+Echoherb This sonata is a real treasure! One of the best creations of musical art in 20th century... And this interpretation seems to be much more colorful and fresh than any others! The best Prokofiev's work in my opinion! :)
+Juhis Oksanen It is interesting, because my imagination always have some problems to percept all ideas which had been put into this music.. it seems to me a bit heavy and overloaded sometimes (too many ideas in each bar to realise all of them as one plot ) Gilels gives me chance to get it as something whole and insepable, as carnival of Prokofiev's creative power! This is whole Universe of beautiful musical ideas!
+UEDSC I feel the same! That's what I love about listening this kind of music; the journey it offers for the listener during several times of listening it: from the "first dives" where everything is just a strange, beautiful, chaotic unkown until the point, after many listenings, when you know the melodies and the complete structure of the work. In my opinion, all the journey is enjoyable in different ways and when a compostition is clear in mind it's time to find some new waters to explore again from the beginning!
@@UEDSC i think you are supposed to feel overwhelmed during the first few listens. it was written amidst the war and prokofiev certainly had the evil and violence of war in mind when writing this sonata. Gilels does execute this sonata perfectly tho.
well put, Juhis. it is... walking through a dark dreamscape. then burning glitter falls from sky . we are falling, all falling fast . cubistic sections pop like bubbles for a bit, then we're back dreaming in slow darkness . revealing desolate battlefields,. in the distance is a call to days dreary violence... then we dance and prance a machine gun rat a tat tat... the dark dreaming pops back. anyone still breathing? Once this work was known a THE LENINGRAD SSONATA. pehaps Prokofiev owed an attempt to placate Stalin & "The People" for a moment. a Soviet rebellion against so-called "formalist" and western "programmatic music" was in force. after Prokofiev died, who cared for dear Stalin ? maybe Sergei would have loathed our narrative fantasies, but he gave many smaller works evocative titles
sorry but Gilels loved learning this one, a gift shared between friends. Comrade Giels employs still-extraordinary techniques for this sonata's often prescient take on our later music! hard to duplicate even for Gilels but at times (more so in studios) Gilels' Prokofiev carefully focuses on ephemeral, additive-subtractive harmonics where pure-octaves are transposed across the keyboard (eg: octave triplets forming the 5th page from the end, just before the etude section returns). where sensitive harmonics are captured what results sounds as if the piano had Who's Next, 1970's electronics. similar sounds were not unknown on 1942 battlefields (even telegraphs produce novel electric sounds and rhythms). the 3rd mvt thesis is similarly sonorous, where Gilels' carefully chosen voicings of Prokofiev's close tone-clusters consistently lends the piano a radiant presence. Prokofiev helped Giilels learn this sonata while writing it; and the score itself offers hints about these new sonorities, offering an occasional oddly-placed breve or quaver to reinforce potential harmonic-partials
By far the best, the greatest performance of this sonata I have ever heard. There is 10 times more "music" in this performance than in any other, even by other great pianists.
Such a great piece!...and I've never heard Gilels play it. The only performance I know well is Ashkenazy's. This Gilel performance is a fantastic - much more viceral power than Ashenazy's. Thank you for posting it!
Dear Perfectionists and String Players: its not "out of tune" if its consistent across recordings: its equal-temperament under the thumb of Prokofiev w Gilels pushing into surreal sonorities superceding jazz/ fusion while predicting EDM and digital sound-beds. this is most clear in the studio where pure-octaves transposed across the keyboard (eg triplet-octaves form the 5th page before the end, just before the brief "etude" recap) exposes standard piano tunings; elsewhere we find exposed tritones producing other types of beats - additive-subtractive beats consistent across recordings and performers. don't recall the date of this recording but Gilels is excitement with a crowd who attends to extraordinary work. in the 3rd mvt recapitulation he accurately bashes the penultimate page- until two bars of the bravura finale 'con brio' machine-gun drilling Right-Hand just go awry. the great Lazar Berman in the 1980's made similar attempts at live recordings of this Stalingrad-8th. Gilels here may be following a competitive late-Soviet trend the west never exploited; likewise Prokofiev himself was so relieved when Stalin et al permitted him to leave off performing duties to others- eg, Richter and Gilels. then it was Gilels after 30 years who returned to devote to Stalingrad's sonorous perfections. as mere mortals we ground ourselves in sustainable tempi, or - Catastrophe! most impressive how Giels the maniac mangles two 'con brio' bars - and accurately recovers, landing the RH position back on track- Yow! and yet fully recover the same tempo AND rhythm without a metrical interruption? his insane pace, this performance- is recording ever perfection? this is simple sheer crazy-making, non-stop thriller action
The music is difficult to perform as it is to understand, and the recording is suboptimal. Yet, this is great music played by a great pianist. It helps to know the historical context to appreciate this music. Both Prokofiev and Gilels were held up as Soviet artists and highly decorated. Yet, both hated the communist regime. It was too dangerous to let anyone know this and so, these emotions are expressed only in the music. An obvious example is the short middle movement; this was nostalgia for the old bourgeois Russia. In hiding the references to the sufferings in the Soviet Union, the message in the sonata becomes universal, speaking to the oppressed and depressed whenever, wherever and whoever. The Eighth Sonata is a monumental masterpiece, worthy to stand beside the Beethoven sonatas.
