Classical Music for Aficionados

@rvpiano     Hi RV just thought I'd let you know of a good harpsicord find which I am listening to now on Idagio. It's Henry Purcell , Suites for Harpsicord played by Ewa Rzetecka-Niewiadomska which I am playing at least three times a day at the moment. She has a beautiful technique and her ornaments are very tasteful and the harpsicord has a lovely lute stop which sounds really superb in the recording. The recording is really well done with the mikes not in the guts of the thing. Talking about lutes I played the lute and classical guitar for forty years but I'm afraid I was also a closet keyboard lover who never had a chance to study it. Never mind I'll leave it to folks who do it a whole lot better than I could ever dream to.

RV   I'm quite sure you are being overly modest but I am glad your a harpsicordist now as there is quite a ressurgence in harpsicord popularity at the moment and I am heartily glad of it. I love the sound of the instrument with those wonderfull treble overtones, it must be a nightmare to record. I spent months one time trying to get an acceptable recording of the Goldbergs on it and I found it last week again on Idagio, Kenneth Gilbert .I must admit that I have allways loved the instrument but mostly live but now with modern digital recording techniques they don't now need to insert various mikes inside the poor instrument. I also think that todays instruments have a super tonal range from new but I do wonder if any of them will last for three hundred years as the old clavecins have. I will certainly look up that Schubert with Holliger conducting but a the moment I am listening to Sibelius Symphony No 1 with the Gothenburg SymphonyOrchestra cond by Santtu-Matias Rouvaly. Its on Idagio and it really is quite stirring. Well thanks for the recomenation and I'll let you know in a few days.

@schubert I think you could be right and I remedied that this afternoon also. I listened to his harpsicord suites today as I was doing a bit of digitising my CDs and I came across Dido and Aeneas and of course I had to listen to it and what a pleasure it was to revisit it.It’s the one with Catherine Bott as Dido and Emma Kirkby gets a look in with a contribution.The Orchestra is a Period band that I like, The Academy of Ancient Music and conducted by Christopher Hogwood. The bass is provided not by a double bass but a Theorbo and Beautifully played as well.No wonder I am very slow at digitising my collection as I keep comming across "Finds" and I get distracted and my dear wife comes up to my garret and gently chides me for wasting time with that infernal recording thingamy as she calls it and me forgetting it’s a nice day and the garden is very untidy !!!

@schubert Len you are dead right about the monster bit as I grew up in a rough part of our town and they always thought I was a bit "OFF" with my liking for classical music but I survived that part of my life thank goodness.With classical there are so many variables that there is no time to get bored.

@rvpiano RV I gave the Schubert with Holliger conducting a listen yesterday and enjoyed it greatly. There is a lovely lightness about it all that you only get with reduced forces. Next week I shall make sure I listen to his Schumann.

@schubert Len you are dead right about Fischer she is a stunning violinist. Have you heard her on the piano she is superb, I’m of the opiion she could have made it on either instrument she is that good. A few years ago she was concertising with the Grieg Piano Concerto in the first half of the concert and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in the second. Not so long ago she did a concert in I think The Wigmore Hall with her on piano and accompanying Alina Ibragimova who is no mean fiddler herself. One of my memories going back I think about five years ago was her on The Proms and she played a spellbinding Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. When it was over she came back onstage to play an encore and tha place went hushed and after a good pregnant pause of about 20 seconds she suddenly said "I am sorry for taking so long but there are twenty four of these and I am trying to decide what one to play" . No guessing what it was she was deciding on the Paganini 24 Etudes. Playing one of those finger twisting devilish things is bad enough but deciding from the twenty four that you have up your sleeve is surely rubbing it in.

I had the pleasure of listening to Grigory Sokolov a number of years ago at the  Edinbugh Festival in the Queen's Hall. He came on and did a medley of Wm. Byrd pieces.That one set was enough for me to see how great he was / is. He then played Beethoven's Piano Sonata Op.2 No 3. and unfortunately I can't remember the rest of his progam except for an encore a Brahm's intermezzo Op.117 which was absoloutly divne. What made me love his playing was that no matter what he played in the repeats when thing can get a little taxing he did not slacken the pace any and he just threw the decorations as if flicking a piece of fluff off his sleeve. Last year I purchased his CD of Beethoven's Hammerklavier and Schubert's Piano sonata D960.  l love the  Schubert but hate his Hammerklavier as I find the playing slow and leaden which is very unlike him but I am afraid he does polarise opinions.

