The Most Spectacular Chopin Scherzos Ever Recorded (ft. Jed Distler) | Ep. 4 The Chopin Podcast

[@LisztyLiszt]

Seong-Jin Cho is phenomenal. And his 4th Scherzo is fabulous. Edit: Glad you agree!

[@MrLedZepper]

The Cho set is a great pick by Distler. They are just stunning with attention to detail in every Scherzo.

[@phenylalanine7392]

seong jin cho my beloved

[@KIBICKE94]

Incredible Seong-Jin Cho, indeed

[@skatemore6108]

This is a fantastic channel. I’m a former music major and I kind of got burnt out at school and never finished the degree. Your videos have reminded me ab so much of why I was drawn toward studying music in the first place. Thank you for what you do!

[@jfpary7336]

Chopin's music will never cease to captivate...

[@piotrkol91]

Very happy that you mentioned the late Janusz Olejniczak. Wonderful pianist, teacher and person. Watched an interview where he was very excited for the upcoming Chopin Competition. He is the main reason I started playing piano 12 years ago. For me his recordings are iconic and shaped my taste and style for listening and playing Chopin. Very sad about his unexpected passing. Thanks Ben!

[@mickizurcher]

Give us the link please

[@benlawdy]

@@mickizurcher olejniczak’s scherzo? Here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hGGQo6yvn9F0mZYsi=7APOOwB8uSBnunYF

[@bernardd]

Yes, thanks Ben for including that Janusz recording on a period Erard.

[@idontknowmusictheory532]

Thank you so much for making these videos, as someone who has been obsessed with Chopin for years at this point it really means the world to me!

[@jayhu2296]

SEONG JIN CHO MENTIONED

[@janventer2892]

One of my favourites...Stefan Askenase....forgotten Chopin pianist !

[@Zympans]

13:45 this burst is something else. Wow. And yes, scherzi from SJC are astounding. He takes no prisoners remaining unshakeable throughout. One of his almost inhuman displays. The sonics are awesome too. The slow movement from the first scherzi: in a league of its own. Didn't know Horowitz though. Scintillating.

[@PianistDanielFritzen]

Thank you! Olekniczak's recording is a revelation how this music can come alive on this piano. I feel this instrument makes different aspects come alive than modern grand pianos.

[@kwgm8578]

The Scherzos are very appropriate for Halloween -- they scared the hell out of me.

[@benlawdy]

@@kwgm8578 that’s right. Just have them playing on loop full blast, leave a bowl of candy out of the kids, and you can call it a night

[@m420-nd1if]

​@@benlawdyThanks for everything you do! Yours is one of, if not THE, best channels on piano and Chopin❤ Have you ever considered widening the scope on more other composers? I would for example love some more Bach content, but only if the Chopin content doesn't get neglected :P Actually I am perfectly happy with your channel as is, Chopin is the sun around which the piano universe orbits. So maybe disregard my suggestion and just accept my gratitude ❤😂

[@benlawdy]

@@m420-nd1ifthank you! And of course I will widen the scope, but I’m committed to the Chopin series right now. But you can look forward to more diversity in the new year :)

[@benlawdy]

@@m420-nd1ifand Bach, specifically, will be getting his due in the new year!

[@kwgm8578]

@@benlawdy Hi Ben. Love the work you do, here and on ToneBase Piano. Seymour Bernstein is quite a special guy, as is Garrick Ohlssen, of course. You can tell Seymour that I hated Gould's Mozart -- spent almost $30 years ago on his Complete Sonatas, and after an hour of surfing the discs, they went into the recycling bin. Listening to them was almost obscene, like a filthy joke told at a congenial dinner party, (or a fart at a State Dinner.). By the way, it wasn't the sound of the Scherzo (#3), that put me off -- it was those triplets in octaves. "Too many notes, Chopin!" Happy Halloween! 🎃👻👽🕷️🍭

[@TheOssia]

Yundi Li’s recording of the Scherzos are worth hearing!

