# Idil Biret



## flamencosketches

Couldn't find a thread on her. She is a masterful virtuoso, why do we not speak so much about her?





















Glad I discovered her music. She is an excellent living pianist.

Any fans?


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## Roger Knox

flamencosketches said:


> Couldn't find a thread on her. She is a masterful virtuoso, why do we not speak so much about her? Glad I discovered her music. She is an excellent living pianist. Any fans?


Idil Biret was a prodigy with uncanny powers who studied with Nadia Boulanger among others, was promoted by the Turkish government, and is supported by private funding for her numerous recordings. She can handle many complex works well, as in the recordings of Boulez, the Beethoven/Liszt, or the 20th century collection above.

But in my opinion her interpretive powers are not so good in the 19th-century repertoire, as I found hearing her Chopin and a disc of Scriabin Etudes released a few years ago -- in addition if one listened closely there are are at this stage technical problems as in Scriabin's famous Etude op. 8, no. 12 in D# Minor. The competition in solo piano recordings is enormous and for much 19th-century music one can make better choices.


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## flamencosketches

I can easily see you being right about Scriabin. Very few pianists, even among the greatest in the world, can get Scriabin right. I won't even bother checking hers out. As for her Chopin, I enjoy some and some not so much. She certainly plays it quite differently than most. I remember liking her Mazurkas a lot, and actually just bought a CD of them for $1 on Amazon. Looking forward to listening to that.


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## millionrainbows

I first became aware of Idil Biret back in the days of vinyl, on the Finnadar label, a subsidiary of Atlantic. I did not know her larger catalogue existed until it was reissued on CD. This was very good news to me. There is so much stuff to get that I haven't gotten any of her Beethoven or others. I'm going to check out her Chopin now.


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## chill782002

I'm quite taken with her solo piano rendition of Stravinsky's "Firebird" on Naxos.


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## Mandryka

Her Chopin is dreadful, with one exception, which I really love for a sort of authentic meat and potatoes feeling -- the mazurkas.


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## flamencosketches

She recorded more Brahms than I knew existed. She apparently transcribed two of Brahms' symphonies for piano herself. I will have to explore her Brahms more thoroughly, because there are depressingly few pianists I enjoy in Brahms (Glenn Gould, Wilhelm Kempff, Evgeny Kissin, and that's about it.)


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## Mandryka

I didn't get on with her Brahms.

I thought that Biret did a better job of the Beethoven/Liszt transcriptions than I've heard from anyone else. That and the Chopin mazurkas and some Webern and Boulez, that's about all I remember about her.

Biret says that her mazurkas were influenced by Cortot's recording, which, unless I'm getting confused, have now been released. Has anyone heard them? Are they similar to Biret's?


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## flamencosketches

No but that's interesting to note. I haven't heard terribly much from Alfred Cortot's Chopin other than his Preludes, Impromptus and a few other things, and Idil Biret's Chopin is nothing like any of it. 

Amazingly, Ms. Biret studied with Nadia Boulanger, Wilhelm Kempff, and Cortot himself. Her playing style is markedly different from another Cortot pupil I'm a fan of, Samson François, and even more different from a Kempff pupil I'm a fan of, Mitsuko Uchida. Makes me wonder where she gets it from. I guess her teachers taught individualism.


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## mbhaub

Roger Knox said:


> But in my opinion her interpretive powers are not so good in the 19th-century repertoire...


That's my feeling, too. I'm am avid collector of music by Louis Moreau Gottschalk - her recording on Naxos is really awful. She doesn't understand the style, obviously didn't study or practice much, and had no affinity for the music. Eugene List, Leonard Pennario and especially Philip Martin leave her in the dust.


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## Mandryka

I repeat, I think there's something special about her Chopin Mazurkas, not nuance or poetry, she can never do that, but a sense of authentic commitment communicated.