Jeremy - I love the playing of young Grosvenor, he has a lot of charm to his playing. I have a stunning Ravel - Gaspard di La Nuit that I recorded from BBC Radio 3 last year and the playing is phenoninal. He also has some super recordings also, have a look on Discogs and you will see some lovely recitals there. Jim.

@ei001h  My favourite in Schumann's Etudes Symphoniques is Mikhail Pletnev although not for everyone pianistically and musically  his interpretation  goes down to my very core and he seems to hit parts of me that few others do. Heard him in recital once at The Edinburgh Festival  and I was ecstatic. 

Yes Jeremy he has quite an arsenal of technical ability , let's hope he never takes up the baton as I'd hate to hear that technique dissipating as it did with Ashkenazy and now I notice in hia last concert Mikhail Pletnov has lost a good bit of flexibility in his playing. What I mean is he is relying on muscle memory  which happens when you don't ge enough time to practice on your instrument . I remember Menuhin in his later years when he was spending so much time guest conducting and with his roll in Unesco his playing was awfull through lack of practice.

Jeremy - Beatrice Rana , have a listen to her Liszt B Minor Sonata, it is utterly spelbinding from start to finish and I don't usually say that about pianists under thirty.I will have to give the Lyapunov's a listen to again, must be thirty years since I listened last.Nielsens Symphonies have been quite sporadic with me sometimes when the mood hits me I will give No 6 an airing as I like some of the jaunty tunes in it as well as that nice touch of vinegar.

Hi Jeremy I had a look at Rana on your link and it is not the same performance of the Liszt Sonata as I have one from The Wigmore Hall and recorded by the BBC which is maybe not recorded as per normal standards of the up to date quallity but is perfectly acceptable. I’m afraid I recorded it onto my PC and I listen from there so it is not availlable to the public as a CD or download file.

Rana couldn't have anyone any better than Argerich to look up to. I always remember a quip by Barenboim who was having lunch one day with Arthur Rubinstein when old Rubinstein brought up Martha Argerichs name when they were discussing pianists. Arthur said what a fabulous player she was but why did she always play so fast and Barenboim was quick to reply say ing "because she can!!" Barenboim heard a muffled whisper from Rubinstein "Touche".

I'm just listening to a very well recorded and executed Mahler - Symphony No 9 from Herbert Blomstedt and Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. I have to say I am enjoying it as it is not as frenetic as Solti and not as leaden as Klemperer . It is very well recorded except for a bit of squeezed dynamics which is perfectly understandable considering the massive dynamics of the work in the first place.

Schubert
Funny about Benedetti but she was educated in my hometown of Ayr and I have seen her many times in Ayr as well shopping with her mum. She went to a swanky private school for girls in the town and I am glad she won the BBC competition Young Player of The Year as that got her away from the stupid education system of this country and into a whole new area where art is first and foremost. A couple of years ago she helped The international composer now James McMillan with a festival that he organised in his hometown of Cumnock about 13 miles from our town. I went to one of their concerts and Miss Benedetti played the Chaconne of Bach and very well she did it. The other stuff in the program was definitly not to my taste, I cannot stand music that I cannot hear at least the gist of tonallity in it. I have often been chided about my tastes in music but I really have no interest is any music after Shostakovitch. I used to go to subscription concerts in Glasgow and they used to have the experimental music on first and after the piece was over there was a scramble of people rushing into the hall to get their place for the next piece on the program. I am glad I am an old retired gentleman now as I won't have to stomach that swill for too much longer.

Schubert

You are bang on about Julia Fischer she is by far the greatest violinist of ourtimes with musicality in every stroke of the bow. I can only name one more in her class and to me that is Maxim Vengerov who is every bit her equal technically but she I think has it in tone control . I have never heard he play a wrong note and her intonation is spot on ( I cannot say that for a lot of her superstar pals). 