[@sctm81]

His #2 is fantastic

[@sonholee5769]

Man. That recording by Janusz Olejniczak seems amazing! Will have to look for it.

[@RanjanSubramanian]

I am actually enjoying the Ohlsson recordings from the Hyperion complete works set excerpted during the podcast. Slower paced than most other recordings and Garrick is, of course, skillful enough to highlight details and voices others miss or gloss over.

[@chazinko]

Try Richter's 1977 Munich Eurodisc recordings for a poetic account of these gems.

[@jankwestarz7434]

Greetings from Poland Ben, it is really nice to hear about Janusz Olejniczak in American podcast. it really sad information that he passed away.

[@mickizurcher]

Olejniczak is inspired!

[@nintendianajones64]

Claudio Arrau's Scherzos are as good as Zimmerman's Ballades. They're incredible.

[@brozors]

Argerich's recording of the 3rd scherzo is peak virtuosity within Chopin's music.

[@deutekom2004]

I began my journey into Chopin's scherzo with Nelson Freire's remarkable performance, which resonated with brilliance and passion. This interpretation has left such a strong impression on me that it's rare for other renditions to match the satisfaction I found in his artistry.

[@guacamole7493]

Yeah. His is quite good.

[@deborahspiano]

Well, there's a lot of different interpretations and each of us will feel different by listening them, have saying that, we have our favs interpretations/interpreters, that's the magic about Chopin's music, it can be played in differents ways and sound beautiful as well ❤

[@nickk8416]

Check out the Chopin playing of Andrzej Wasowski. He died in 1993. His Preludes are sublime. He's hard to find but worth the effort.

[@DawidxBe]

I agree that Seong-Jin Cho's performance is truly exquisite: pure, precise, full of emotion (the lack of emotionality was - wrongly - pointed out during the Chopin Competition), but after a long search I found my incredible treasure, Piotr Paleczny's performance (Piotr Paleczny, "Chopin: scherza, nocturny", The Fryderyk Chopin Institute 2015). Please, give this recording not one, but two chances, especially the ending of the third scherzo, where the hope given is suddenly taken away irrevocably.

[@jeff__w]

1:14 “…a recording by Seong-Jin Cho” Seong-Jin Cho is one of my favorite pianists also but Jed Distler makes the pronunciation of Cho’s given name a bit more complicated than it is. The _eo_ in Korean romanization represents simply an _aw_ sound in English so the first part of Seong-Jin’s name is, effectively, _sawng,_ or, even more simply, _song_ in English. (That, incidentally, also accounts for the spelling in English of South Korea’s capital-it’s basically _Seo-ul_ or, how it would be pronounced, roughly, in Korean, _saw-ool,_ without any w-glide.)

[@farazhaiderpiano]

5:23 I would've nominated Guiomar Novaes's recording of this same scherzo which was bootlegged from a recital of hers in 1949/1950ish. It is on KZbin. But Horowitz is a wonderful choice!

[@SGregW]

Thanks for bringing these recordings to my attention. For an electrifying No. 1, hear Natan Brand in a live recording. Also Katsaris in all four - his control of voicing is mind bending....maybe in some ways a little too clever, but amazing nevertheless. The Olejniczak sounds wonderful. Someone did a good job restoring the old Erard in that recording.

[@armandodelromero9968]

For me, the reference has always been Ivo Pogorelich for DG

[@jimkost2002]

🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽🎯👍🏽👍🏽

[@Andrew_from_Oz_Vinyl_Landscape]

Love the:Recording recommendations but I cannot hear what’s in Horowitz Ballade 4 , sound quality sounds like a cartoon imho.

[@Andrew_from_Oz_Vinyl_Landscape]

Olejniczal Ballade 2 is transcendental imho

[@iianneill6013]

Never realised before how Gottschalk-like the slower passages are of the Third Scherzo ... Gottschalk in his American prairie-style ...