this is a live version; inevitably the recording is in some respects inferior to the 1972 Melodya recording where Gilels devoted to and downloaded for us so much of the Soviet-lineage transmission. most technical is is their modernist perfection testing pure octaves. most challenging is the 5th page before the end: one page of one theme in pure, triplet, octave-transposed octaves. the extremes of pianism under Gillel's hand, difficult to replicate even for him,. reflect something of early EDM's repeated sine-wave effect (aka beeping) - something new within WW2, just the sort of thing keeping Prokofiev evergreen: a fresh curiosity for sound
Yes. They probably did hate the regime. If they were nostalgic for the "old bourgeois Russia" I can understand their suffering and for such great artists to suffer is in itself unbearable.But unfortunately the Russian Revolution was not about the bourgeoisie. It was more about improving the lot of the vast majority of the population, the peasants and the working classes, the conditions of ;life for whom was barely tolerable.Oppressed,illiterate, backward, low life expectancy, uneducated ,in fact virtually utterly hopeless.The Revolution was about changing all that and it was a massive task.Nostalgia for a comfortable bourgeois life for a small minority of the population whilst the vast majority suffered was no longer acceptable. All in all, the lives of both Prokofiev and Gilels,given the shattering ,tumultuous times in which they lived, Revolution,Civil War, famine, Stalin etc. were reasonable.They could have sufferred just as much in the bourgeois West.Look at the life of Bartók..Atg least they were appreciated and were generally financially secure and received all sorts of honours.But yes.They probably hated the regime.Many did.
If it was too dangerous for anyone to let it be known that they 'hated the communist regime', who are you to assert that Gilels and Prokofiev's art expresses such hatred? Most creative artists are not the biggest fans of regimes and governments of any kind, but to assert that Gilels and Prokofiev were motivated in their art by hate is totally unsupportable. They are far, far more subtle than that. And I always thought that the slow movement was more a gentle consolatory mockery of nostalgic central European dance forms, punctuated by the descending minor motif of more Russian character which seems to come down from the Moon, as if representing an ineluctable cosmic future which renders Old Europe insignificant rather than all-powerful, and nostalgia for it naïve rather than dangerous. And as for the sufferings of the Soviet Union, far from being hidden, the Sonata is completely shot through with tortuous and agonized music that explicitly expresses suffering and the strength that endures and overcomes it without hate.
@@albertlanda1146 Prokofiev was not financially secure. He fled gambling debts in the United States to return to the Soviet Union, where he became practically a prisoner of the state, finally denounced for 'formalism' in 1948 and struggling with massive debt until his death in poverty in 1953.