Schubert
You should see Ayr today Len it is a very sad place . The unemployment rate is huge and there are hardly any shops open in the High St. The pavements of the place are begging points for Romanians and Roma gypsies. I had a laugh the other day when a known MUSLIM tried to sell me a pro Christian pamphlet which in itself is freely given out for nothing and when I told her to piss off she literally swore every swearword known in Arabic. So I don’t think I shall get into her version of heaven ( Lucky me )

Jeremy
I see where you are commig from but I shall not say any more on the Scottish Question as I don't want to get blamed for highjacking the thread so please all forgive me.On a completely different tone I see from twoleftears he has dusted off the Busoni. I have been fascinated by him for since I can remember, I love his Bach/Busoni transcriptions especially the Great Chaconne which is one of my all time favourite piano pieces. I am not too keen on a lot of his original material however I give his Fantasia Contrapuntistica an airing every now and then and I do like it a lot. If you want to explore more of his Bach outings I can recomend a disc by Nikolai Demidenko on the Hyperion label on which he does the ubiquitous BWV565 to great aplomb but he does many other great Fantasies and Fugues also and with hyper virtuousity to boot.

@gdnrbobI
I would hazard a guess that Il Duce is Mussolini and Maggie is that witch Margaret Thatcher, both equally obnoxious.

The world nowadays is full of talented pianists but it is what they do with the notes rather than the velocity of them that interest me. What do I think of Christina Ortiz well she is a very clean pianist but she certainly is no Martha Argerich.

If anyone likes the music of Alkan I would recomment a disc by Olli Musstonen on Decca playing Akans 's 25 Preludes and Shostakovich's 24 Preludes. I love that recording.

Jeremy I think you and I have a love of the same things pianistically , I have allways loved the 19th century hyper virtuoso composer pianists and Alkan being one I am especially fond of . If you have the interest of getting more Alkan look at the wonderful recordings of Marc-Andre Hamelin on Hyperion. the one I would espescially draw you to is Alkan's the Four Ages of man , Hamelin does a herculean task here of just getting through the welter of notes on offer. What he also does is offer it in a way that he makes it all cohesive which is also needed in my favourite pianist composer Franz Liszt. With Liszt his music demands a virtuoso with a transcendental technique so that he or she can then make musical sense of it . I am quite sure by now some of you are saying what sense IS there in his music as a lot of the players today are taking on things that are way above the technique they have available. Heven knows I have been to many concerts that I heartilly wished that the ground would open up and swallow them (some of them were big names)One of the greatest virtuosos I have ever witnessed live was Boris Beresovsky a great bear of a man who I witnesed playing Mussorgsky's Pictures and other Russian composers. It was a stinking night and I drove from Ayr to Edinburgh in rain so bad my wipers couldn't cope with . I eventually got to The Queen's Hall with literally minutes to spare and it was a particularly small audience that night and when Beresovsky walked on and saw the audience he couldn't hide his disappointment. He then pointed to his watch and said he would be back in 5 minutes. He went backstage and told the management to invite all the people upstairs to come below and fill the bottom half meaning it was much more cosy. The people did not know what they had let themselves in for it was literally the most exciting piano recital I have ever attended. He started off with some Lyadov then Glasunov and then some other composers I can't recall but he came back on in the second half with Pictures and I was in awe of how one person could get that amount of sound and nuaunce from a model D Steinway. Some of the young women in the audience were actually holding their ears during The Great Gate of Kiev. After three encores he came back onstage and treated us to the best Islamey I have ever heard the speed of it was unbelievable and not a splt note or mistake anywhere. Yes that was indeed a night to remember.

Jeremy - I have looked up the Laurent Martin recording of Alkan's Esquisses and find it to be a lovely recording both in the playing and in the recording ( thanks for th tip ). My friend at one time had Martin playing The Alkan 25 Preludes and I found it to be too slowly played for my liking and unfortunately that kind of made me shy away from anything Martin did but I have found a new interest in him again ( thank you Idagio ).I think I shall record some of his stuff onto my desktop this weekend. Have I ever mentioned to any of you how to get recordings for free ( after you have paid for the App though ) . This is an App called Sound Tap which you download onto your PC then open whichever streaming app you use and record what is playing through "for me it's Idagio" and once the stream is finished you have a facimile of the stream and I can't hear a difference between the stream and the recording. It also saves you downloding crappy Mp3 files from dodgy sites.

@rvpiano  Thanks for the two that you like RV I shall find them and have a listen although I have always found their interpretations of other things by them to be a like it or leave it for me. It's a real shame now to hear Pogorelich and his new recordings ( dire ) .

Jeremy,  Thank's for the links to Laurent Martin's website , I shall give it a good look over tomorrow. It looks very interesting and quite diverse .Thank's again, Jim.

I will also say a big +1 for earl wild , I have loads of his discs and spin them regularly.