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## flamencosketches

Mandryka said:


> I repeat, I think there's something special about her Chopin Mazurkas, not nuance or poetry, she can never do that, but a sense of authentic commitment communicated.


Yep she's good with these. I got a CD of her playing the Mazurkas on Naxos and have been listening to it like crazy. I see what you mean about no nuance or poetry, she is kind of blunt with them. But she plays the hell out of them! I also like her CD of the Waltzes which I got with a book of the complete Chopin waltzes, but she's better with the Mazurkas.


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## Mandryka

But there’s other c19 music she’s got things to say in - I don’t believe anyone has made the Beethoven/Liszt symphonies more interesting to hear. Indeed her Beethoven sonatas are perfectly listenable. You may like her Chopin preludes too. 

All these things are challenging - her Chopin nocturnes are especially challenging. She’s got ideas.


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## flamencosketches

She certainly has a fascinating and unique style, combined with impeccable skill. Unlike any other pianist I've heard, and I think it's on account of her personal background. I know you mentioned not much caring for her Brahms, but she brings something different to the table with his music too. She is clearly passionately interested in the music. As I may have mentioned, she has transcribed multiple Brahms symphonies for solo piano as well as several of his songs. I believe she has recorded perhaps the most extensive traversal of Brahms' piano music on record (correct me if I'm wrong!)

As for Beethoven, I will definitely get her set of the Beethoven-Liszt transcriptions at some point, maybe not the sonatas. I'm picky with those. 

Some of her music I still can't make heads or tails of. I don't really like her Three Scenes from Petrouchka much, and I love that work.


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## Mandryka

The thing about the Beethoven /Liszt is that she takes them slowly, letting the musical gestures have their impact. Everyone else I’ve heard just plays them for fireworks and effects.


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## millionrainbows

That sounds like the reaction I get to Claudio Arrau; a sense of virtuoso power held in reserve.


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## flamencosketches

I'm beginning to share with some other posters in this thread a frustration with Ms. Biret and her playing. Sometimes she'll play a piece and it will be miraculous, and then the next track on the disc will be another piece and the tempi are all wrong, or the expression, or she just otherwise misses the mark. I have a CD of her playing Ravel and Stravinsky, for example, and I like the Gaspard de la Nuit (slowest/longest Gaspard in my library, but no matter, it's quite good) but then her 3 Scenes from Petrouchka is just bad. Probably the worst performance I've ever heard of that work.

This is further reason to treasure the Berg/Webern/Boulez disc I may have mentioned: each piece is just as good as the others.


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## Mandryka

flamencosketches said:


> I'm beginning to share with some other posters in this thread a frustration with Ms. Biret and her playing. Sometimes she'll play a piece and it will be miraculous, and then the next track on the disc will be another piece and the tempi are all wrong, or the expression, or she just otherwise misses the mark. I have a CD of her playing Ravel and Stravinsky, for example, and I like the Gaspard de la Nuit (slowest/longest Gaspard in my library, but no matter, it's quite good) but then her 3 Scenes from Petrouchka is just bad. Probably the worst performance I've ever heard of that work.
> 
> This is further reason to treasure the Berg/Webern/Boulez disc I may have mentioned: each piece is just as good as the others.


The problem -- and I don't have a satisfactory answer -- is, what do you now do if you are a critical and curious and imaginative listener? You can just dismiss these things as "performances I don't like" or even "failures", or even "bad" But I can assure you that Biret is familiar with standard approaches to this core repertoire so we can be pretty sure that she had reasons for doing what she did. What I mean is, she knew what she was doing, it was all part of her creative vision of the music.

So maybe a more interesting, and more modest, approach to these pieces is, instead of dismissing them, to try to reconstruct the vision which underlies them.

Obviously to do that you have to be pretty interested in the music, a connoisseur. I'm not so interested in Stravinsky myself.


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## millionrainbows

I've always seen Biret as a champion of modernism, and that's where I have concentrated.

