Talking about interpretive power, what Schnabel does here is pretty mind-bending. This piece is genuinely dark and introspective. Rare for Mozart. Schnabel makes it so compelling, he totally gets it. The threatening fate, the attempt to escape, the pleading and the compromises. All these elements. He seems capable of single handedly reenacting Don Giovanni (with able assistance from the orchestra and the conductor)
Further notes by weston: His famous quote on Mozart's music is insightful:
"Children are given Mozart because of the small quantity of the notes; grown-ups avoid Mozart because of the great quality of the notes."
Schnabel was not a technically perfect pianist, even though he studied with legendary Leschetizky. And some of the performances including the one here have flaws. But what he did musically is so compelling that negates the issue.
回复流浪教师的评论:
Leon Fleisher is a great american pianist. Few possess his level of understanding and the ability to convey.
This is an interesting quote. But I don't know when he said it, it certainly doesn't apply to LL or others from 80's and after. They don't own big sound. He could be referring to earlier generations, the Russian/Soviet school products.
"In all the conservatories, including my own at the Peabody Conservatory and the Curtis Institute, the kids are extremely competitive—they want to play louder and faster than the pianist in the next studio. Most of them can play the hell out of the piano in a way that their elders never could. But they belong more appropriately in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. It all has very little to do with making art. They have a lot of work to do, but it's easier just to pump plastic."
Couple this lack of listening with a "competition for the entertainment dollar," he asserts, and you get a truly destructive combination. "Players try to convince us by using body English—they writhe or look up at the ceiling—all to prove how affected they are by the music. They don't realize what a distraction it really is. We are supposed to be impressed by their show of emotion, but in reality they are merely erecting a barrier between the music and my soul."
Mr. Fleisher is heir to a legacy that focused on music rather than on showmanship. ("The difference between my programs and those of other pianists," Schnabel once announced, "is that mine are boring not only in the first half but also in the second.")