Customer Reviews

Legendary Pianist Mindru Katz

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To me, Mindru Katz has been a legendary pianist since the late 1950s when I first heard his recording of the Prokofiev 1st and Khachaturian concerti on Vanguard Everyman records. I was in Cleveland, Ohio at the time and occasionally met with George Szell at rehearsals of the Cleveland Orchestra. I praised Katz's playing and gave him several of Katz's records to evaluate. I suggested that Dr. Szell might want to consider inviting Katz to perform with the orchestra. Some time later Szell remarked "Yes, he is very good, but there is no shortage of very good." I often think that performances by Katz, Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra would be have been truly legendary. Charles Yulish

There is no better recording of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto, this is as good as it gets and it is FABULOUS. No need for the overdone tempo changes and flighty dynamics of other renditions, such as that by Khachaturian's son. Mindru Katz's piano pounds like the ocean under Sir Adrian Boult's majestic interpretation, turning this bravura showpiece into a colossal work that is unequalled in piano repertory. The Prokofiev Concerto is also very well done. GET THIS CD WHILE YOU CAN, people are already forgetting Mindru Katz and who knows for how long it will be available.

Fine piano music hardly gets any better than this release. The music on this CD makes it one of the favorites in my entire collection. Katz's superb rendition of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto makes it, without any doubt, one of the best around. The same can be said about his Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 1. I cannot recommend it high enough.

The singular pianism of Mindru Katz was ahead from his own time, indeed. Few pianists may boast of having sprightliness, dizzying momentum, thunderous fingering and velvet lyricism with one voice.

Mindru Katz had it everything to win. In terms of comparison I would dare to compare him with another extraordinary contemporary pianist and very akin to him, like Simon Barrere was. (Awfully, both died at the stage, Barrere in 1953 and Katz in 1978)

His committed art, his inimitable style and his wide interpretive vision (Please go for you tube and listen his performance of Franz Liszt's Mephisto Waltz , comparabale only to the version of William Kapell.

Go without delay towards it. You will never be dissapointed. Be for sure.