Yes Len that sure is one super recording, I'm afraid Buxtehude can be sadly neglected over here in the UK. Everyone tends only to listen to his younger star and all others are ignored. I don't even hear Radio 3 pushing much organ music either. Our local town council have organised some splendid recitals in Ayr and surrounding areas with some really good soloists, I have been to quite a few and they tend to be about once a month.

I couldn't agree more @twoleftears that rooms and systems cannot handle full scale symphony orchestras in things like Mahler Symphonies and so forth. I now only do my listening on headphones because I became delusioned years ago with trying to chase that elusive magic system because it just doesn't exist. I also listen only to solo piano music and chamber music now with the odd piano concerto thrown in.  I used to go to loads of full classical concerts and the BBC were there to record them for later broadcast. Now I do think the BBC are wonderful at broadcasting classical music and for every concert and every broadcast later they were a poor representation and it wasn't the BBC to blame but again we can't expect hi fi equiptment to get it right in those circustances.

Len, get you on jean Redpath . Many years ago I attended a concert in Ayr Town Hall and the great and the good of all things Burns were there but it was Jean Redpath who stole the shoe. She sang my Love is like a Red Red Rose, not a dry eye in the house. Funnily enough the man who was most associated with that song Kenneth McKellar was also there but he couldn't sing it any more sice his wife passed.

@twoleftears     The biggest Mompou plug I could give is Arkady Volodos , Stunning!!!

@skim1124     I hope you realise that this being a thread on all things recorded classical music that none of the contributers here can agree on which CD's to buy in the first place. As an example say you wanted to get a Sibelius Symphony Cycle and you were only limited to one, do you go for a historical one with lesser quality of sound or one of the myriad ones with first class sound but maybe not the visceral excitement of the historical ones. I wish you well in your quest.

@skim1124    I'm sorry if I misunderstood you but I shall give you one to get on with , Liszt Complete Piano Music  101 discs by Lesley Howard. Although I have this collection I only dip into it if I read about someone playing something obscure of Liszt's. Again apologies.

Len  a wee bit ago you were talking of Previn well can I recommend another disc of Previn's it's Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet , an absoloute belter I couldn't recommend it enough.

Your Granny couldn't have been more right Len. I have been on Idagio 
and have found it there and have to say it is just as good as I remember and it is the whole shebang and not just a conductors mix. The sound quality is stunning and quite up to todays if you don't mind some tape hiss.

Freeeedom !!!!!     All the best Jim.

@phomchick     I meant to reply to you on your last post b I'm afraid I got distracted . I too may years ago used to listen to a nearfield configuration wit a pair of Rogers LS3/5a with a hugh Rel sub. I used to get some awesome sound from it with the Rogers producing much more volume than the Quad 57 Electrostats I had downstairs ( Mahler's Second symphony was awesome from that setup). What made me comment was I have just seen an advert for a pair of original Roger's for the eye watering price of £6,500 . Now I'm one for nostalgia but those speakers in the day were just short of £5oo.oo so if someone buy's those they have more money than sense.

Hi Len , No I'm afraid I didn't have any university schooling but as we called it the university of hard knocks. all my training in Photography and computing was at adult uni courses which I did while in a job which by the wayI hated. I was apprenticed to be a gardener from a pal of my fathers and in those days you just did as you were told and kept your mouth shut. Happily when I got married and into a place of my own I studied Photography and much later I studied and gained a degree in computer repair . I was glad I did those studies as I could then give my father a two fingered salute as none of my family gained a degree in anything except me. The Uni I gained the degree from was Stow College which is in the middle of Glasgow. I can though boast that my daughter did much better than me as she gained a Masters with Honours in politics at St. Andrews University.

Well Len I'm sure The University of Wisconsin was glad to have you as you too seem a very intelligent and worldly chap. Just earlier tonight I was copying some Scottish stuff for my daughter to put on her little personal MP3 player and one of the things was The Corries Strings and Things. This is a very iconic set of recordings and it is showing it's age now but the songs still stir the heart. Two of my favourites from it are Garten Mother's Lulaby and Jock O' Hazeldean and I have never heard those songs bettered by anyone. My wife and I used to go to the Ayr Town Hall every December to see The Corries and we just loved them. The collection of instruments the two of them had was mind blowing and they didn't just doole with them they really could play them and Roy Williamson actually built a lot of them. It was a really sad day for folk music when Williamson died of a brain tumor. Ronnie Brown the other member of the duo just couldn't sing after that which was sad as he had a lovelly tenor voice.

