Piano Extravaganza

Rating:
Summary: Well Worth Your Time
Review: At first I hesitated for the obvious lack of Glenn Gould's capacity for polyphonic music: how would one be able to tell head from tail when so many pianos are playing at the same time?

Relax, and put your heart at ease, and do what the musicians here are doing and enjoy. These are no ordinary musicians but top musicians and they are having a marvelous time and they are sharing with you their joy. Martha Argerich and Kissin are doing a four hands piece as an overture and then, pieces for two pianos and more and more pianos, with the wonderful string players like Kremer and Maisky and even some singers in between. Basically it was Kissin stringing the whole concert together. The concert was such a success and it's thoroughly enjoyable with lots of fun.


Rating:
Summary: Astonishing music, and great fun!
Review: From the first note to the last, this amazing DVD held me spell-bound.

The opening note was sounded by two brilliant pianists, Martha Argerich and Evgeny Kissin, playing a Mozart sonata for two pianos as a duet. This is an extraordinary, lovely piece of music. A friend who is a professional pianist commented that he used to play this at home with his mother all the time, that it was "easy" -- "house music." But he was also impressed that these two masters turned his "house music" into concert-quality stuff. Lovely images, too -- "Youth And Experience" play a lovely duet together.

When the Mozart has ended, suddenly more pianos are wheeled into the stage, and more brilliant pianists appear to play them -- until there are finally an amazing EIGHT pianos going at once. It is really fun to watch such luminaries as Lang Lang, James Levine, and Emmanuel Ax having fun with eight German Steinway concert grand pianos and "The Ride of the Valkyries!"

My pianist friend commented that this sort of performance used to be very common, before the advent of records and TV. It was the standard way for the great composers to distribute their music outside of the great capital cities -- arrange it for two, four, or even eight pianos and send it out!

The people in Verbier, Switzerland obviously know how to have fun! They get together in the evening and listen to wonderful music!

Highest possible recommendation!!!

Rating:
Summary: A Must
Review: This belongs in all piano and string collectors' libraries. It is the sort of item one will certainly return to and share with music-loving friends.

The Verbier Festival, in a truly beautiful Swiss village (are there Alpine Swiss villages that are not beautiful?) is one of the lesser known but most prestigious summer festivals in Europe.... it simply attracts the best of the best to teach and guide the students who attend the Festival Academy.

Without detracting in any way from the feat of Martin T:Son Engström, Verbier's founder, something which should be acknowledged repeatedly, is the tremendous debt of gratitude we music lovers owe Martha Argerich and Gidon Kremer. Their ability to bring together, not only in Verbier, but in various other venues as well, the, arguably, "best and the brightest" of musicians to play together for the sheer joy of music-making is unparalleled in my lifetime. Perhaps Marlboro, in the days of Rudolf Serkin and Casals was an approximation, but not to the degree that Kremer and Argerich, together and independently of each other have achieved. The artistry and happiness their chamber music playing bring can be enjoyed in many live recordings that have stemmed from these gatherings (e.g. the Argerich Schumann celebration and Kremer's various Lockenhaus outings). These are musicians coming together to celebrate the art of music: their joy is infectious.

As to the DVD: it records the Festival's 10th anniversary which coincided with it's founder's 50th birthday. No solo playing is offered but there is music for piano four hands, 2-pianos 8 hands, 4 pianos and string orchestra, and, astonishingly, eight pianos. Imagine the array of pianists: Martha Argerich, Evgeny Kissin, Emmanuel Ax, Leif Ove Andsnes, Mikhail Pletnev, Claude Frank, Staffan Scheja, Lang Lang and Jimmy Levine. Imagine the string orchestra: Gidon Kremer, Vadim Repin, Renaud Capuçon, Sarah Chang, Ilya Gringolts, Yuri Bashmet, Nobuko Imai, Christian Tetzlaff, Nikolaj Znaider, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Mischa Maisky, Boris Pergamenschikow, Patrick de los Santos. In my lifetime I do not recall so much soloist talent gathering to play with each other in any one stage..... not even the Carnegie Hall "Concert of the Century."

And the music! From the sublime to the bombastic, one draws energy from witnessing the rapport, dedication, and, again, joy, these masters bring to playing together, and of course the musical results they achieve. In purely musical terms, highest points for me were the Mozart Sonata for piano, four hands, K.521, (Argerich and Kissin), and the Bach concerto for four pianos, particularly the ecstatic second movement (Pletnev, Levine, Kissin and Argerich). Everything is at least interesting and never less than fun..... when the eight pianos come together I particularly enjoyed the Rossini Semiramide Overture and the Flight of the Bumble Bee.

Get this. I assure you you will enjoy it many times over. And our thanks to all these wonderful musicians and to Mr. Engström for making it all happen.... and to BMG for producing such a fine DVD.... the DTS is great.