Schumann: Carnaval; Brahms: "Paganini" Variations; Bach-Busoni: Chaconne [Original recording remastered]

Johann Sebastian Bach (Composer), Johannes Brahms (Composer), Robert Schumann (Composer), Ferruccio Busoni (Composer), Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
• Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, Ferruccio Busoni
• Audio CD (April 6, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: EMI Classics
• ASIN: B0001O3YGC
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #318,558 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Chaconne, transcription for piano in D minor (after J. S. Bach, BWV 1004), KiV B24

2. Variations (28) on a Theme of Paganini, for piano, in A minor, Op. 35: Book 1. Variations I - VIII

3. Variations (28) on a Theme of Paganini, for piano, in A minor, Op. 35: Book 1. Variations X - XII

4. Variations (28) on a Theme of Paganini, for piano, in A minor, Op. 35: Book 2. Variations I & II

5. Variations (28) on a Theme of Paganini, for piano, in A minor, Op. 35: Book 2. Variations V - VIII

6. Variations (28) on a Theme of Paganini, for piano, in A minor, Op. 35: Book 2. Variations X - XIII

7. Variations (28) on a Theme of Paganini, for piano, in A minor, Op. 35: Book 2. Variations III & IV

8. Variations (28) on a Theme of Paganini, for piano, in A minor, Op. 35: Book 1. Variations XIII & XIV

9. Album fĂĽr die Jugend (Album for the Young) for piano, Op. 68: No. 38. Wintertime, I.

10. Album für die Jugend (Album for the Young) for piano, Op. 68: No. 37. Sailors' Song

11. Carnaval for piano, Op. 9: 1. Préambule

12. Carnaval for piano, Op. 9: 2. Pierrot

13. Carnaval for piano, Op. 9: 3. Arlequin

14. Carnaval for piano, Op. 9: 4. Valse noble

15. Carnaval for piano, Op. 9: 5. Eusebius

16. Carnaval for piano, Op. 9: 6. Florestan

17. Carnaval for piano, Op. 9: 7. Coquette

18. Carnaval for piano, Op. 9: 8. RĂ©plique

19. Carnaval for piano, Op. 9: 9. Papillons

20. Carnaval for piano, Op. 9: 10. A.S.C.H. - S.C.H.A. (Lettres dansantes)

See all 32 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the one hundred recordings in any age, April 25, 2005

By 

Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Schumann: Carnaval; Brahms: "Paganini" Variations; Bach-Busoni: Chaconne (Audio CD)

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli felt an obssesive fascination by these three piano works.

This Chaconne performing maintains the perfect balance between the mistery and the elusiveness, in fact Benedetti gradually increases the tension level to unexpected heights. I got the Busoni version with this piece and Michelangeli gets very very close in idiomatic expresiveness.

The Carnaval was his glorious triumph in the famous London Recital in 1957. He recorded it several times. And recently I got a new perfomance recorded in Lugano where he makes with this work an absolute journey to the purest romatic tradition and far beyond.

Finally the Paganini Variations was another battlehorse for this legendary pianist. Benedetti remarks the dark side of the score with notable wisdom, and accents as anyone else the charming and rapture lyrical mood that Brahms knew to use so well. It's very difficult to play any Brahms variation due you must be inmersed in the real intention of every variation.

This Remastered album is a reference must for any serious collector item of refined taste and sensibility.

An authentic file tresure!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Genial and infuriating., December 25, 2007

By 

Plaza Marcelino (Caracas Venezuela) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Piano Recital (MP3 Download)

To me, the real "Great Recordings" here are the Chaconne and the Paganini Variations, dating from 1948. Full of energy, impeccable, nuanced, the pianist caught in the geniality of his youth, who at the time was just resuming what would in the end result a brilliant career, interrupted at its beginnings by the war after his 1939 triumphs in Brussels. What the listener will encounter here is not only the rationality of Bach's conception clearly exposed as in very few other recordings, but also Busoni's masterly arrangement of it; I mean, you can hardly make your choice on whom to admire more, the composer or the arranger, so genially is Benedetti-Michelangeli's playing and exposition of the work. The Brahms is yet another example of a musician fully grasping the composer's so often overlooked romantic facet, nowadays consciously played down in favour of his "intelectual rigour" that in the end makes him dour if not boring. Expositions of Brahms's music such as this one, strong, vigorous, vivacious and full of feeling whilst preserving the composer's structures and form, will always be preferable to those who adopt slow speeds for their own sake and eschew the music's utter feeling because Brahms was a "serious" composer. Bravo here for Benedetti-Michelangeli.

I always found this particular, 1975 recording of Schumann's Carnaval a classic example of Benedetti-Michelangeli's capacity to both infuriate the listener and inspire admiration at the same time that characterises his life's later stages: as he grew older he became quirky and idiosyncratic, sometimes arbitrary, and this recording shows all that in coexistance with his consistently flawless playing and impeccable musicianship. The piano's sound as recorded is also somewhat "plummy" and artificial, with bass notes that don't at all sound lifelike, very much like was also present in the 1977 LP's. So, if the Bach-Busoni and the Brahms fully justify their inclusion in a "Great Recordings of the Century" series, let us say that the Schumann, particularly "Carnaval" rather qualify for a "Very Good Recordings of the Century" series.

Towards his final years, audiences the world over had got used to this behaviour, which not only showed in the treatment of the scores he played, his fastidiousness with his choice of pianos and their tuning, but also in the particular attitude he had in honouring his concert commitments, cancellations being more the rule than the exception. So at the time one had to rely more on his recordings than in his otherwise spectacular live presentations, which none the less always ran a high risk of cancellation. But then in the studio his idiosyncracies tended to win the day and producers seem to have let him got away with it ...

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very Fine Brahms, but an Oft Dirge-like Schumann Carnaval, July 24, 2009

By 

Doug - Haydn Fan (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Schumann: Carnaval; Brahms: "Paganini" Variations; Bach-Busoni: Chaconne (Audio CD)

Michelangeli remains to this day a frustrating pianist. Here he can be heard in a good performance of Brahms' showy Paganini Variations. But, perverse as always, he mixes up the order! But why EMI chose to attach this fine performance to such dreadful Schumann amazes me. At times Michelangeli all but comes to a halt in some of the Carnaval episodes; for perfectly straightforward music the great pianist choses to adopt the most perverse slow motion. What this has to do with the music escapes me. The three Album pieces don't fare any better.

A perfect example of why everyone should be skeptical of these pumped-up titles, such as Recordings of the Century! Hit and miss doesn't begin to decribe what we have here - more like Beauty and the Beast!

If you want the Brahms then go ahead - just don't even consider buying this for the Schumann.