Bortkiewicz piano music - Coombs

Been listening to the Bortkiewicz Piano Music-2 CD, Stephen Coombs on Hyperion. Very 19th century Russian conventional Romantic. Pleasant listening, no jarring chords or sudden tempo changes, melodies that seem sort of familiar, like you've heard them before but can't quite remember how they go.. I think this music is analogous to American/European 'ballad' music of the '50s and '60s, before that genre melded into 'country pop' in the US.

Mind you, I'm not knocking it. It won't keep you awake if you're sleepy, but the drift-off will be pleasant.

The music sounds very familiar. I heard Coombs and a few preludes on the radio a few days ago played by a Dutch pianist and these sounded as if they were paraphrases of Chopin's Op. 28.

I have that, it's awful. Coomb's fault, I suspect, since his every note sounds identical except for pitch, in which his effort to reduce all differences to indistiguishability was thwarted by the mechanism of the piano. Utterly listless.

- Phil Caron

That's the guy, couldn't remember his name. Pretty basic MIDI piano. Coombs, Phil's bitch not withstanding, does provide a modicum of dynamic variety which Mr. Thadani doesn't. Still one has to wonder about dynamic instructions in the score.

Bhagwan Thadani's name has been mentioned. he has done some fine work (allowing for MIDI recreations) for Bortkiewicz, Blumenfeld and Godard.
http://www.geocities.com/bthad.geo/

Rob Barnett

While Mr Thadani may well have been too persistent with his postings I remain grateful to him for giving us the chance to hear 'recreations' of rare works like the Bortkiewicz piano ctos (2 and 3), at least one Godard symphony and much else by the likes of Antipov and Blumenfeld.

Mr Thadani's midi CDs of the Bortkiewicz symphonies 1 and 2 introduced me to those two splendid works long before the Hyperion CD issued last year.

I see from his website that he is still active. Long may he remain so.