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Clara Haskil - Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.4

Carlton

pfm Member
I was going through the YouTube list of pianists and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.4 and found this 1954 performance by Clara Haskil. I'm embarrassed to say that this is my first listen to Haskil. I'm not knowledgeable enough in these matters to know if this is considered a great performance, but I think it's wonderful.

 
It is strange, but Clara Haskil was one of the handful of truly great musician pianists in the Twentieth Century. Everything she did [as now only heard in recordings] seems to be as fine as one could imagine in one's dreams, IMHO.

Yet she never quite hit the big time like some other lesser pianists of her and later times, but she quietly ploughed a wonderful musical furrow. Without exaggeration or mannerism she seemed more expressive than almost any other pianist and yet with the absolute minimum of seeming artifice. Hers was the "art that conceals art" but unlike some who seem to play without artifice, she never seems other than completely involved in communicating something that runs below the surface of the music.

If you enjoyed this, then there is a commercial Decca recording of this concerto with her [not as nice a recording as this though], but even more significant, I would rate any of her Mozart Concerto recordings as worth trying, and move out from there.

Best wishes from George
 
Try this.

Mozart's Concerto No 20 in D Minor, KV 466.


Easily my favourite performance of a concerto that I sometimes like more than any other!

ATB from George
 
Hi GML, Thanks for this, I had heard of Clara Haskil but never actually heard her recordings, at least not to the best of my memory. I am exploring!

Easily my favourite performance of a concerto that I sometimes like more than any other!

Hi George, I can never pick a "favourite" concerto but many times I also think Mozart's 20th may be it. But ask me tomorrow LOL.
PS: Walcha's 48 are fantastic - thanks again!
 


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