Classical Music for Aficionados

A great Bartok Concerto for viola that you are unlike to hear live in US .

https://youtu.be/yfpCCJqu4Ts?t=2

Mr. Jarrett, 75, broke the silence, plainly stating what happened to him: a stroke in late February 2018, followed by another one that May. It is unlikely he will ever perform in public again.

“I was paralyzed,” he told The New York Times, speaking by phone from his home in northwest New Jersey. “My left side is still partially paralyzed. I’m able to try to walk with a cane, but it took a long time for that, took a year or more. And I’m not getting around this house at all, really.”

When he tried to play some familiar bebop tunes in his home studio recently, he discovered he had forgotten them.

“I don’t know what my future is supposed to be,” he added. “I don’t feel right now like I’m a pianist. That’s all I can say about that.”

“But when I hear two-handed piano music, it’s very frustrating, in a physical way. If I even hear Schubert, or something played softly, that’s enough for me. Because I know that I couldn’t do that. And I’m not expected to recover that. The most I’m expected to recover in my left hand is possibly the ability to hold a cup in it. So it’s not a ‘shoot the piano player’ thing. It’s: I already got shot. Ah-ha-ha-ha.”

“I can only play with my right hand, and it’s not convincing me anymore,” Mr. Jarrett said. “I even have dreams where I am as messed up as I really am — so I’ve found myself trying to play in my dreams, but it’s just like real life.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/arts/music/keith-jarrett-piano.html

I have just finished listening to Barenboim playing the Diabelli Variations and must say I have on the whole enjoyed it. How he can keep this kind of work at his age and especially live at that is incredible. After a shaky start he then bowls headlong into them and on the whole I think it is a great achievement. If I had to pick anyone who he resembles playing them it has to be a lot of Arrau and a little of Kovacevitch. Not that he copies them though but more resembles, in his youth he revered Arrau and and Arrau liked him and his playing . His interpretation is quite slowish but not drastically so, he just lets the music breathe so to speak .
In the faster variations he dives straight in and takes no prisoners and the great thing about late Beethoven is that the music doesn't sound too clean as per Beethoven's instructions to Schindler. Arrau was a great proponent of the musical slurs in Beethoven's late works which he also suggested to his pupils and I'm quite sure Barenboim also as his playing does resemble Arrau a lot.
Anyway if you give it a spin so to speak it is on Qobus at the moment and I'm quite sure the others will have it also . The recorded quality is superb also so that should be a bonus.

Jim,

Yes, I listened to that performance a while ago and was similarly impressed.
At his age, like his compatriot, Martha Argerich, he seems to have lost nothing in technique.  What a musical genius!  He conducts even the most complicated scores from memory.
What is there in the water in Argentina?