Jeremy,   I am just now getting a chance to listen to the recording of the sixteen year old doing the Paganinni Rhapsody. After a shaky start she has settled down and is really playing the piece for all she's worth. I have to say it is one of my favourite pieces for piano and orchestra and people I have seen live playing it reads like a "who's who" . Vying for top place were an electrifying Ashkenazy, A very skilled Pletnev and in the slightly lower ranks, Osborne,Hough,Lill and Beresovsky.

Yes Len please do check out the Corries  as you being an adopted Scot they should stir your heart strings . Roy Williamson from the duo actually wrote Flower of Scotland which has become our now adopted national anthem overtaking Scot W'a Hae written by Burns. Still can't sing them without floods of tears. Did you know that your Declaration of Independence was actually written with our Declaration of Arbroath in mind which was set out by Robert the Bruce in 1320 and I have seen the only copy now in existance in The Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh who put it on display for a couple of days in 2014 to celebrate the 700th anniversary of The Battle of Bannockburn which gave us freedom from Englsh tyrrany.Now onto something completely different and this time music as I am really sorry to be taking over the discussion . Has anyone heard the new recording of Beethoven's Septet in E flat Major Op.20 by The OSM Chamber Soloists. It is seriously good and Len and RV it is on the Idagio site with superb sound quallity, just watch the volume as like all rcordings that have French Horns and bassoons in them they do have to be rained in. You guys have a happy and music filled weekend, Jim.

Another recording to suggest to you is a Scriabin disc by Yevgeny Sudbin on the Bis label. It has some of his early stuff and some when he was experimenting with tonallity but thank goodness not atonallty. It also has my all time fovourite Scriabin piece the Sonata Fantasie No2 in G sharp minor Op.19. It has a very dreamy haunting first movement and then all hell breaks loose in the final movement. Have to say that of the new Russian influences pianists I think in my mind anyway he is the best of the lot but with the exception of Volodos . He certainly has a wonderful way with Scriabin and certainly I think better than Hamelin.

RV   i am glad you enjoyed my recommendations as I have been listening to them a lot especially the Scriabin . You are so right with your observation of Chopin and Rachmaninov because I think his earlier pieces are every bit as good as Chopin's, epecially the Mazurkas that he composed. Did you know that Scriabin was in the same classes as Rachmaninov and Joseph Lhevinne, in fact he nearly ruined his hands for good because he was trying to become as good as Lhevinne especially in octave playing. Lhevinne and Rachmaninov had huge hands and Scriabin had very small hands and he damaged them very seriously but eventually got them to work properly again.Len   You are saying about laptops yes you can get really good sound especially from Apples so if you don't want to go the bespoke way get an i Pad and I think you could be very happy with it. A few years ago I did go the bespoke way and built myself a really high quallity but admittedly very expensive one with hand made Linear power supplies Femto USB and Network cards and loads of other things designed just to get the best quallity from a computer. This machine is so good that I have ripped all my CDs to Solid State Hard Drives . After I did that and listened to it for a few weeks from my ripped CDs I then sold my CD player which was a Gryphon Mikado Signature because the difference was so profound, it is so good and dare I say sounds very analogue with no digital nasties.
The Mikado now resides in a house in South Korea with a very nice wee man. If there is any chance that you could even beg a loan of someones Pad then please do so before you fully commit but I am sure you would get sustantially better sound than now because if I am anyone to go by all I can say is Idagio can sound stunning on my set up. Good luck my friend.

Len.       Have you ever considered a dedicated Headphone amplifier as they can usually take just about any impedence you care to throw at them. I think they would also allow much more quallity of sound as well. I have a Sennheiser HDVD800 head amp driving a pair of Sennheiser HD800 Phones which are high impedence at 300 Ohms and they are a breeze with the dedicated amp. In fact the head amp is so bomb proof that many times a friend of mine and I have had nights over at my place and he has connected his Hi Fi Man phones to the amp also and we have sat for hours listening to lots of music in fact a couple of times my wife joined us and we had three pairs of phones though the Headamp and it didn't even get warm.

Len    You have me going with your Janacek recommendations I used to have Andras Schiff doing On an Overgrown Path and loved it but I lost it years ago. I used to do foolish things like loan records and CDs to people and never get them back because I forgot who I loaned them to in the first place. You have though put me in the mood to listen to a bit of Janacek now and I shall go onto Idagio tomorrow and have a hunt. Speaking of Sir Charles MacKerras have you ever listened to the Beethoven cycle of symphonies he did with The Scottish Chamber Orchestra. I went to the cycle he did up in The Usher Hall just before he committed them to disc. I went up every weekend for about five weeks to listen to them. There is something very right about Beethoven with smaller forces , for a fact he was used to listening to whatever they could cobble together. I always say that the best Eroica I ever heard was from MacKerras and the SCO in fact I do have a recording of him doing the Symphony for I think Linn records , do check it out it is worth a listen.