i find no evidence Soviet musicians hated communism- or knew any hate bc hating Stalin, State, etc would be 100% self-destructive- like today. what they protested is more the mortal fear of repression- its socially-weaponized anger, its genuine danger; all its organized, suppressive-aggressive authoritarian tools commodifying territory &/ or status. free artists join Socrates beyond passive-agg mob-mentalities to live first within and only then beyond the agreeableness required for tolerant societies to fruit sustainably
from Gillel's uncannily spacious 1972 studio recording on Melodya which has long been considered a standard reference for this extraordinary sonata. Melodya studio Mvt 1 ua-cam.com/video/FnIV3rumTaY/v-deo.html Mvt 3 ua-cam.com/video/Q9ZbXSbPOJw/v-deo.html another take frpm 1974, now with an uncannily re-tuned equal-temperment piano: logically we expect later efforts to be a bit more measured, more relaxed... here its sometimes even 'slower', which i quite appreciate! one could love these rapturously rational sounds at Lamonte Young tempos and beyond. i hear a bit more control and transparency in the 3rd mvt recapitulation. otherwise? it's cooler, less warm. as if we favor some particular ambience, some extra pedaling details? by 1972 Gilels had worked on this for 30 years! but what strikes me is the tuning- seemingly expertly tuned for this piece much more than other versions; as if it's been studio-tuned for each of this piece's movements. hard to say with youTube equalization but i seem to be missing the careful - if ephemeral - work with the octave harmonics - eg, the transposed pure-octave triplets @ 30:10- 30:14 (5th page from the end, just before the etude section returns). in some of Gilels late versions of this Stalingrad Sonata, pure-octaves bring out the piano's "3rd tone" additive-subtractive harmonics effect better than others. otherwise the performance? so close- so contemporary - it's clearly the same Gilels, nearly indistinguishable from the 1972 Melodiya vinyl. : : : September 19 - 23, 1974 Vienna Musikverein Großer Saal ua-cam.com/video/qzr-R9aKZm8/v-deo.html&start_radio=1
Either the sound quality is poor, or he used too much pedal in the quavers (8th notes) in the 3rd movement; prefer Richter or Berman. 1st movement, of course, is an absolute kaleidoscope under Gilels's hands
yes, to western audiophile ears, we could protest it's a complete dank disaster. could be helpful to hear a Melodyne fixing. except i hear each harmony just as they are notated. yes the 3rd movement becomes rather "experimental" as if we've gone wild, faster than ever. what for!? for an adrenalin rush? these individualists are so anti-social. Soviet music should represent the inspired pacification of slaves. at least the harmony is all there when the final "con brio" Right-Hand leap into the machine-gun triplets.. well maybe something flew into his ear. it tells us Gillels himself is excited. perhaps another execution was in order but the audience was in chains. anyway its just one bar. then his muscle-memory gets him back on track. perhaps Gillels is now serving his time. Lazar Berman recorded this sonata quite well of course if not quite this fast. it seems Berman owes much to Gilels. Richter doesn't seem to share the same vision. here's the 3rd mvmt. from Gillel's complete 1972 studio recording on Melodya : ua-cam.com/video/Q9ZbXSbPOJw/v-deo.html
yeah, he's really going for it in the recapitulation... accurately bashing in the penultimate page. then two bars of the bravura finale "machine-gunning" RH go awry. I've actually heard a faster tempo ... literally re-shaping the text unrecognizably. Gilels here may be following a competitive late-Soviet trend the west never exploited. but then he gets his RH right back on track- wow! and in the same tempo! crazy-making, non-stop thriller action
@@leosullivan9228 I learned this sonata with great difficulty, and I am very far from the level of Gilels.😆😅 In the third part, one of the main difficulties is not to play so fast that you won't be able to finish it later. But Gilels is coping with such an insane pace. (sorry for my English, I'm from Russia)
it's an equal-temperament instrument. Prokofiev pushed western sonorities to the limit.. here's a recording that re-tuned the piano specifically for the piece. it's cooler, less warm. as if we favor some particular ambience, some extra pedaling details. by 1972 Gilels had worked on this for 30 years! here what strikes me is a tuning as if it's been studio-tuned for each of this piece's movements. hard to say with youTube equalization but i seem to be missing the careful - if ephemeral - work with the octave harmonics - eg, the transposed pure-octave triplets @ 30:10- 30:14 (5th page from the end, just before the etude section returns). in some of Gilels late versions of this Stalingrad Sonata, pure-octaves bring out the piano's "3rd tone" additive-subtractive harmonics effect better than others. otherwise the performance? so close-contemporary with the 1972 Melodiya - it's clearly the same Gilels, nearly indistinguishable from 1972. here's Gilels 1974 - September 19 - 23 @Vienna Musikverein Großer Saal ua-cam.com/video/qzr-R9aKZm8/v-deo.html&start_radio=1
