# Anyone heard this guy before?



## Guest

Whoa...how much more intensely could Horowitz himself played this?


----------



## Pugg

Never heard from the man before


----------



## Guest

Pugg said:


> Never heard from the man before


Me either, but I like what I hear. I might order this CD set:



















One Amazon customer gave it a terrible review, but _Fanfare_ magazine loved it.


----------



## Pugg

Kontrapunctus said:


> Me either, but I like what I hear. I might order this CD set:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> One Amazon customer gave it a terrible review, but _Fanfare_ magazine loved it.


Beauty / Taste is always in the eye of the beholder.


----------



## Guest

If he's polarizing people that much, then he's doing something right! Here is Fanfare's review:

_Certain performers are so extreme that their individuality breaks the bonds of convention, thumbs its nose at good taste, and turns into-what? A pianist like Ivo Pogorelich was dismissed by the jurors of the 1980 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, except for Martha Argerich, who proclaimed him a genius and resigned from the jury in protest. The same divisiveness crops up around the émigré Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov, hailed for his esoteric greatness, but whose profundities sound hollow and self-indulgent to me. I'm sorry to use the clichéd term "self-indulgent," because I'm all for self-expression. There's a fine line that each listener must draw between originality and excess.
The young Russian-born pianist Vazgen Vartanian, of Armenian extraction, has one of these ungovernable temperaments that polarize opinions. He's spotlighted here in a deluxe 3-CD release from Melodiya, now celebrating its 50th anniversary. Vartanian is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory who went on to earn a Master's degree at Juilliard (this seems to be the standard track now for a number of emergent Russian virtuosos). It would be hard to imagine a stronger vote of confidence in a soloist. The three composers at hand, Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt, practically define the Russian piano school, and it's inconceivable to list the great recordings of their music without invoking Horowitz, Richter, Gilels, and Grigory Ginzburg. Melodiya is sending us a message.
CD 1 is devoted to Chopin's ballades and scherzos, but no one should judge Vartanian by the opening minute of Ballade No. 1. So recklessly does he launch into the piece that he sounds nearly unhinged, with no guarantee that he will stay on the rails if he rights himself. But as with Pogorelich in his short-lived prime, Vartanian's extremism gathers into a style, and that style is passionate, imaginative, and spontaneous. Chopin himself was a gentle performer, with a poetic sensibility that moved a roomful of 20 listeners, not 2,000. Vartanian, like most Russian powerhouses, plays to Row Z in the balcony, yet at the same time he expresses very personal ideas. To appreciate his style is a bit like watching a double-jointed gymnast: There's incredible flexibility, but some poses look a little freakish. Grandness is applied to every ballade and scherzo, the only respite being Ballade No. 4, a touchstone for refinement in Chopin playing. Vartanian has the sensibility to scale down his tone and emotional amplitude, achieving real tenderness. In loud, dramatic passages, however, he can sound like a rebel without a metronome.
CD 2 belongs to Schumann, and I felt the presence of Richter hovering over the keyboard. Vartanian's attack, like Richter's, often borders on aggression. With Richter you looked for the inspiration and forgave the moments when he tore the score to shreds. Among an array of short character pieces on the program, the centerpiece is the Symphonic Études, where modeling yourself on Richter isn't a bad idea. You won't ever be accused of academic correctness. Beethoven's Diabelli Variations aren't far from sight in Vartanian's gripping account, which bears little resemblance to the cultivated polish of Emanuel Ax and Murray Perahia (both admired in this work). There can't be many other modern accounts of the Symphonic Études that galvanize one's attention from moment to moment the way Vartanian does. Even so, the over-the-top moments, which are numerous, raise some doubts. A tolerance for banging is also required.
CD 3 brings a varied Liszt program. The focus is on popular items from Années de pelerinage, including "Vallée d'Obermann," "Petrarch Sonnet No. 104," and the "Dante Sonata." Keyboard thrills culminate in what many consider Liszt's best operatic paraphrase, Réminiscences de Don Juan. Unloosing a volatile temperament like Vartanian's upon this kind of high-voltage display requires an ambulance on standby, but he eases in with the grave beauty of "Vallee d'Orbermann," a hard piece to get right without droopiness or affectation. At just under 15 minutes, this version isn't funereal, and Vartanian certainly seems less idiosyncratic in soft music, where his touch and phrasing are shown off at their best. By this point I'd come to appreciate that he can bang and pounce while still delivering a musical interpretation. There's radical barnstorming in the "Don Juan" paraphrase-by comparison Lang Lang is making cucumber sandwiches-and the terrifying vulgarity of the "Dante Sonata" is incendiary.
These are live recordings taken from three recitals given in Moscow in 2010 and 2011. Memories of crude-sounding LPs from the Melodiya of yesteryear are irrelevant: The piano is well recorded in full, realistic sound. Notes are sketchy, weaving praise for the pianist with passing comments about the pieces. Brief applause is included, mostly restricted to the end of a CD, and the audience is admirably cough-free. Who can say where Vartanian will wind up on the international scene? There's fierce competition among young virtuosos today, who seem to emerge from the cradle with steel fingers. His technique isn't quite as ear-catching as Yuja Wang's, for example, and yet audiences may respond enthusiastically to a new Pogorelich. I hope Vartanian continues to soar. He's an original, and make no mistake_.


