Search - Bedrich Smetana, Franz Liszt, Frederic Chopin :: Teresa Carreño, Pianist

Teresa Carreno

AScott | Salt Lake City | 06/07/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Have been curious for many years about the remarkable woman who captivated audiences and was a force of nature on the concert stage. This recording is an important and invaluable glimpse into performance practice of the 19th century. The Pierian Recording Society has obtained piano rolls made by Carreno in 1905. The performances are quite technically stunning, and are marked with amazing dexterity and fluid tempi that serve the artist if not the composers.

The quality of the recorded sound is wanting. The piano sounds as if it has been recorded in a small room and the dynamic range is not what one might hope for. Still - if you are able to listen to the performance and ignore the quality of the recording - this is an exciting glimpse into the 19th century."

The Valkyrie of the piano!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 09/01/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The sumptuous and deserved place occupied by this Giant pianist comes not only the countless comments of people who had the chance and honor to watch her in front the piano.

Not only by her Dionysian abilities and extraordinary pianism, but also by her tremendous rapture sense, profound enthusiasm and beyond that the sense of span, something that it has lost in a considerable legion of new pianist in the actual stage.

I had the privilege in 1982 to meet a conspicuous music's dilettante in a Piano Recital in Caracas. That sensitive human being, pitifully is not with us trusted me he was invited to Puerto Rico in 1975 in occasion of a Claudio Arrau's Recital, and he had the chance to exchange some minutes with the acclaimed pianist.

I asked him to dictate me in a napkin (the encounter was brief and unexpected) about to his mind, the list of the ten greatest pianists throughout his life. Kindly, Arrau told me without pause, "Please set Carreño in the first place, and then argued, her hands movements on the keyboard and fingering. I still remember her in 1913, playing with Arthur Nikish and Berlin Philharmonic a monster program: The First part of the Concert was composed by Chopin's Fantasy Op. 49, Waldstein and Appassionata; and then -believe it or not-the Concerts No. 3, 4 and 5. The Concert finished past midnight."

The list was completed with these names in strict order: Ferrucio Busoni (according Arrau he never saw another Hammerklavier performance like that ever), Wilhelm Backhaus, Artur Schnabel, Wilhelm Kempff, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Rosalynn Tureck, Egon Petri, Simon Barere and Sviatoslav Richter.

When you listen this Carreño' s Waldstein ( I knew about this recording thanks to the kindness of a friend of mine Eduardo Chibas in 1987 who got a LP in Germany and lent me to make a copy on a treasure CrO2 that I still conserve) you won't hardly believe it. It's the most expressive, imaginative and dazzling version ever recorded.

This CD is a collector item. At last, after an unexplained apathy and terrible neglect of many people in Venezuela and overseas about the greatness, importance and supreme transcendence of this unequalled keyboard Giant of the recent past.



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