Monday 24 November 2008

Joplin and Busoni

Here, belatedly, is a link to birthday boy Scott Joplin, showing how it's done. And here's a link to the great Ferrucio Busoni playing Chopin. I wish there were more of these piano roll recordings - Busoni's and others - online.

4 comments:

  1. Thank you Nige for steering that Busoni my way-what a touch he had. This extraordinary polymath has long been a favourite, since I heard another great, John Ogdon, spin through the piano concerto, making light of both the length and difficulty of the piece. But I became a true groupie at the end of the last century, when ENO put on Doktor Faust, generally accepted as his masterpiece, though unfinished. Do seek it out, if you havn't already.

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  2. I shall Mahlerman. I know the piano concerto - and recently got my hands on the fantasia contrapuntistica - !!!

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  3. mahlerman, we have a mutual hero, I can listen to Ogden 'till the cows come home, goodness knows what he would have achieved had he lived.

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  4. I saw Ogdon once at some do - I think it was the launch of a book about children's radio (where he made his debut I believe). He was just shambling around the periphery of the crowd, quite unnoticed (and probably liking it that way) - then some Radio 3 producer spotted him and he was engulfed in sticky cordiality.

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