2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing potpourri with abysmal Moonlight Sonata, August 24, 2004
This review is from: Romantic Piano Favourites, Vol. 2 (Audio CD)
Hungarian pianist Péter Nagy has made quite a few recordings for a number of labels, but I found this 1987 Naxos potpourri rather disappointing. The end of the CD is the best part: Nagy gives a rousing version of Liszt's "Mephisto Waltz" which shows off his ability as a pianist to good advantage. But a lot of the other material on this CD is, in my opinion, not well done. The Adagio sostenuto from Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" sounds anything but romantic; this is not the moon shining on a Swiss lake, as the poet Rellstab thought, it is more like the nextdoor neighbours hammering away to get their woodframe house finished. A comparison of Nagy's version with Rudolf Buchbinder on Warner Classics was like being in two different worlds: Buchbinder sounds like he really believes in Beethoven's music, Nagy sounds like he is playing it because he has to. The same is more or less true of all the slower pieces on this disc, which come over accurately but without real emotion. It's only with the faster, more showy pieces that Nagy begins to get more convincing, but that is not enough to make this CD a winner. The recording quality is good, but not as good as on Volume 1 of the same series.
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