a Brahma-blue murk of monsoon sky moves a writhing lunar C+ season of frolic and noble norsemen seahorse creatures. their huge sonar segments once pulsed endless whorls underlinking the worlds brain-corals-- now at an ever rest, just breathing in the oceans' tide. the sea has drunk so many such signs; it sighs quiet obbligati to the wine-red moons' cries. piquant dreams dripping long-ago tunes of suffering as one; each a glitter trailing across failing skies . we are all times' failing all suffering sighs, all seasons of reason falling fast to each trusted trouble bubble bursting. each a surreal skit, each a colored emotion rich with glorious glitters within us until sea pressure pops us back into breathing our own writhing tidal bliss... still dumb dreaming with our wandering wonder need; still fudge struck in a clumsy stickyluck. motile darkness continues greeting all expanding breathers in our outer places. occasional unrecognized yearnings from ghostly passing phosphorescent Chopin fingers tally up blinkered hesitation; our suspicions avoid any under-knowing of abalone-stone's pale blind eyes. these register an insistent subsonic atomic distance, our individual saturation. each recalls our own faint recollection of duration, such a dear and dreary memory of day life- who is allowed to play? so yes again we dance! we prance we fall in love with left feet out of line; machine gun rat a tat tat re-orders our new times. its second attention. calls the relentless crawling mechanized cretin creation racking up our eternal generations' groundless, scrambling quest for safer central redoubt hides when we were in behind the times, within predictably moving tides forming under whelm and ignorant wonder: just what are we doing with ourselves in this electronic weather; and who could remain still breathing outside > > > Once upon a time, this work was known as THE STALINGRAD SONATA after the bloody turning point battle which Pravda - NATO-media orgs - all sides still label "War-Decisive" ... perhaps Prokofiev ditched his western wife and owed his life to every attempt at placating Stalin & "The People", if even for the moment. then after the war a bizarre Soviet rebellion against so-called, nominative, and western "musical formalism" and its "programmatic music" was forced on Soviet musicians... until one day in 1953 Prokofiev met Stalin at St Peter's Gate- both had died the same day. and Soviet music? well Shostakovich kept up his pace with The Great Tradition. if SergeiP or VladimirL coulda,woulda wanna revoke our narrative fantasy? composer P gave a few smaller, later works wonderfully evocative titles like Landscape... Old Grandmotherrs' Tales ... this Sonata #8 - like its Stalingrad times- seems clearly inspired by contrasting dramas, war's sounds, chemical colors, and even something Prokofiev once conspiratorially named: THE SPIRIT OF MAN
@unkalzum Can you sing 'em? They are jammed with song as all of Prokofiev. But I'm surprised Mr. Gilels would have played such a lousy piano. Since this was live he mayn't have had a choice. Anyway I agree with others here - piano out of tune.
agreed i find myself dreaming of these interwoven tunes, the sheer proliferation of forms from a monumental minimum - one gesture of three semi-tones forming the foundational material... so you seem to play this piece. and likely you understand: pianos are inherently out-of-tune. are you certain its not the unusual harmonies you are hearing? there is even one tritone which vibrates 'out of tune' in multiple Gillels recordings
omg. sorry but Richter didn't have patience or time to develop the the techniques Gilels developed for this sonata's prescient take on later music. Gilels brings out the 3rd mvmt triplet octaves' with exquisite sensitivity to harmonics as if the piano had The Who's 1970's electronics
This Gilels performance sucks, it's incredibly bangy, drenched with pedal, full of wrong notes, boorishly interpreted with tons of ignored dynamic markings. Worship of him is mass delusion. I will never understand it.
After at least the 100th listen to this sonata, it suddenly doesn't sound ugly to me anymore. It sounds absolutely beautiful!
+Echoherb This sonata is a real treasure! One of the best creations of musical art in 20th century... And this interpretation seems to be much more colorful and fresh than any others! The best Prokofiev's work in my opinion! :)
@@UEDSC i agree. This is one of Prokofiev's best pieces... even thou he has numerous of best pieces in my opinion.
bravo to all brave listeners. 8th musicality all up there with the surreal 2nd Piano Concerto and the exquisite Violin Concerti
A magical piece given an equally magical performance.
This sonata is like an ocean full of fascinating little creatures!
+Juhis Oksanen
It is interesting, because my imagination always have some problems to percept all ideas which had been put into this music.. it seems to me a bit heavy and overloaded sometimes (too many ideas in each bar to realise all of them as one plot ) Gilels gives me chance to get it as something whole and insepable, as carnival of Prokofiev's creative power! This is whole Universe of beautiful musical ideas!
