Classical Music for Aficionados

jcazador (and others of like mind) Your comment to me on 10/6 "...peaceful, my kind of music" caused me to think of you when I finished listening to my most recent acquisition. This is a recording by Lara Downes on Steinway & Sons titled "For Love of You. Clara and Robert Schuman". I bought this because I like her music and I follow her as other recordings of that label. I had no great expectations, in fact I had a major reservation - I had burned out long ago of that highly regarded war horse,  his Piano Concerto. 

Short version - I was drawn in and swept away by the program, her performance and the recording quality. The piano concerto is the most gentle version one can imagine and reflects the spirit of the program. This is, really, a program which engages and relaxes simultaneously. I cannot endorse it more highly to you.

Enjoy if you can.

Speaking of  the Schumann Concerto, here is the 11 year old Martha Argerich playing it in a decidedly UNgentle manner that someone just sent me.
Miraculous for an 11 year old.

Sound quality is very primitive.


https://slippedisc.com/2019/10/unbelievable-martha-argerich-aged-11-plays-schumann-concerto/

Thanks Newbee, will try to find that recording.
Just read a wonderful piece about Bach!
"I’ve talked to people who feel they know Bach very well, but they aren’t aware of the time he was imprisoned for a month. They never learned about Bach pulling a knife on a fellow musician during a street fight. They never heard about his drinking exploits—on one two-week trip he billed the church eighteen gorchsen for beer, enough to purchase eight gallons of it at retail prices—or that his contract with the Duke of Saxony included a provision for tax-free beer from the castle brewery; or that he was accused of consorting with an unknown, unmarried woman in the organ loft; or had a reputation for ignoring assigned duties without explanation or apology. They don’t know about Bach’s sex life: at best a matter of speculation, but what should we conclude from his twenty known children, more than any significant composer in history (a procreative career that has led some to joke with a knowing wink that “Bach’s organ had no stops”), or his second marriage to twenty-year-old singer Anna Magdalena Wilcke, when he was in his late thirties? They don’t know about the constant disciplinary problems Bach caused, or his insolence to students, or the many other ways he found to flout authority. This is the Bach branded as “incorrigible” by the councilors in Leipzig, who grimly documented offense after offense committed by their stubborn and irascible employee."
more here:
 https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/js-bach-rebel

Laura Downes here, but you have to get thru the introduction
Pianist Lara Downes Plays Clara Schumann and More!
Live from the WRTI 90.1 Performance Studio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJfa5OBOff8

love her big gold boots!
she's got her hand inside the piano on the piece by
Jennifer Higdon: Notes of Gratitude