[@Samuri_Jack_Enjoyer]

Gottschalk mentioned!!!

[@iianneill6013]

@@Samuri_Jack_Enjoyer I wish that at least half of the great Chopin pianists had also played some Gottschalk ... I think his reputation would be a lot higher than it is, today, if they had done that ...

[@levimatheri7682]

No Yundi Li? *gasp*!

[@itsagasgasgas]

Michelangeli is my favourite in Op. 31

[@andre.vaz.pereira]

Olejniczak and now Arthur Moreira Lima... October is not the best month for Chopin... RIP them both... Pletnev live rendition of the Scherzi is very good. I have some favourites but to do them live in Italian National TV RAI... We simply have to give him the credits for the cicle of scherzi.

[@Daniel_Zalman]

For individual recordings, I think Michelangeli's Scherzo No. 2 on DG is spectacular. I couldn't imagine a better performance of that work.

[@leonardodelyrarodrigues3752]

Best Scherzo no.4 : Yulianna Avdeeva 2010 First stage internacional Chopin Competition.

[@jonbaum]

Bruce Liu's 4th from the Chopin competition is also fantastic. kzbin.info/www/bejne/o2e5laN7fplrmsUsi=T0CRJ7i4W5PIt-At

[@leonardkobal7340]

What about Pogorelić??

[@militaryandemergencyservic3286]

Pletnev does them all on a single YT video - it was the only video I could find of them all on yt at the time. (I mean not just audio) Does anyone know anyone else brave enough or good enough to do them all on a single video here on YT? Pletnev is, of course, the best male pianist today together with Lugansky and Volodos. at 9:20 Horowitz makes a mistake (despite Mr Distler's claim of perfection etc)

[@derndernit8275]

Sometime in this I geuss you will get to his sonatas, I just remembered Pogorelich Sonata 2 played in a nice room favorite interpretation ive seen (havent searched many, and after I found that one)though the audio quality is less than ideal and lesser in some moments. Also just came across Zimmerman grande polanaise brilliante from old chopin competition, i didnt look hard but cant find the full piece just 3 min version on youtube but wow.

[@isaacthrpenquinez1098]

Marek Jablonski best grande polonaise

[@derndernit8275]

@isaacthrpenquinez1098 first I heard was the credits of the film 'the pianist' tied for first with young zimmerman who might actually edge it out for first, your guy can be 3rd place if you insist, on further listen, Marek has a nice full warm lush tone, zimmerman what first attracted me was the crystalline clarity and feel, the pianist guy maybe has a bit of both, no contest their all enjoyable thanks for the rec

[@abuthayakumar4919]

Anyone know where I can get the tee that Ben’s wearing? 😅

[@Daniel_Zalman]

Pogorelich, Richter, Katsaris...can live without the rest (as far as recordings of all 4 go).

[@drgaryb13]

Why not properly pluralize "scherzo" as "scherzi?" The Italian in me is panged by "scherzos."

[@Pablo-gl9dj]

I despise the plural police.

[@drgaryb13]

@Pablo-gl9dj - I'm surprised you didn't say, "polices" just to keep up the quality of your thought.

[@benlawdy]

@@drgaryb13 I find it unnatural to say “scherzi”, not being a native Italian speaker. Same with “concerti.” I might be traumatized from going to music school with American singers who took a semester of Italian diction and suddenly every Italian name or cognate was overpronounced and stuck out of their otherwise plain English dialect like a sore thumb.

[@benlawdy]

@@drgaryb13 also it’s worthy pointing out that the scores I grew up with - like the Paderewski edition - have “Scherzos” in big bold font on the cover. Yes, Henle prints “Scherzi”, but also “Sonaten.” So what are we to do? I’ll stick with the plain conventions of the language I’m speaking.

[@drgaryb13]

@benlawdy - Yes, I was actually trying to be funny. I don't lose sleep over this.