+UEDSC I feel the same! That's what I love about listening this kind of music; the journey it offers for the listener during several times of listening it: from the "first dives" where everything is just a strange, beautiful, chaotic unkown until the point, after many listenings, when you know the melodies and the complete structure of the work. In my opinion, all the journey is enjoyable in different ways and when a compostition is clear in mind it's time to find some new waters to explore again from the beginning!
Juhis Oksanen
Yes, it is! Very nice commentaries! I like it, thank you :)
@@UEDSC i think you are supposed to feel overwhelmed during the first few listens. it was written amidst the war and prokofiev certainly had the evil and violence of war in mind when writing this sonata. Gilels does execute this sonata perfectly tho.
well put, Juhis. it is... walking through a dark dreamscape. then burning glitter falls from sky . we are falling, all falling fast .
cubistic sections pop like bubbles for a bit, then we're back dreaming in slow darkness . revealing desolate battlefields,. in the distance is a call to days dreary violence... then we dance and prance a machine gun rat a tat tat... the dark dreaming pops back. anyone still breathing?
Once this work was known a THE LENINGRAD SSONATA. pehaps Prokofiev owed an attempt to placate Stalin & "The People" for a moment. a Soviet rebellion against so-called "formalist" and western "programmatic music" was in force. after Prokofiev died, who cared for dear Stalin ? maybe Sergei would have loathed our narrative fantasies, but he gave many smaller works evocative titles
sorry but Gilels loved learning this one, a gift shared between friends. Comrade Giels employs still-extraordinary techniques for this sonata's often prescient take on our later music! hard to duplicate even for Gilels but at times (more so in studios) Gilels' Prokofiev carefully focuses on ephemeral, additive-subtractive harmonics where pure-octaves are transposed across the keyboard (eg: octave triplets forming the 5th page from the end, just before the etude section returns). where sensitive harmonics are captured what results sounds as if the piano had Who's Next, 1970's electronics. similar sounds were not unknown on 1942 battlefields (even telegraphs produce novel electric sounds and rhythms). the 3rd mvt thesis is similarly sonorous, where Gilels' carefully chosen voicings of Prokofiev's close tone-clusters consistently lends the piano a radiant presence. Prokofiev helped Giilels learn this sonata while writing it; and the score itself offers hints about these new sonorities, offering an occasional oddly-placed breve or quaver to reinforce potential harmonic-partials
By far the best, the greatest performance of this sonata I have ever heard. There is 10 times more "music" in this performance than in any other, even by other great pianists.
The beginning of this performance is an absolutely miraculous bit of piece playing. Luminous.
A great piece of musical genius
I never thought, Prokoffiev would sound like a late romantic -.and Gilels does it impeccable, of course.
Maravillosa interpretación !!!!
Потрясающе!!!
@ntoddparsons Gilels was the first performer of this sonata.
Such a great piece!...and I've never heard Gilels play it. The only performance I know well is Ashkenazy's. This Gilel performance is a fantastic - much more viceral power than Ashenazy's. Thank you for posting it!
I don't think "viceral" is something Ashkenazy is capable of.
Finally!!!
Thanks a lot!!!
Dear Perfectionists and String Players: its not "out of tune" if its consistent across recordings: its equal-temperament under the thumb of Prokofiev w Gilels pushing into surreal sonorities superceding jazz/ fusion while predicting EDM and digital sound-beds. this is most clear in the studio where pure-octaves transposed across the keyboard (eg triplet-octaves form the 5th page before the end, just before the brief "etude" recap) exposes standard piano tunings; elsewhere we find exposed tritones producing other types of beats - additive-subtractive beats consistent across recordings and performers. don't recall the date of this recording but Gilels is excitement with a crowd who attends to extraordinary work. in the 3rd mvt recapitulation he accurately bashes the penultimate page- until two bars of the bravura finale 'con brio' machine-gun drilling Right-Hand just go awry. the great Lazar Berman in the 1980's made similar attempts at live recordings of this Stalingrad-8th. Gilels here may be following a competitive late-Soviet trend the west never exploited; likewise Prokofiev himself was so relieved when Stalin et al permitted him to leave off performing duties to others- eg, Richter and Gilels. then it was Gilels after 30 years who returned to devote to Stalingrad's sonorous perfections. as mere mortals we ground ourselves in sustainable tempi, or - Catastrophe! most impressive how Giels the maniac mangles two 'con brio' bars - and accurately recovers, landing the RH position back on track- Yow! and yet fully recover the same tempo AND rhythm without a metrical interruption? his insane pace, this performance- is recording ever perfection? this is simple sheer crazy-making, non-stop thriller action
21:54 Prokofiev is quoting Sonata 7!!
watch it, funny guys got the GULAG
リヒテルもギレリスも好き♥
Of all the recording of this sonata with Gilels, I think this one is the best. Is there any information about this recital?