----------



## Pugg

Kontrapunctus said:


> If he's polarizing people that much, then he's doing something right! Here is Fanfare's review:
> 
> _Certain performers are so extreme that their individuality breaks the bonds of convention, thumbs its nose at good taste, and turns into-what? A pianist like Ivo Pogorelich was dismissed by the jurors of the 1980 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, except for Martha Argerich, who proclaimed him a genius and resigned from the jury in protest. The same divisiveness crops up around the émigré Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov, hailed for his esoteric greatness, but whose profundities sound hollow and self-indulgent to me. I'm sorry to use the clichéd term "self-indulgent," because I'm all for self-expression. There's a fine line that each listener must draw between originality and excess.
> The young Russian-born pianist Vazgen Vartanian, of Armenian extraction, has one of these ungovernable temperaments that polarize opinions. He's spotlighted here in a deluxe 3-CD release from Melodiya, now celebrating its 50th anniversary. Vartanian is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory who went on to earn a Master's degree at Juilliard (this seems to be the standard track now for a number of emergent Russian virtuosos). It would be hard to imagine a stronger vote of confidence in a soloist. The three composers at hand, Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt, practically define the Russian piano school, and it's inconceivable to list the great recordings of their music without invoking Horowitz, Richter, Gilels, and Grigory Ginzburg. Melodiya is sending us a message.
> CD 1 is devoted to Chopin's ballades and scherzos, but no one should judge Vartanian by the opening minute of Ballade No. 1. So recklessly does he launch into the piece that he sounds nearly unhinged, with no guarantee that he will stay on the rails if he rights himself. But as with Pogorelich in his short-lived prime, Vartanian's extremism gathers into a style, and that style is passionate, imaginative, and spontaneous. Chopin himself was a gentle performer, with a poetic sensibility that moved a roomful of 20 listeners, not 2,000. Vartanian, like most Russian powerhouses, plays to Row Z in the balcony, yet at the same time he expresses very personal ideas. To appreciate his style is a bit like watching a double-jointed gymnast: There's incredible flexibility, but some poses look a little freakish. Grandness is applied to every ballade and scherzo, the only respite being Ballade No. 4, a touchstone for refinement in Chopin playing. Vartanian has the sensibility to scale down his tone and emotional amplitude, achieving real tenderness. In loud, dramatic passages, however, he can sound like a rebel without a metronome.
> CD 2 belongs to Schumann, and I felt the presence of Richter hovering over the keyboard. Vartanian's attack, like Richter's, often borders on aggression. With Richter you looked for the inspiration and forgave the moments when he tore the score to shreds. Among an array of short character pieces on the program, the centerpiece is the Symphonic Études, where modeling yourself on Richter isn't a bad idea. You won't ever be accused of academic correctness. Beethoven's Diabelli Variations aren't far from sight in Vartanian's gripping account, which bears little resemblance to the cultivated polish of Emanuel Ax and Murray Perahia (both admired in this work). There can't be many other modern accounts of the Symphonic Études that galvanize one's attention from moment to moment the way Vartanian does. Even so, the over-the-top moments, which are numerous, raise some doubts. A tolerance for banging is also required.
> CD 3 brings a varied Liszt program. The focus is on popular items from Années de pelerinage, including "Vallée d'Obermann," "Petrarch Sonnet No. 104," and the "Dante Sonata." Keyboard thrills culminate in what many consider Liszt's best operatic paraphrase, Réminiscences de Don Juan. Unloosing a volatile temperament like Vartanian's upon this kind of high-voltage display requires an ambulance on standby, but he eases in with the grave beauty of "Vallee d'Orbermann," a hard piece to get right without droopiness or affectation. At just under 15 minutes, this version isn't funereal, and Vartanian certainly seems less idiosyncratic in soft music, where his touch and phrasing are shown off at their best. By this point I'd come to appreciate that he can bang and pounce while still delivering a musical interpretation. There's radical barnstorming in the "Don Juan" paraphrase-by comparison Lang Lang is making cucumber sandwiches-and the terrifying vulgarity of the "Dante Sonata" is incendiary.
> These are live recordings taken from three recitals given in Moscow in 2010 and 2011. Memories of crude-sounding LPs from the Melodiya of yesteryear are irrelevant: The piano is well recorded in full, realistic sound. Notes are sketchy, weaving praise for the pianist with passing comments about the pieces. Brief applause is included, mostly restricted to the end of a CD, and the audience is admirably cough-free. Who can say where Vartanian will wind up on the international scene? There's fierce competition among young virtuosos today, who seem to emerge from the cradle with steel fingers. His technique isn't quite as ear-catching as Yuja Wang's, for example, and yet audiences may respond enthusiastically to a new Pogorelich. I hope Vartanian continues to soar. He's an original, and make no mistake_.


It's very quiet around this guy , wondered what happened.


----------