[@russbaldwin516]

The people have spoken on utube cantten H.S sch no1...over 1 mill views😊

[@iianneill6013]

Great video! Would have loved to have seen Alexander Michalowski's recording of the First Scherzo name-checked. Absolutely volcanic playing you'd expected from the only student of Carl Tausig to be recorded ...

[@mcbuuiop]

0:36 CATTTTTTT

[@Schubertd960]

No Grosvenor? Surely one of the most creative recordings of all time.

[@dorfmanjones]

Grovesnor is the best I know. Beatrice Rana is in that Olympian realm as well. There's a particular live performance of the 4th Scherzo by Shura Cherkassky that is the best individual performance of a single scherzo I can imagine.

[@benlawdy]

@@Schubertd960 I love Grosvenor (and I know Jed is very fond as well), but confess to having missed his Scherzos. Just turned them on, 20 seconds in to No. 1, and already blowing my mind. Thanks for the rec!

[@Zympans]

@@benlawdy he is for sure looking there for novelties, some new melodic lines in the outer parts. And is incredibly fast. But the carol part is imo the test. And I still without hesitation give an edge to SJC when it comes to musicality there. And while I'm a BG fan, I'd say his rendition, while impressive at first, is aging less convincingly than SJC's. Slightly too technical, or how to put it, micro-managing? I prefer his recent recordings muuuch more. But it's, you know, just an opinion.

[@niraj_suresh]

Agreed, Grosvenor has the best set in my mind! Some of the things he does with voicing and rubato are mind-boggling

[@mariampmu]

Not a recording, but a live performance by Zimerman in 1992 (Avery Fisher Hall, 1000th concert of his career). I love it, even if the audio is not the best: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l3OZgJd7ob2imZIsi=jESXGYM4XoRQvaFY

[@actualglacier]

Cho's 4th scherzo feels very much inspired by Pogorelich's recording

[@CarolHaynesJ]

Cho is just too relentless for me. Really disliked the Horowitz recording - it was too "tossed-off" and often sounds quite mechanical. Nice moments but they don't make a good performance. I think sometimes Horowitz is too "virtuosic" (in the worst sense) for his own good - it can be all flash and crash. Olejniczak is much more to my taste and feels "authentic".

[@benlawdy]

@@CarolHaynesJ it’s interesting because some of Horowitz’s later recordings of the first scherzo are relatively slow. In the 30s though he was winning speed records, for sure - to paraphrase rachmaninoff. The “tossed off” quality is an aesthetic that works for many listeners in these particular pieces. I do think there’s more to the Horowitz than just that technical brilliance/ the organic interplay between voices, the structural sweep of the whole thing - as Jed points out. Having said that the Olejniczak is a revelation for sure, and there’s much more to discover in the Scherzos when it’s played with his stylish nuance.

[@jonbaum]

I find the scherzi to be the weakest of Chopin's larger works as to my mind there's far too much repetition in them. The opening section of No. 1 is played SIX times.

[@tk9806]

For Scherzo No1 I recommend Benjamin Grosvenor

[@rrg6625]

Much of this is too fast. The musicality is killed, and for me not pleasurable to listen to. What is the rush?

[@miguelisaurusbruh1158]

your opinion cuz i love these speeds

[@lightball1414]

To show the rest of us how inadequate we are in our feeble attempts to perform the work.

[@miguelisaurusbruh1158]

except horowitz tho

[@XPKpianist]

Your ears are just too slow.

[@retrogamerdave362]

Listen to Abdel Rahman El Bacha. He takes his time and abandons showy/meaningless virtuosity for the sake of the music. His ballades and scherzos are a refreshing new take

[@caphaddock1126]

I strongly disagree. Judge for yourself de 4 scherzi by Ivo Pogorelich. In his recordings for Deusche Gramophone and moreover live in Napoli (It’s in youtube.).