The music is difficult to perform as it is to understand, and the recording is suboptimal. Yet, this is great music played by a great pianist. It helps to know the historical context to appreciate this music. Both Prokofiev and Gilels were held up as Soviet artists and highly decorated. Yet, both hated the communist regime. It was too dangerous to let anyone know this and so, these emotions are expressed only in the music. An obvious example is the short middle movement; this was nostalgia for the old bourgeois Russia. In hiding the references to the sufferings in the Soviet Union, the message in the sonata becomes universal, speaking to the oppressed and depressed whenever, wherever and whoever. The Eighth Sonata is a monumental masterpiece, worthy to stand beside the Beethoven sonatas.
this is a live version; inevitably the recording is in some respects inferior to the 1972 Melodya recording where Gilels devoted to and downloaded for us so much of the Soviet-lineage transmission. most technical is is their modernist perfection testing pure octaves. most challenging is the 5th page before the end: one page of one theme in pure, triplet, octave-transposed octaves. the extremes of pianism under Gillel's hand, difficult to replicate even for him,. reflect something of early EDM's repeated sine-wave effect (aka beeping) - something new within WW2, just the sort of thing keeping Prokofiev evergreen: a fresh curiosity for sound
Yes. They probably did hate the regime. If they were nostalgic for the "old bourgeois Russia" I can understand their suffering and for such great artists to suffer is in itself unbearable.But unfortunately the Russian Revolution was not about the bourgeoisie. It was more about improving the lot of the vast majority of the population, the peasants and the working classes, the conditions of ;life for whom was barely tolerable.Oppressed,illiterate, backward, low life expectancy, uneducated ,in fact virtually utterly hopeless.The Revolution was about changing all that and it was a massive task.Nostalgia for a comfortable bourgeois life for a small minority of the population whilst the vast majority suffered was no longer acceptable. All in all, the lives of both Prokofiev and Gilels,given the shattering ,tumultuous times in which they lived, Revolution,Civil War, famine, Stalin etc. were reasonable.They could have sufferred just as much in the bourgeois West.Look at the life of Bartók..Atg least they were appreciated and were generally financially secure and received all sorts of honours.But yes.They probably hated the regime.Many did.
If it was too dangerous for anyone to let it be known that they 'hated the communist regime', who are you to assert that Gilels and Prokofiev's art expresses such hatred? Most creative artists are not the biggest fans of regimes and governments of any kind, but to assert that Gilels and Prokofiev were motivated in their art by hate is totally unsupportable. They are far, far more subtle than that.
And I always thought that the slow movement was more a gentle consolatory mockery of nostalgic central European dance forms, punctuated by the descending minor motif of more Russian character which seems to come down from the Moon, as if representing an ineluctable cosmic future which renders Old Europe insignificant rather than all-powerful, and nostalgia for it naïve rather than dangerous. And as for the sufferings of the Soviet Union, far from being hidden, the Sonata is completely shot through with tortuous and agonized music that explicitly expresses suffering and the strength that endures and overcomes it without hate.
@@albertlanda1146 Prokofiev was not financially secure. He fled gambling debts in the United States to return to the Soviet Union, where he became practically a prisoner of the state, finally denounced for 'formalism' in 1948 and struggling with massive debt until his death in poverty in 1953.
i find no evidence Soviet musicians hated communism- or knew any hate bc hating Stalin, State, etc would be 100% self-destructive- like today. what they protested is more the mortal fear of repression- its socially-weaponized anger, its genuine danger; all its organized, suppressive-aggressive authoritarian tools commodifying territory &/ or status. free artists join Socrates beyond passive-agg mob-mentalities to live first within and only then beyond the agreeableness required for tolerant societies to fruit sustainably
from Gillel's uncannily spacious 1972 studio recording on Melodya which has long been considered a standard reference for this extraordinary sonata.
