorded by conductor Marc Minkowski with Les Musiciens du Louvre.  This is an absolutely delightful traversal of immensely entertaining music.  Spirited, fun, very well-recorded.

Olaffson is a terrific pianist.  I love his Philip Glass, and some of his other recordings.  But in my view he lacks the playful spirit that Rameau's music calls for.  I like Angela Hewitt in Rameau on piano.

I enjoy both Beraia's and Olafsson's Rameau. Each can be appreciated in their own way

On YouTube, there's an interesting compilation of 10 different pianists performing the Rameau piece, Rappel des Oiseaux:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3FYqwNd5kw

The best known performer of Rameau is probably Grigory Sokolov, for his amazing virtuosity.

LMAO , at myself. I have Sokolov's Rameau. Now I just have to listen to it!. :-)

I’ll have to find Hewitt Rameau.  I’ve found her Bach to be generally good but somewhat uneven.

  @newbee so my first Rameau exposure was around 30 years ago when the Naxos label emerged with budget Classical CDs and greatly expanded the repertoire of previously unrecorded music, particularly Baroque.  There were a few albums of Harpsichord music that made me a Rameau convert, and later several suites of Ballet and incidental music from operas ( a lot of the aforementioned keyboard music reappeared here orchestrated).  I don’t remember the harpsichord player name and will have to check my shelves.  The playing is filled with gusto and the instrument sounds large and powerful, so Historically Informed Performance devotees may not like it, although the Orchestral suites are HIPP approved).

Mahler123, FWIW, I found I actually had the Olafsson CD hidden in a drawer. I listened to it again and I figured out why. When first heard I really didn’t connect. I just didn’t care for the juxtaposition of Debussy (which I love) and the Rameau which I didn’t know. When I relistened and focused on the Rameau I appreciated it more, perhaps more that the YouTube version, yet I still found his style a little metronomic compared to Beraia’s, whose performance is not available on CD (her discography is very limited). I suspect that Olafsson’s performance might sound a bit more as Rameau might have intended.

I’ve only recently (re)opened my mind to music that preceded Beethoven. Beatrice Rana’s Goldbergs did it for me and I love that one. I’ve always appreciated Haydn’s music for solo piano, but that’s about it.

I’m going to try gg107’s recommendation just to see if I might like some orchestral music (by Rameau).

BTW, not that it really impressed me musically speaking, but I just loved watching the playing techniques by Sokolov, Olafsson, and Beraia. The three bears come to mind. Sokolov just beating that poor piano the death, Olafsson treating it with respect, and Beraia just messaging the hell out of it (probably inaccurately). If that makes any sense. :-)

Wow! So much to choose from. You have any favorites?

make your choice and ex😊plain why....

For me Olafsson is the one who master controlling himself totally, the piece perfectly without too much virtuosity demonstration or excessive mannerism...He played perfectly well but with expressivity not too slowly and not too vivace...

Beraia and Sokolov and Cziffra please me... But when we listen the same pieces hundred times or only a few times our choice differ , this is why even if Sokolov impress me a lot for example, he will not be my choice...😁

I want to listen the piece of Rameau at the end not the pianist interpretation...

Because with Rameau we have plenty of choices with good interesting interpretation... It is not the case with Scriabin, here i listen the pianist able to play Scriabin at his optimal to begin with and they are only a few... With Rameau we have plenty of choices in piano or harpsichord...

mahgister, OT. I've noticed you often speak highly of Scriabin. I have Maria Lettberg's complete set.  I find them rewarding.  Am I missing anything? 

Gilbert Rowland is the harpsichordist on the Naxos albums that I referenced earlier 

mahgister, OT. I've noticed you often speak highly of Scriabin. I have Maria Lettberg's complete set.  I find them rewarding.  Am I missing anything? 

With Scriabin,each chord of the keyboard each harmony deployed must boil like molten lava and not flow only like a calm and melodious river.. This is why most pianist struggle to play it with heart it is not only difficult technically but more difficult poetically ...

With Scriabin  writings musical time is used as an hologram of eternity, his timing is spiralling , not linear and is really an image of the beating heart out of mundane time but immersed and suffering in it  and delivered from linear time at the same moment , we must enter in a vertigo near ectasy ... How pianist can play it as such ? No technician, nevermind how great they are can , it takes a supreme poet on the keyboeard...