[@benlawdy]

@@caphaddock1126 true, pogo is a god in these pieces especially

[@gang_stalker_]

I've listened to a lot of different recordings and I believe Pogo is the definite champion of the scherzi, sometimes his live recordings are even better!

[@jakealexander977]

I had a feeling this video’s comment section might get heated

[@christopherczajasager9030]

Benjamin GROVESNOR.....t h e. present era " Reference"😊😅....

[@JohannnesBrahms]

You listen to the Cho recording of 4 and then the Horowitz 1936. Both are technically masterful. Both impress with fingertip acrobatics. Both express feeling in the music. What makes them different? If there were AI software that could play the piece with perfection, presuming the mechanical expertise to execute the phrasing, dynamics, rhythmic style, and musical expression, Cho could do that. The Horowitz performance has something else that no software or algorithm can ever hope to achieve . . . Life! The piece under the hands of Horowitz lives and breathes and sparkles and dances with musical meaning and transports you to a place in which perfection is irrelevant.

[@EmptyVee00000]

And then you hear Ashkenazy, and you are on a much higher plane.

[@JohannnesBrahms]

@@EmptyVee00000 In your opinion.

[@EmptyVee00000]

@ Well, obviously not in anyone else's, except those who understand the enormous difference between playing excellent piano, and making great music.

[@JohannnesBrahms]

@@EmptyVee00000 You are obviously biased.

[@profelimofficial]

I have no objections to your main point about Horowitz ("The piece under the hands of Horowitz lives and breathes, sparkles, and dances with musical meaning, transporting you to a place where perfection is irrelevant"). However, to me, Cho's recent recording Jed Distler reviews in this video also breathes and sparkles like a living organism, telling stories full of twists and turns and often transporting me to an otherworldly realm imbued with the paradox of eccentricity and beauty that the scherzi evoke.

[@tom6693]

I hear incredible speed and amazing precision but by the end am wrung out by the relentless rush of it all. Astonishing as sheer playing, but I miss the ebb and flow of feeling that other pianists find in these pieces. Just not to my taste.

[@guacamole7493]

Not a list to be takben seriously. The Korean guy sounds like dozens of other late 20th/21st century recordings No mention of Richter's 4th? Or Alfred Cortot? There's a beautiful performance of the 4th by Godowski from 1930 here on KZbin also. Hoffman's unmatched. There's a recording of him doing the 1st here on KZbin. The 2nd are all piano rolls I believe.

[@benlawdy]

@@guacamole7493 Garrick and I do talk about a specific 4th of Richter’s in another interview. Obviously there are countless great recordings, and lots of ways to interpret, so tastes differ widely. But I’m curious who else sounds like Seong Jin Cho? I’d like to listen!

[@profelimofficial]

I'm also curious to know which 20th- or 21st-century recordings sound similar to Seong-Jin Cho's. By the way, the use of the phrase, "the Korean guy," in the comment is quite *interesting*.

[@guacamole7493]

@@profelimofficial Listen to a polish guy, Josef Hofmann play Chopin's 1st ballade, there's a kraut, Walter Gieseking who plays some great Ravel and Debussy. Also a Frenchie, who plays some good Faure, Alfred Cortot. In a different vein there's a Canuck, Glenn Gould who brings some interesting takes on Bach. There are more I could list. All the above make the more recent pianist since Ashkenazi, Kissin, Kovacevich, Pollini, sound like drones plodding away at some unimaginative, "academically correct" way of playing.

[@EmptyVee00000]

Incredible fingers, but full of cheap "espressivo." We live in a world where people have incredible means, but communicate nothing of any value, except quirky non-essentials like out-of-context rubato, tone color, or mini-phrasing. At least Mr. Distler mention the pianist who played the best 4th Scherzo of all time, whether at the Chopin Competition in 1955, or on the first DECCA recordings. Clown Horowitz always made a mockery of all music he played, with the exception of Scarlatti.

[@aritrodasgupta2841]

White is no one talking about Yulianna Avdeeva here???🥹🥹🥹