Melodya studio Mvt 1 ua-cam.com/video/FnIV3rumTaY/v-deo.html
Mvt 3 ua-cam.com/video/Q9ZbXSbPOJw/v-deo.html
another take frpm 1974, now with an uncannily re-tuned equal-temperment piano: logically we expect later efforts to be a bit more measured, more relaxed... here its sometimes even 'slower', which i quite appreciate! one could love these rapturously rational sounds at Lamonte Young tempos and beyond. i hear a bit more control and transparency in the 3rd mvt recapitulation. otherwise? it's cooler, less warm. as if we favor some particular ambience, some extra pedaling details? by 1972 Gilels had worked on this for 30 years! but what strikes me is the tuning- seemingly expertly tuned for this piece much more than other versions; as if it's been studio-tuned for each of this piece's movements. hard to say with youTube equalization but i seem to be missing the careful - if ephemeral - work with the octave harmonics - eg, the transposed pure-octave triplets @ 30:10- 30:14 (5th page from the end, just before the etude section returns). in some of Gilels late versions of this Stalingrad Sonata, pure-octaves bring out the piano's "3rd tone" additive-subtractive harmonics effect better than others. otherwise the performance? so close- so contemporary - it's clearly the same Gilels, nearly indistinguishable from the 1972 Melodiya vinyl. : : : September 19 - 23, 1974 Vienna Musikverein Großer Saal ua-cam.com/video/qzr-R9aKZm8/v-deo.html&start_radio=1
i listen to it now.
ultimate
solo Gilels ha interpretato Prokofiev al 100%
100%*
i suspect Gillels' hand was always 10% with us, with maybe 51% playing with the gods
Either the sound quality is poor, or he used too much pedal in the quavers (8th notes) in the 3rd movement; prefer Richter or Berman. 1st movement, of course, is an absolute kaleidoscope under Gilels's hands
yes, to western audiophile ears, we could protest it's a complete dank disaster. could be helpful to hear a Melodyne fixing. except i hear each harmony just as they are notated. yes the 3rd movement becomes rather "experimental" as if we've gone wild, faster than ever. what for!? for an adrenalin rush? these individualists are so anti-social. Soviet music should represent the inspired pacification of slaves. at least the harmony is all there when the final "con brio" Right-Hand leap into the machine-gun triplets.. well maybe something flew into his ear. it tells us Gillels himself is excited. perhaps another execution was in order but the audience was in chains. anyway its just one bar. then his muscle-memory gets him back on track. perhaps Gillels is now serving his time.
Lazar Berman recorded this sonata quite well of course if not quite this fast. it seems Berman owes much to Gilels. Richter doesn't seem to share the same vision. here's the 3rd mvmt. from Gillel's complete 1972 studio recording on Melodya : ua-cam.com/video/Q9ZbXSbPOJw/v-deo.html
why does it sound abit out of tune towards the end?
i'm not hating, just wondering...
He play very FAST
yeah, he's really going for it in the recapitulation... accurately bashing in the penultimate page. then two bars of the bravura finale "machine-gunning" RH go awry. I've actually heard a faster tempo ... literally re-shaping the text unrecognizably. Gilels here may be following a competitive late-Soviet trend the west never exploited. but then he gets his RH right back on track- wow! and in the same tempo! crazy-making, non-stop thriller action
@@leosullivan9228 I learned this sonata with great difficulty, and I am very far from the level of Gilels.😆😅 In the third part, one of the main difficulties is not to play so fast that you won't be able to finish it later. But Gilels is coping with such an insane pace. (sorry for my English, I'm from Russia)
it's an equal-temperament instrument. Prokofiev pushed western sonorities to the limit.. here's a recording that re-tuned the piano specifically for the piece. it's cooler, less warm. as if we favor some particular ambience, some extra pedaling details. by 1972 Gilels had worked on this for 30 years! here what strikes me is a tuning as if it's been studio-tuned for each of this piece's movements. hard to say with youTube equalization but i seem to be missing the careful - if ephemeral - work with the octave harmonics - eg, the transposed pure-octave triplets @ 30:10- 30:14 (5th page from the end, just before the etude section returns). in some of Gilels late versions of this Stalingrad Sonata, pure-octaves bring out the piano's "3rd tone" additive-subtractive harmonics effect better than others. otherwise the performance? so close-contemporary with the 1972 Melodiya - it's clearly the same Gilels, nearly indistinguishable from 1972. here's Gilels 1974 - September 19 - 23 @Vienna Musikverein Großer Saal ua-cam.com/video/qzr-R9aKZm8/v-deo.html&start_radio=1
what was he trying to do in the finale, catch a bus?
