Mindaugas Piečaitis has performed his "CATcerto," an original score written to accompany Nora The Piano Cat's piano improvisation. Here's the video of kitty with orchestra. [more inside]
posted by jbickers on Jul 25, 2009 - 20 comments

The Hatto Hoax. Joyce Hatto has been described as "the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of." Her performances of piano works by Liszt, Schubert, and Rachmaninov were praised by classical afficionados for their "addictively beautiful sonority, cultured musicianship, and total instrumental mastery." Since she died in June 2006, however, Hatto has been at the center of one of the stranger scandals to hit classical music in years. It's starting to look like some or all of her treasured, hard-to-find recordings made since 1990 are not her playing at all. [Via]
posted by gottabefunky on Feb 16, 2007 - 52 comments

Andras Schiff's lecture-recitals on Beethoven's piano sonatas
posted by Gyan on Nov 1, 2006 - 16 comments

"The sound was not of this world, it hovered in space like some celestial blessing".
He could play the piano ”before he had learned to smile”, his mother said, and he gave his first concert at the age of six. He studied under Alfred Cortot, Charles Munch, Paul Dukas, and Nadia Boulanger. He was an esteemed teacher and critic at 19, an international phenomenon at 24. He escaped from his native Rumania to Switzerland in 1943 with his fiancée, a joint capital of five Swiss francs in their pockets. After the war, just as he had arrived in the pantheon of great performing artists, Dinu Lipatti was diagnosed with leukemia. In September 1950, near death, despite the urgings of his doctors Lipatti insisted upon one last recital at Besançon. As his wife recalled, this was the only way Lipatti could bear to take his leave of the world. Lipatti was so weak he could barely walk to the piano. But once he began playing, he became transformed. After performing 13 waltzes, he could no longer muster the strength necessary to perform the final selection. So he substituted Myra Hess's piano arrangement of Bach's 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring".(page with sound). Three months later, Lipatti died at the age of 33. After Lipatti's funeral, his old mentor Cortot wrote: "There was nothing to teach you. One could, in fact, only learn from you."
posted by matteo on May 20, 2006 - 15 comments

An interactive Shockwave-based look at Bach's Well-tempered Clavier. Go one level up and explore the entire coverage of Bach.
posted by Gyan on Apr 10, 2006 - 14 comments