Miho's favorites

  I love both, classical music and classical heavy metal music .  Classical music and heavy metal music have certain things in common such as requiring high technical musical instrument skills to be able to play.  I have posted about “ Musical taste shows personality “ in one of my past posts ( September, in 2008 ) at the link below,  http://miho-entwistle.blogspot.com/2008/09/musical-taste-shows-personality.html     Liszt’s “ Sonata in B minor “ initially took me a little while to warm up to it.  Then recently, I had a dream in which I was listening to Liszt’s “ Sonata B in Minor “ in it.   And while listening to it in my dream, I had some discovery, I really enjoyed listening to it, and so the more I listen to the music, the more I’m deep into it.      http://gallery.xemanhdep.com/2011/07/14-beautiful-art-photos/   And I found that this music can be heavy metal music . And really understand why Liszt has many fans who are heavy metal musicians.  When the first ti

I love Chopin & Liszt ! Recently, I’m so loving to listen to my old CD of Chopin which I purchased when I was still in my 20’s. ( Over 20 years ago .) It has Chopin ’s Piano concerto No.1 in E Minor, Op 11 and also his Piano Concerto No.2 in F Minor, Op.21. Performed by Pianist : Samson Francois Orchestre : National de L’Opera de Monte-Carlo Conductor : Louis Fremaux This was recorded in 1965. This music is so fantastic !!! I wish some great figure skaters would perform with them also. Seems like Chopin created both of these music masterpieces when he was around 19 years old ! How could he create such incredible concertos at such a young age ? Except for one other music piece, these are the only music compositions he created for Piano with Orchestra . Almost everything else he wrote was for solo Piano, except for some chamber music with piano and viola. At the time I originally bought this CD, I wasn’t listening to it much becaus

  Franz Liszt was quite tall in his generation, standing 6 feet 2 inches tall , long blonde hair , piercing sharp eyes, pianist' long narrow and delicate hands and fingers. His body build was very slender. People who knew him described his personality as full of charm, charisma, and very knowledgeable.  And he loved brainy women. He was the consummate artist. It seems that Liszt loved dangerous love , which thrilled him and gave him excitement rather than a stable, peaceful , safe love. Franz Liszt While reading about his biography, I was wondering why he fell in love with two princesses who were already married. Marie D’Agoult He seems to have had a lot of love affairs in his life, someone found out that he had at least 26 serious relationships in his life ( besides countless other affairs ) but the only ladies he thought about marriage was with these two princesses , Marie D’Agoult and Carolyne Sayn Wittgenstein ? Charlotte Von Hagn L

Franz Liszt's bio book #1 by Alan Walker Franz Liszt ’s long bio books by Alan Walker arrived here several days ago ! and we are still in the process of reading them. Each volume has over 480 to 600 pages and the author Alan Walker’s research about Liszt’s life is fabulous ! Franz Liszt's bio books #1, #2, #3 by Alan Walker We found many new discoveries about Liszt as a person, as a pianist & composer and his life, and his views. He was a storm, a very expressive, passionate, unique, charming artist. Kindhearted, very generous, caring, temper, high pride, a social person , enjoyed being on stage or with a group of people. However, he did not sacrifice his originality and uniqueness in order to be with a group ( check out his long hair and unique sense of fashion, some kind of mixture of robin hood, zorro and pirate ) and he had a deep passion to promote great music. Ray is saying Franz Liszt is like the Bruce Lee of piano p

Continued from “ Franz Liszt and Frederic Chopin’s friendship Part 1”. On 26th of April, 1841 Chopin gave another concert in Salle Pleyel in Paris on which Liszt wrote a long review , published in the Revue et Gazette Muscale, that left itself open to varying interpretations. While Liszt expressed his admiration for his fellow artist, Chopin and his circle of friends, and his family members, were upset about some parts of his review. They were upset by the fact that Liszt did not praise Chopin as a composer, and failed entirely to mention the opus 38 Ballad in F major , opus 40 Polonaise in A major , and opus 39 Scherzo in C sharp minor , all of which Chopin had performed as part of the program. At the same time, Lisztomania was spreading like wildfire. Wherever he performed, audiences were awestruck by Liszt’s breathtaking virtuosity and style, and the audiences reveled and raved, quite beside themselves with wonder and enthusiasm. Very few artists are able to

Frederyk Chopin   I’m a long time fan of Chopin’s music since when I was a teenager. Started loving his music from hearing his Polonaise , then Noctunes , Etudes … Frederyk Chopin I was using one of Chopin’s Nocturnes as my background music for my answering machine when I was in my 20s. In Japan, many of his music is famous and used in many TV dramas, commercials, movies, and mostly wealthy bourgeois family scenes. My image of many of Chopin ’s music that I’ve listened to is of a cozy, bourgeois world. From almost all his music I’ve ever heard, I often pictured an elegant, wealthy family’s world or a story about a family who are living in a luxury antique style house. Many of Mozart ’s music reminds me of a social life in an older generation, a story about bourgeois world in a gorgeous luxury palace. For Liszt ’s music, his music is very variety, ranging from an image of a sweet passionate love story for couples, all the way to nightmare horror story type of mu

More about Camille Saint Saens . This is Part 2. Camille Saint Saens was close friends with the legendary composers Franz Liszt and Pyotr Tchaikovsky as well as with another renowned French composer , Gabriel Faure . As mentioned in my last post about Camille Saint Saens, Liszt was a huge help in promoting Saint Saens music, by including Saint Saens music in his own concerts, by staging concerts of Saint Saens operas, and in general doing all he could to help the younger composer. When Saint Saens was 50 , he began composing another symphony in the early part of 1886. He had scarcely begun, however, when he received word of the death of Franz Liszt . The news affected Saint-Saëns deeply and he immediately decided to compose his new symphony as a tribute to Liszt, and to dedicate the work to his memory. The inclusion of a prominent role for the piano was part of this tribute. Tchaikovsky first met Saint-Saëns during the Frenchman's concert tour to Moscow in No

I realized there are so many great top level pianists all over the world and I still need much more time to see all the greatest pianists. And I found that once the highest levels of piano playing are reached, at that point who you think is the best or is your favorite all depends on one’s taste and how the pianist performance and personality touches you. Personally , I love mixture of a dynamic performer, wild and also with sensitivity plus elegance with masterful technique and emotion and musicality. I’m surprised that it’s so different impression with same music depending on who is playing it , and also depending on the pianist’s mood at the time of the performance. So far, my favorite pianists of the 20th to 21st century are below, ( no particular order ) Here is the list : * Agustin Anievas (USA) * Yuki o Yokoyama ( Japan ) * Samson Francois (France)  * Vladimir Horowitz (Russia) * Yundi Li ( China ) * John Browning ( USA)  * Sandor Falvay ( Hungary )  * Tom