Why do we not speak of her more? For that very reason, as evidenced by Roger Knox and mbhaub's assessments, with Mandryka on the fence.

There are plenty of great Chopin interpreters, plenty of Brahms. 
If you like Biret's playing, buy the recordings; if not, then don't. 

I, for one, never saw her as "one of the great virtuosos of the 20th century," or expected her to be included in the "Great Pianists" series...I always appreciated her for what she gave me, which back in the vinyl days, was Berg and Boulez; and also for what she stood for, nothing more.

I mean, I have a totally different perspective on things, compared to Knox or mbhaub. I sought out Ilhan Mimaroglu's recordings, which were more important to me than 'who did the best Chopin.'


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## Mandryka

Here's what Idl Biret says in her notes to the Ligeti Etudes, it seems to me to be very revealing of her approach, in the Ligeti, in the Stravinsky which flamencosketches didn't appreciate, and in the Beethoven/Liszt which I like very much



> György Ligeti has given very precise timing indications for all the Etudes, together with the musical markings. For example, the timing indication for Etude XII is 2.56 minutes and Etude XIVa is 1.41 minutes. After consideration, I have decided to follow the musical markings rather than the strict timing indications of these works.
> 
> Composers' metronomic marks and timing indications have always been problematic for interpreters. Composers hear inwardly the work they are creating, sometimes setting very fast tempos which are not always tested on the instrument. The performer who wants to deliver all the nuances, all the accents and play the work as close as possible to the composer's requirements often faces the dilemma of whether to play according to the work's musical markings or follow the timing indications. The latter choice may result in omitting some important musical signs, which become practically impossible to render at high speed. My preference, where necessary, has been for the musical markings. Ligeti himself seems to point in this direction when he writes in the notes to Etude No.7 that "the time signature acts only as a guideline".


My suspicion is for her "deliver all the nuances, all the accents" is extremely important -- this is a Cortot type thing too.

Whether she's able to do that, that's to say whether she can actually tickle a concert grand well enough to actually turn into sound all the nuances she perceives in the music, is another question and that's why I'm on the fence, as millionrainbows rightly points out.

With this in mind I've just started listening to an early recording of hers, Beethoven op 106


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## premont

Mandryka said:


> The thing about the Beethoven /Liszt is that she takes them slowly, letting the musical gestures have their impact. Everyone else I've heard just plays them for fireworks and effects.


Well said. I think she in this way finds much unexpected poetry in these symphonies -maybe a Kempff trait.

I agree about the effect-minded approach of most recordings (Scherbakov, Katsaris, Howard et.c.), but
do you know the Harmonia Mundi Fr. set with mixed mostly French pianists?


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## millionrainbows

flamencosketches said:


> I'm beginning to share with some other posters in this thread a frustration with Ms. Biret and her playing. Sometimes she'll play a piece and it will be miraculous, and then the next track on the disc will be another piece and the tempi are all wrong, or the expression, or she just otherwise misses the mark. I have a CD of her playing Ravel and Stravinsky, for example, and I like the Gaspard de la Nuit (slowest/longest Gaspard in my library, but no matter, it's quite good) but then her 3 Scenes from Petrouchka is just bad. Probably the worst performance I've ever heard of that work.
> 
> This is further reason to treasure the Berg/Webern/Boulez disc I may have mentioned: each piece is just as good as the others.


This thread has lost its value, for me.


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## flamencosketches

millionrainbows said:


> This thread has lost its value, for me.


Why? No one is making you stick around.

@Mandryka, well said. That goes with the way I think about her (being a pupil of Cortot and Kempff surely helps, but maybe she is just an iconoclast at heart). I will have to return to that Stravinsky with open ears. It's a piece that I am very interested in.


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## millionrainbows

flamencosketches said:


> Why? No one is making you stick around.


