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March 10, 2020 at 11:08pm

This fascinating account of Siberia’s horrific legacy is told with great verve.

There is much to enjoy in this original slice of travel writing. Yet there is one gaping flaw at its core: the central conceit involving the “lost pianos” of the title.

For this book revolves around a quixotic quest to find an instrument for a talented musician she meets in Mongolia, whose family fled Siberia in the 1930s. This leads to many musical meetings and musings. Some fuel her narrative,... See More

This fascinating account of Siberia’s horrific legacy is told with great verve.

There is much to enjoy in this original slice of travel writing. Yet there is one gaping flaw at its core: the central conceit involving the “lost pianos” of the title.

For this book revolves around a quixotic quest to find an instrument for a talented musician she meets in Mongolia, whose family fled Siberia in the 1930s. This leads to many musical meetings and musings. Some fuel her narrative, such as the tale of Vera Lotar-Shevchenko, a pianist of “rare brilliance” thrown into a gulag, where fellow prisoners carved a keyboard into her wooden bunk so she could practise at night.

#book #review #Siberia #SophyRoberts #lost

www.theguardian.com
The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts review – original and compelling
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March 10, 2020 at 2:59am

There has been no composer with a more tumultuous life than Robert Schumann (1810-1856). The epithet Romantic wholly applies to the German, whose love life, trials and tribulations were often stranger than fiction.

That was the basis for celebrated South Korean pianist Kun-woo Paik's all-Schumann recital, fortuitously held on what today's romantics know as Valentine's Day.

Even the fear of the coronavirus did not deter a sizeable audience (including many Koreans) from enjoying... See More

There has been no composer with a more tumultuous life than Robert Schumann (1810-1856). The epithet Romantic wholly applies to the German, whose love life, trials and tribulations were often stranger than fiction.

That was the basis for celebrated South Korean pianist Kun-woo Paik's all-Schumann recital, fortuitously held on what today's romantics know as Valentine's Day.

Even the fear of the coronavirus did not deter a sizeable audience (including many Koreans) from enjoying Paik's marvellous two-hour show, which was substantially expanded from its original programme.

#RobertSchumann #Schumann #recital #KunWooPaik #performing #recital #concert #review #ChangTouLiang #coronavirus #covid19

www.straitstimes.com
Schumann afresh
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Sng Yong Meng
November 16, 2019 at 11:43am

The re-release of Jane Campion’s mysterious film The Piano after 25 years is a chance to taste again its fetishism and voyeurism, its strange story of sexuality denied and displaced.

It is also about the gravitational pull of death; Campion quotes Thomas Hood’s 1827 poem Silence at the very end of the credits: “There is a silence where hath been no sound, / There is a silence where no sound may be, / In the cold grave – under the deep deep sea.”@

... See More

The re-release of Jane Campion’s mysterious film The Piano after 25 years is a chance to taste again its fetishism and voyeurism, its strange story of sexuality denied and displaced.

It is also about the gravitational pull of death; Campion quotes Thomas Hood’s 1827 poem Silence at the very end of the credits: “There is a silence where hath been no sound, / There is a silence where no sound may be, / In the cold grave – under the deep deep sea.”@

#movie #review #JaneCampion

www.theguardian.com
The Piano review – Jane Campion's drama still hits all the right notes
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November 13, 2019 at 11:14pm

Lifschitz’s account of Janacek’s suite On an Overgrown Path feels intensely true to the idiom: the music’s dramatic stops and starts, its growls and screams, exhilaration and despair, its alternation between tentativeness and declamation – everything is there in bold, emotional close-up. And with Debussy’s first book of Preludes, Lifschitz shows what a master he is of colour, texture and line.

#... See More

Lifschitz’s account of Janacek’s suite On an Overgrown Path feels intensely true to the idiom: the music’s dramatic stops and starts, its growls and screams, exhilaration and despair, its alternation between tentativeness and declamation – everything is there in bold, emotional close-up. And with Debussy’s first book of Preludes, Lifschitz shows what a master he is of colour, texture and line.

#KonstantinLifschitz #LondonPianoFestival #review

www.independent.co.uk
Konstantin Lifschitz, London Piano Festival review: A master of colour
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October 6, 2019 at 5:47pm

Featuring all 29 pieces from the album, ‘Lang Lang Piano Book’ is a collection of the repertoire that first inspired Lang Lang to play the piano. It is beautifully presented as a high-end cased book, featuring marbled endpapers, page-finder ribbon and sewn binding. It includes exclusive photographs, comments from Lang Lang on every piece and an edition of Für Elise annotated with the pianist’s own performance notes.

#review... See More

Featuring all 29 pieces from the album, ‘Lang Lang Piano Book’ is a collection of the repertoire that first inspired Lang Lang to play the piano. It is beautifully presented as a high-end cased book, featuring marbled endpapers, page-finder ribbon and sewn binding. It includes exclusive photographs, comments from Lang Lang on every piece and an edition of Für Elise annotated with the pianist’s own performance notes.

#review #album #langlang

www.fabermusic.com
Lang Lang releases latest piano book - News - Faber Music
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October 6, 2019 at 3:42pm

Album review: Chinese pianist Lang Lang's latest album Piano Book could have been much better

In his latest album, Chinese piano phenom Lang Lang has gone back to basics, playing pieces he learnt as a child.

Opening this 72-minute anthology are works such as J. S. Bach's Prelude In C Major from Book One of The Well-Tempered Clavier and Beethoven's immortal Fur Elise. He plays these easy pieces with simplicity and finesse.

... See More

Album review: Chinese pianist Lang Lang's latest album Piano Book could have been much better

In his latest album, Chinese piano phenom Lang Lang has gone back to basics, playing pieces he learnt as a child.

Opening this 72-minute anthology are works such as J. S. Bach's Prelude In C Major from Book One of The Well-Tempered Clavier and Beethoven's immortal Fur Elise. He plays these easy pieces with simplicity and finesse.

#review #album #langlang

www.straitstimes.com
Album review: Chinese pianist Lang Lang's latest album Piano Book could have been much better
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