Post by Steve EmersonPost by M.BartnikI will quote here an article I gleaned from the website
www.musicalpointers.co.uk
Thanks, Marcel. I was hoping for the name and label of the DVD, I haven't been
able to turn it up.
SE.
The label's name is Naïve, from France. The catalogue number of the DVD is
DR2108. The DVD is called "Grigory Sokolov live in Paris". The concert is
from the 4th November 2002, in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Here's the
link for amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000T4U3Y/qid=1089316837/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl74/102-6851783-6260922?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846
or, easier: http://makeashorterlink.com/?B23A321C8
I hope this helps and add another review below.
M.B.
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Reviewed by: Colin Andersen /
http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_cd_review.php?id=1668
Here is a wonderful matching of musical individuality and perception - the
whole of a live recital with Grigory Sokolov in commanding form. The
pictures are secondary, save for adding value when it comes to registering
the pianist's reactions. Despite the director being Bruno Monsaingeon,
certain filmic devices, such as the camera drawing away as a movement ends,
are predictable. The sound is first-rate though.
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Not for the first time one listens and views the picture occasionally; the
alchemy of sound itself is more telling and doesn't need an image to sustain
it. The important thing here is how Sokolov interprets the music. His weight
and dynamic amplitude is never gratuitous, and most often it's his dexterity
and a carefully considered range of touch and sonority that stands out; most
important is that all seems right for the music, and all seems spontaneous
despite the no-doubt lengthy preparation. As for the pictures, Sokolov is
anti-display; his movements are wholly natural and 'in sync' with the music.
This is a man who communicates through his intellect and fingers, through
sound.
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A wonderfully time-taken Pastoral sonata, which exists here as sonorous,
melodically explicit, harmonically profound and sensorial in its searching -
an account that without drawing attention to itself sheds new light on the
work's possibilities, not least its playful ones. The finale is perfect in
pace, the left-hand rocking gently, with the 'simple' tune in the right made
hypnotic. I am, though, dismayed that Sokolov spurns the exposition repeat.
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Following are Six Dances of Sogomon Komitas (1869-1935) of whom I know
nothing, and on whom the booklet supplies only the dates just given. I guess
he was Turkish. Certainly these six not-so-miniature Dances exude Oriental
promise and the 'authentic' scale passages that create exotic soundscapes
are maybe transcriptions of indigenous material as played on national
instruments. Sokolov is as absorbed by this work as he is by the 'greater'
music that surrounds it.
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The Prokofiev sonata, often used and abused to display technical
wherewithal and to 'impress' an audience through fast and loud playing,
finds Sokolov above such things. He searches the explosive and interior
aspects of this usually taken-for-granted piece and shows its elusive and
deeper sides. The result is a revelation, not least in the finale, given
with articulate rhythms and cumulative purpose - dogged rather than easy.
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Of the five encores, the two Chopin mazurkas are exquisite without being
precious, and two Couperin Ordre movements are effervescent, the ornaments
in Soeur Monique delightfully integrated. He doesn't bask in the applause; a
nod to the audience and he's gone. Siloti's transcription of Bach's B minor
Prelude is a consolatory way of ending.
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My colleague, Ying Chang, reviewing his recent Wigmore Hall recital,
suggests that Sokolov is the greatest living pianist. I understand that. I
would rather say 'one of'. Certainly Sokolov makes some of the hyped
pianists seem mere pretenders.