Because I don't want to see Idil Biret judged so harshly, or lambasted, when she is "out of her territory" so to speak. I see the release of these recordings as Ahmet Ertegun's way of providing her with a retirement income. He is a noble man for supporting the arts in this way.
If anyone has something reasonably positive to say about Biret, I'll take note of that, and ignore the rest.

I _do_ think that your "change of heart" about Idil Biret was worth noting, as it gives the appearance that you are vulnerable to peer pressure. I like Idil Biret for her contributions to modern music, and my likes are not based on how well she plays Brahms (who is not on my short list) or Chopin.


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## Triplets

Her bio is impressive, and in the early days of Naxos, she and Jando were the House Pianists, so I bought a few discs in an attempt to build an affordable CD collection. I hated each and every of her recordings and purged them when more choices became available.


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## flamencosketches

millionrainbows said:


> Because I don't want to see Idil Biret judged so harshly, or lambasted, when she is "out of her territory" so to speak. I see the release of these recordings as Ahmet Ertegun's way of providing her with a retirement income. He is a noble man for supporting the arts in this way.
> If anyone has something reasonably positive to say about Biret, I'll take note of that, and ignore the rest.
> 
> I _do_ think that your "change of heart" about Idil Biret was worth noting, as it gives the appearance that you are vulnerable to peer pressure. I like Idil Biret for her contributions to modern music, and my likes are not based on how well she plays Brahms (who is not on my short list) or Chopin.


Change of heart? I began this thread as a huge fan of this pianist, and I remain so. I've bought about 5 of her CDs in the past month :lol:

I am not "lambasting" her, nor do I think she's out of her territory with these works. I believe you have misinterpreted my post.

For the record, I seriously enjoy her Brahms, "short list" or not, and I have two CDs of her Chopin (Waltzes and Mazurkas) that I listen to very frequently. She is a champion of the modern, yes, but she is also very much more than the box that you're putting her into. She is a totally worthy pianist in the line of Kempff, Cortot, etc.


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## flamencosketches

I'll confess to overly harsh judgment, and I apologize! I'm sure she played that Stravinsky piece like that for a reason, but I won't pretend to understand it.


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## millionrainbows

flamencosketches said:


> I'll confess to overly harsh judgment, and I apologize! I'm sure she played that Stravinsky piece like that for a reason, but I won't pretend to understand it.


Just curious, are you comparing it (Petroushka) to other piano arrangements, or to the orchestral version?


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## flamencosketches

millionrainbows said:


> Just curious, are you comparing it (Petroushka) to other piano arrangements, or to the orchestral version?


Piano, namely Gilels and Pollini. I love both of their performances of Stravinsky's own piano arrangement. He apparently arranged it for Artur Rubinstein, but I have yet to hear his interpretation.


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## Mandryka

flamencosketches said:


> I'll confess to overly harsh judgment, and I apologize! I'm sure she played that Stravinsky piece like that for a reason, but I won't pretend to understand it.


I think you should send her an email and ask her about it.


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## flamencosketches

Mandryka said:


> I think you should send her an email and ask her about it.


Not a bad idea


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## millionrainbows

Triplets said:


> Her bio is impressive, and in the early days of Naxos, she and Jando were the House Pianists, so I bought a few discs in an attempt to build an affordable CD collection. I hated each and every of her recordings and purged them when more choices became available.


Okay, we now know that you hate her playing. What use is that to any discussion? Since you haven't bothered to elaborate, I will assume that you have very pedestrian taste in pianists, and can't stand any deviation from accepted "norms."

Nobody seems prepared to elaborate on anything. I have several versions of the piano version of "Three Movements from Petrushka": Emil Gilels, Maurizio Pollini, Bernard Ringeissen, Marcelle Meyer, and "Danse russe" by Stravinsky himself, and one other on EMI which escapes my memory. I like all of them for different reasons, and have learned something about the music from all of them. This harsh comparison of Idil Biret is against my nature; I don't look at things in that way.


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