Amazing musical feats

[Nightklavier]

So would you both recommend the DVD instead of the audio format?

[Joy]

Originally posted by DavidO:
I have the symphonies & the sonatas on DVD, but not the general "Life of Beethoven"

Professor Greenberg goes into detail from the beginning to end in chronological order the life of Beethoven so this is an excellent course to study.


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'Truth and beauty joined'

[Joy]

Originally posted by Nightklavier:
So would you both recommend the DVD instead of the audio format?

It depends on what you would get the most out of personally. Say for instance you're in the car a lot and would like to just listen to a tape then the audio format would be the way to go. I personally like the videos/DVDs because I like to watch the pictures he shows and look at the music as he goes along teaching on the blackboard. For me I get more out of it when I view it visually. You also receive a workbook with every lecture that you can follow along with the Professor as he works through the music which is also very helpful.



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'Truth and beauty joined'

[PDG]

Originally posted by Peter:
Inspired by Nightklavier I think I'll kick this one off with Liszt's sight reading perfectly through Grieg's piano concerto from the manuscript in front of the incredulous composer.

I've got one: Beethoven composing masterpieces whilst totally deaf!

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Peter:
Saint-Saens may have claims to be the greatest prodigy of them all -

"He started composing at three and it was learned he had perfect pitch at two. His sight reading and memory are unequaled in the history of music. When he was ten as an encore he would let the audience choose any of the Beethoven sonatas and he would play it FROM MEMORY! Music is not the only thing he excelled in. Just about everything... Maths, Poetry, History, English. He wrote books and was a music critic. Was a great organist.
He stunned Wagner and Hans von Bülow with his sight reading of orchestral scores of Lohengrin, Tristan and Siegfried. Von Bülow commented: 'I too can play from score, but neither I nor any living man could have performed that feat [sight-reading the incomplete Siegfried manuscript] after Saint-Saëns. He is the greatest musical mind of our time.'

Debussy commented: 'He knows more about music than anybody in the world.'

Berlioz said: 'He knows everything but lacks inexperience.'"

Wagner was amazed that Saint Saens had memorized one of his opera scores (I don't recall which one) note for note, including all the orchestration, and could call up from his memory and sing any part from anywhere in the score, from double bass to piccolo, at prompting.

(For me at least, Saint-Saens' talents as a composer unfortunately do not match his talents as a memorizer and sight-reader.)

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited 10-17-2006).]

[PDG]

Originally posted by Chaszz:

(For me at least, Saint-Saens' talents as a composer unfortunately do not match his talents as a memorizer and sight-reader.)

Agreed, Chaszz. Which refers back to Peter's point about party tricks.

[Nightklavier]

Originally posted by Joy:
I personally like the videos/DVDs because I like to watch the pictures he shows and look at the music as he goes along teaching on the blackboard. For me I get more out of it when I view it visually.

I'm definitely going to get the DVD format then. Thank you for recommending it!

[Nightklavier]

Well I know this is a party trick, but it's a pretty colossal one: Alexander Dreyschock (1818-1869) could, from many accounts, play Chopin's Op. 10 No. 12 (Revolutionary Etude), specifically the the busy left hand which whirls all over the keyboard in octaves. What lightning fast wrists he must have had.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Nightklavier:
Well I know this is a party trick, but it's a pretty colossal one: Alexander Dreyschock (1818-1869) could, from many accounts, play Chopin's Op. 10 No. 12 (Revolutionary Etude), specifically the the busy left hand which whirls all over the keyboard in octaves. What lightning fast wrists he must have had.

Yes I've heard this before - also Godowsky rewrote the Chopin etudes making them twice as difficult! Regarding the octave feat, the Hungarian pianist Cziffra performed his own arrangement of The flight of the Bumble bee, in Octaves!

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'Man know thyself'

[Peter]

The incredible Josef Hofmann was a child prodigy and pupil of Anton Rubinstein. Regarded as one of the greatest pianists, there are few recordings as by the late 1930's his abilities were diminishing due to alcoholism. However he possessed an exraordinary memory and was able to learn complex pieces in an incredibly short time this way, often without ever seeing the music!

Rosina Lhevinne (1880-1976) loved to tell the story of Josef Hofmann's visit to Tbilisi, where her husband (another all-time great pianist, 1874-1944) was teaching before World War I. They spent the afternoon together. At one point, Lhevinne played a piece that Hofmann did not know. Lhevinne told him it was the Liszt "Lorelei". "Play it again," said Hofmann. They then had dinner and escorted Hofmann to the concert hall. "He played wonderfully," recollected Rosina. "For his first encore he came out, winked at us, and played 'Lorelei' exactly as my husband had done."

He was also an inventor and Hofmann's invention of pneumatic shock absorbers for cars and planes earned him a fortune in the early twentieth century. His other inventions included medical devices, a furnace that burned crude oil, automobile windscreen wipers, a device to record dynamics in reproducing piano rolls that he perfected just as the roll companies went bust, and a house that revolved with the sun.

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'Man know thyself'

[Nightklavier]

Felix Mendelssohn of course revived Bach through the first performance of the St. Matthew Passion. He performed this work many times in his life, though. On one occasion, when he walked up to the conductor's podium and opened the huge book of music there, he noticed that it was the wrong score. The book looked similar to the huge Bach score he was so familiar with, but it was not the St. Matthew Passion; it was just some other piece from a different composer.

Mendelssohn, not deterred in the least, raised his baton and began to conduct Bach's St. Matthew Passion. He pretended to be looking at the false score, even turned pages so as not to alarm the musicians. He managed to conduct Bach's entire Passion, which is more than 2 hours, from memory, with no noticeable mistakes.

[Preston]

Originally posted by Nightklavier:
Felix Mendelssohn of course revived Bach through the first performance of the St. Matthew Passion. He performed this work many times in his life, though. On one occasion, when he walked up to the conductor's podium and opened the huge book of music there, he noticed that it was the wrong score. The book looked similar to the huge Bach score he was so familiar with, but it was not the St. Matthew Passion; it was just some other piece from a different composer.

Mendelssohn, not deterred in the least, raised his baton and began to conduct Bach's St. Matthew Passion. He pretended to be looking at the false score, even turned pages so as not to alarm the musicians. He managed to conduct Bach's entire Passion, which is more than 2 hours, from memory, with no noticeable mistakes.

I once read something by a man who said that Mendelssohn was far greater a talent than Mozart at a young age. But his talents didn't mature as well as Mozart's did. Thought that was pretty interesting. Maybe it was just a fan of Mendelssohn. I may have read it on this forum, not sure.

Preston

[This message has been edited by Preston (edited 10-19-2006).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by Preston:
I once read something by a man who said that Mendelssohn was far greater a talent than Mozart at a young age. But his talents didn't mature as well as Mozart's did. Thought that was pretty interesting. Maybe it was just a fan of Mendelssohn. I may have read it on this forum, not sure.

Preston

[This message has been edited by Preston (edited 10-19-2006).]

Mendelssohn was a greater prodigy and his youthful works from his teens such as the fabulous Octet or the Overture to a Midsummer Night's dream are more accomplished than those by the 17 year old Mozart.

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'Man know thyself'