Much better than Wang Yuja ! I disliked this sonata because of her recording. My mistake !!
Gilles is genius, Wang is a plastic toy with phenomenal motor skills
a Brahma-blue murk of monsoon sky moves a writhing lunar C+ season of frolic and noble norsemen seahorse creatures. their huge sonar segments once pulsed endless whorls underlinking the worlds brain-corals-- now at an ever rest, just breathing in the oceans' tide. the sea has drunk so many such signs; it sighs quiet obbligati to the wine-red moons' cries. piquant dreams dripping long-ago tunes of suffering as one; each a glitter trailing across failing skies . we are all times' failing all suffering sighs, all seasons of reason falling fast to each trusted trouble bubble bursting. each a surreal skit, each a colored emotion rich with glorious glitters within us until sea pressure pops us back into breathing our own writhing tidal bliss... still dumb dreaming with our wandering wonder need; still fudge struck in a clumsy stickyluck. motile darkness continues greeting all expanding breathers in our outer places. occasional unrecognized yearnings from ghostly passing phosphorescent Chopin fingers tally up blinkered hesitation; our suspicions avoid any under-knowing of abalone-stone's pale blind eyes. these register an insistent subsonic atomic distance, our individual saturation. each recalls our own faint recollection of duration, such a dear and dreary memory of day life- who is allowed to play? so yes again we dance! we prance we fall in love with left feet out of line; machine gun rat a tat tat re-orders our new times. its second attention. calls the relentless crawling mechanized cretin creation racking up our eternal generations' groundless, scrambling quest for safer central redoubt hides when we were in behind the times, within predictably moving tides forming under whelm and ignorant wonder: just what are we doing with ourselves in this electronic weather; and who could remain still breathing outside > > > Once upon a time, this work was known as THE STALINGRAD SONATA after the bloody turning point battle which Pravda - NATO-media orgs - all sides still label "War-Decisive" ... perhaps Prokofiev ditched his western wife and owed his life to every attempt at placating Stalin & "The People", if even for the moment. then after the war a bizarre Soviet rebellion against so-called, nominative, and western "musical formalism" and its "programmatic music" was forced on Soviet musicians... until one day in 1953 Prokofiev met Stalin at St Peter's Gate- both had died the same day. and Soviet music? well Shostakovich kept up his pace with The Great Tradition. if SergeiP or VladimirL coulda,woulda wanna revoke our narrative fantasy? composer P gave a few smaller, later works wonderfully evocative titles like Landscape... Old Grandmotherrs' Tales ... this Sonata #8 - like its Stalingrad times- seems clearly inspired by contrasting dramas, war's sounds, chemical colors, and even something Prokofiev once conspiratorially named: THE SPIRIT OF MAN
@unkalzum Can you sing 'em? They are jammed with song as all of Prokofiev. But I'm surprised Mr. Gilels would have played such a lousy piano. Since this was live he mayn't have had a choice. Anyway I agree with others here - piano out of tune.
agreed i find myself dreaming of these interwoven tunes, the sheer proliferation of forms from a monumental minimum - one gesture of three semi-tones forming the foundational material... so you seem to play this piece. and likely you understand: pianos are inherently out-of-tune. are you certain its not the unusual harmonies you are hearing? there is even one tritone which vibrates 'out of tune' in multiple Gillels recordings
totally wrong. Richter is much better
Sorry but what exactly is wrong? What do you mean by "totally"? (Richter didn't agree with you about Gilels' interpretation of this))).
omg. sorry but Richter didn't have patience or time to develop the the techniques Gilels developed for this sonata's prescient take on later music. Gilels brings out the 3rd mvmt triplet octaves' with exquisite sensitivity to harmonics as if the piano had The Who's 1970's electronics
This Gilels performance sucks, it's incredibly bangy, drenched with pedal, full of wrong notes, boorishly interpreted with tons of ignored dynamic markings. Worship of him is mass delusion. I will never understand it.