Sofronitsky concert :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxNOfFdkcKs

Here in this Liszt piece each note is a bullet in the heart :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLk6vqaxU1Y

This piece is well recorded and give an idea about Ponti genius in Scriabin :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBxMKwZB2cA

The son is less than the father Heinrich but is also a giant :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyVHCLRT0fI

The father Heinrich Neuhaus is beside Sofronitsky :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1hHPu9e8bI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kegxB1aBllM

The best version ever of this piece of Scriabin by Neuhaus father and even Horowitz dont even compare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMWx-F35awQ

And on par with my favorite the great Zhukov 2 hours :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-BbYY41UIk

Scriabin is one composer that just never clicked with me.  It puzzles me because Chopin, Debussy, and Rachmaninov are 3 of my essentials, but outside of the odd bit from a Horowitz recital, he bores me

Mahgister, you mention one of my long time favorite composers (and transcribers) of music for solo piano. Liszt! Too many  performers and recordings to mention but I started with Annees De Pelerinage played by Berman on DG. Great performance, I think, but not the best recording (what's new, with DG!) and I went from there. So many of his greatest tunes are, I think, therein. And if you want to hear it all there is always Leslie Howard's extensive collection on Hyperion. Of current performers I like Louis Lortie in this and his Chopin as well.

If a person has nothing better to do he could survey all of the available Sonata In B recordings and rate them. :-) 

We dont lack great pianists playing Liszt...For sure...

I must precise my point here...

It takes very great one to educate me to begin with about the Liszt genius which composer is underscored sometimes as a mere pianist...

These very few pianists able to play Liszt as it can sound are very rare for me... The same is true for Scriabin...

My point is that BEFORE hearing one in Liszt i was not so much admirative of Liszt...it is my insensibility and it is my fault...

The same is true for Scriabin... Almost no one can play it as he must sound for me... It takes a genius able to play it to astound me really and initiate me to a music for which i was before indifferent ...

I dont want to devalorize great pianists who played these two in an acceptable way... I am not competent enough to separate and criticize them...

But some rare pianists are on another levels...These few pianists it is easy to spot them for me now because now i put Liszt beside Bach Beethoven Monteverdi or Bruckner and the greatest composer , the same is true for Scriabin . I understand Liszt and Scriabin in the center of my being thanks to those rare pianist able to awake me ...

Then i am not competent enough to judge Sonata in B great pianists various propositions... Anyway my favorite Lisztian do not recorded it anyway ... And for me he is out of any contest so much poweful he is or can be ...and it is him who reveal the greatness of Liszt to me, nobody else.,..

Like Sofronitsky revealing Scriabin is unique and impossible to exceed ...

In a word i am not competent in pianistic interpretation to judge any pianist...

But i know what is a transcendent revelation which exceed piano playing when i hear one ...I need these few pianist Master initiators  able to do that for me  because i was musically ignorant  and unable to discover greatness by myself alone listening various  acceptable and good interpretations...

i discovered Bruckner as a revelation in the same fashion ...

And all the composers i love as Josquin Des Prez or Monteverdi or Bach etc were pure spiritual revelation not leisure listenings and ordinary casual discovery ....

I discovered Liszt after Scriabin for the same reason, i could not understand their music meanings till i listened played by a transcendant pianist... Just listening them with any great pianist was not enough to move my ignorance and my deafness... Sometimes it takes a miracle to give us sight ... It is why i loved some less well known pianist so much...

In the same way i had to wait till i listened Antonio Barbosa playing the mazurkas of Chopin to enter ectasy...The reason is the peculiar rythmic structure of these pieces asking for a pianist who feel a specific inner rythm and is able to play it with an ease and simplicity associated with a dance ... This mazurka rythm is very difficult to do it right...

My admiration are then the other side of my ignorance about music... I needed nuclear bomb playing to awaken sometimes from my indifference...

Mahgister, you mention one of my long time favorite composers (and transcribers) of music for solo piano. Liszt! Too many performers and recordings to mention but I started with Annees De Pelerinage played by Berman on DG. Great performance, I think, but not the best recording (what’s new, with DG!) and I went from there. So many of his greatest tunes are, I think, therein. And if you want to hear it all there is always Leslie Howard’s extensive collection on Hyperion. Of current performers I like Louis Lortie in this and his Chopin as well.

If a person has nothing better to do he could survey all of the available Sonata In B recordings and rate them. :-)

This Zukhov  playing is beside Sofronitsky...

Not much pianist are able to did this at this level of emotion and perfection and simplicity  ....

Some know how to play Chopin...

Chopin added to the Bach perfection he studies well , his own "imperfect" rythmic  touch, which we may called "passion"... Some pianist know that and express it ...Incredible playing :

Why is the Russian piano school  the geatest in my opinion ?

listen to this almost unknown master who studied with the great Neuhaus family  to know the answer and hearing the test😊 :

@mahler123 . What's HIPP approved? 

Historically Informed Performing Practice 

Interesting three minutes lesson for all :

"What troubles me about so many of the younger musicians I hear is that they think small and act small. They are afraid to feel, afraid to make a mistake. Who cares about that if you say something, say it with passion and pleasure? Piano-playing is a dangerous life. It must be lived dangerously.” - Arthur Rubinstein

@mahler123 .  Thanks :)