The first Youtube prodigy has grown up. Aimi Kobayashi plays Chopin and Liszt.

In 2006, youtube was a novelty, and one of the early viral video’s was Mozart’s 26th piano concerto, played by the then 11 year old Aimi Kobayashi. The original video has been deleted (after millions of views), but a copy was uploaded later on. 

And now, 12 years later, Aimi has her first CD for Warner classics. The Chopin might be just a bit too Rachmaninovesque, but I urge you to listen to tracks 8 and 9, Liszt. 

The big Après une lecture du Dante is refined and well balanced and the overplayed Liebesträume receives on of the best performances I know. 

Nice to hear the first Youtube prodigy grown up now…! 

Frédéric Chopin: 

Tracks 01-04 Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 35 

Franz Liszt:

Années de pèlerinage, 2ème année, Italie S. 161

Track 05  No. 4, Sonetto 47 del Petrarca 
Track 06  No. 5, Sonetto 104 del Petrarca 
Track 07  No. 6, Sonetto 123 del Petrarca 
Track 08  No. 7, Après une lecture du Dante (Fantasia quai sonata)

Track 09  Liebesträume S. 541: No. 3 in A-Flat Major, "O lieb so lang' du lieben kannst”

Aimi Kobayashi, Piano

https://open.spotify.com/user/otterhouse/playlist/1BXu6utOGyliIbUd7PBK3f?si=nxbUpICaSTayjP6bAIH34A (Webplayer link)

Aimi and fans...

Queen Elisabeth competition Elisabethwedstrijd 75 years on Spotify

And yes, sooner than I expected the circus of the Queen Elisabeth competition ( #kew2016 on Twitter) has started again! For me, in 1983, it was the first time I ever came across classical music. If you think the Eurovision song contest is alienating, try the full week of piano madness when you are in your early teens ;-) 

Especially the winner of that year, Pierre-Alain Volondat, with his robot-slow-bows is for ever imprinted in my memory… 
The nice thing about the 75 years of QEC CD box is that not only the winners are on it, but also some fine 2nd or 4th place performances, just like on the CD box with the violin performances.

Hope you will enjoy the list, also notable for the inclusion of conductor Belgian conductor Franz André, who’s LP’s are often well sought after collectors item. 
All recordings are live recordings from the competition!

https://open.spotify.com/user/otterhouse/playlist/6wb2exli6NhAqzx5h82zxC

(HTTP web link to 7 hours of Queen Elisabeth history)

-Pjotr Iljitsj Tsjaikovski

Piano concerto no 1 in Bb major

Valery Afanassiev, Russia, 1st prize 1972

Orchestre National de Belgique

Rene Defossez, conductor

-Franz Liszt

Piano concerto no 1 in Eb major

Vladimir Ashkenazy, Russia, 1st prize 1956

Orchestre National de Belgique

Franz Andrér, conductor

-Franz Liszt

Piano concerto no 2 in A major

Pierre-Alain Volondat, France, 1st prize 1983

Orchestre National de Belgique

Georges-Elie Octors, conductor

-Sergei Rachmaninov

Piano concerto no 2 in c minor op 18

Wolfgang Manz, Germany, 2nd prize 1983

Orchestre National de Belgique

Georges-Elie Octors, conductor

-Sergei Rachmaninov

Piano concerto no 3 in d minor op 30

Andrei Nikolsky, Russia, 1st prize 1987

Orchestre National de Belgique

Georges-Elie Octors, conductor

-Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano concerto no 4 in G major op 58

Frank Braley, France, 1st prize 1991

Orchestre National de Belgique

Ronald Zollman, conductor

-Johannes Brahms

Piano concerto no 1 in d minor op 15

Leon Fleisher, USA, 1st prize 1952

Orchestre National de Belgique

Franz André, conductor

-Johannes Brahms

Piano concerto no 2 in Bb major op 83

Denis Kozhukhin, Russia, 1st prize 2010

de Filhamonie

Edo de Waart, conductor

-Sergei Prokofiev

Piano concerto no 2 in g minor op 16

Anna Vinnitskaya, Russia, 1st prize 2007

Orchestre National de Belgique

Georges-Elie Octors, conductor

-Sergei Prokofiev

Piano concerto no 1 in Db major op 10

Malcolm Frager, USA, 1st prize 1960

Orchestre National de Belgique

Franz André, conductor

-Frédéric Chopin

Piano concerto no 1 in e minor op 11

Jeffrey Swann, USA, 2nd prize 1972

Orchestre National de Belgique

Rene Defossez, conductor

-Frédéric Chopin

Piano concerto no 2 in f minor op 21

Cécile Ousset, France, 4th prize 1956

Orchestre National de Belgique

Franz André, conductor

My first classical CD's

These were my first three classical CD’s (curious to know what were yours!)

Ivo Pogorelich and Claudio Abbado play Chopin’s 2nd piano concerto

Didn’t know it at that time, but this is a maverick performance. At Ivo’s entrance, its like he wants to smash through the piano. But between the glitter and willful playing there is also an overdose of poetry, that made him so attractive in the 1980’s. A girl in my class said she liked the 2nd movement so much and exactly that movement is one of the highlights of this cd, the first CD I ever bought.

The Hagen Quartet plays Schubert.

In the mid 1980’s (still in college then), CD’s were expensive. Extremely expensive for a teenager, and I was thrilled that a local CD shop offered this CD not for 52 Guilders (living in Holland), but 35 guilders. Still a lot of money, but absolutely worth it. The well known Rosamunde quartet is coupled with a lesser known youth work by Schubert, but the real gem here is the tension laten “Quartetsatz”, an unfinished string quartet in c-minor. I think this was the first CD by the still existing Hagen Quartet. 

Collin Davis and Nobuko Imai play Berlioz

In my class, there was a girl ho played viola, and I was very much in love with her (not saying it to her, of course;-) that the obvious third choice was this CD with the Harold en Italie symphony for orchestra and viola. Read in the Gramophone magazine what “the best” performance was and bought it. As an extra, there were some early choral works and an instrumental from the opera “les Troyens” on it, making it a “full” CD. That mattered, at the time, as with Spotify it doesn’t matter anymore if a CD is 44 minutes (the Chopin above) of 74 minutes (the Berlioz), you pay the same for the music…

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)

-Piano Concerto No. 2 in f minor op 21

-Polonaise op. 44 f# minor

Ivo Pogorelich

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Claudio Abbado, conductor

1983

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

-String quartet in a minor op 29 D804 “Rosamunde”

-String quartet in Eb major op 125 nr 1 D87

-String quartet movement in c minor D703 “Quartettsatz”

Hagen Quartet (Veronica, Lucas and Clemens Hagen, plus at that moment the Dutch violinist Anette Bik)

1984

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)

-Harold en Italie, Op.16, H.68

Nobuko Imai, viola

-Tristia op 18

John Alldis Choir

-Les Troyens, act 3, Prélude

London Symphony Orchestra, 

Colin Davis, conductor

1976/69

https://open.spotify.com/user/otterhouse/playlist/241WmgYg6sUXeXRYWp9gOo

(HTTP link)

Still have them ;-)