RV and Len,      I am so sorry you don't like Liszt but I bow to your judgement on that. I on the other hand do like him very much, not so much his barn stormng works but his more introspective works. As Alfred Brendel once said if you don't like Liszt then blame the pianist who is trying to play him, words I totally agree with. Some pianists just don't attempt him and I say there are a lot who just shouldn't. Even the great Richter would only play a few of his transcendental etudes. Enough said I think.

Yes Len we are now ruled by two buffoons , heaven help us.

Len    Going back and reading previous posts I had a good laugh about Saint-Saens maybe writing the Liszt Sonata , that was a scream. Did you know that the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony was dedicated as follows" To the memory of a great man Franz Liszt ". When asked who he thought was the greatest sight reader he had ever came across Liszt thought for a moment and said " well if you discount me it would have to be Hans von Bulow and then Camile Saint-Saens ". Very humble man wasn't he ?Another thing about Saint Saens was he was in company with von Bulow and Wagner and he had gotten tired of the other two speaking in German all night so he went over to the piano and looked at what was sitting on it. He opened a score and it happened to be Wagner's latest opera possibly Parsifal and he started playing it through from full score and at this time no one had heard Wagners latest work. The room went quiet and Saint-Saens carried on playing and at the end of the first act there was a howl of surprise and Liszt who had heard it from the adjoining room thought it was Bulow who was every bit as precocious and Liszt was flabbergasted to see it was Saint-Saens. Liszt worked tirelessly for young pianists and composers.

Jeremy, I see where you are coming from here and I know tales can get messed up in the telling. My source is Prof. Alan Walker the official biographer of Liszt who has written three huge volumes on Liszt and his circle .It is probably in volume 2 or 3 and they are huge and I have read them twice and also use them for reference. He writes about all the young pianists and profesional people who came to visit him.

Len    you are spot on about Cosima she was a nasty piece of work, she even left her father on his death bed to go to her beloved Beyreuth and lord it over another of her beloved Richard's diatribes. She even stopped any of his pupils from coming in to tend to him and make his passing a little easier. No out of the three children he had she was definitely the worst and sad thing is she outlived Wagner by nearly forty years.

Len    after your eloquent speech on 
my hero J S Bach all I can say is "Amen".
I too have the Gardiner book and although not always an easy read it is always an uplifting one. Bach is in good hands.

Len ,    Oh how I wish I could travel because Leipzig and Berlin would be top of my list of places to visit. Did you know that the people who were at one time garnering information on Liszt could never ever find the grave of Liszt's son Daniel until low and behold when they were knocking down the Berlin wall that they found Daniel's grave under the wall. Apparently the wall had gone right through the middle of the churchyard. Bloody Russians have no shame. I would love though to go to the Berlin Philharmonie Hall and listen to a full concert, I think then I would be a very happy man indeed. Funnily enough Len my day always starts with some Bach, I am at the moment listening to his keyboard partitas at the moment with Schiff and next week it will be the violin Partitas and Sonatas with one at the start of each morning. I am not ashamed to say that my favourite keyboard piece is the Goldberg Variations , required listening for cleansing the soul. Len I hope you have a wonderful time.

@Phomchick      That is a superb recording and may I make a few suggestions, go for anything on the BIs Label these are seriously good recordings and I especially like Yevgeny Sudbin these days. To ease you in I would Suggest his Scarlatti Sonatas they are staggeringly good from a technical point of view in fact I don't think I have heard them bettered. After the Scarlatti I would then recommend his duo of Mozart and Beethoven's C Minor Piano Concertos they are outstanding and then to top it all go for his Rachmaninov Piano Concertos they are definitely hard to beat.
Len,   The reason I can't travel is the doc won't let me so I just sit and moan when my wife and daughter go on holiday together.If you believe that you'll believe anything, no I revel in having the house to myself for a time. I can then sit and listen to my headphones to any time in the AM that I choose. I even sometimes sit and listen to Jacobite war songs with the help of Some Cardhu Golden nectar. Happy Days.