STEINWAY TO HEAVEN

A nice record, but a failure in a whole. This is a sampler of "gifted" keyboardists, so many times cold and half-hearted, with few exceptions, such as tracks 1 and 2 and of course track 7. I mean, this record focuses on the commercial side of music, exposing in a proper and not-so-elegant-way to new audiences what classical influences means and how it merges and stays in prog-music. To say the least but not last, those recordings comes from various ages, and the feeling is not quite constant. Honestly, anyone should try this record and realize that there's more beyond our close universe. A nice try. peace

It is curious to hear those we have usually listened to on prog and rock albums playing gems of basic piano repertoire of the classical field. Although this recording combs through various genres as regarded bringing musicians to play, this review is not the one that is about criticizing them as it is not a piano competition to compete like virtuosos, let us just have a lense upon these prog-key-gurus while plunging into classical music. However, some basic comparisons seem to be unavoidable, but let us be soft-hearted with these wonderful musicians and let us emphasize their positiveness during their performances. About Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, Patrick Moraz, Jordan Rudess, we have always known that they have classical music training, education, tendencies and aspirations as having tremendous amount of music of that genre or at least in fusonial form in their highly original recordings and compositions. It is bit more suprising to have such keyboardists as Dizzy from Guns, David Bryan of Bon Jovi. It is not so surpsising to have a third click in the performers scale of this recording namely Mark Robertson, Chris Ingles, Chuck Leavell, all known as accomplished keyboardists from the same or different backgrounds. There are two Beethoven pieces to hear here. The first is the adagio cantabile of the sonata in c Op. 13 interpreted by Rick Wakeman. In its present form it is nicely shaped into a polished harmless something, hardly to be compared to the original one, partly because it is only the second part of the work (even cut half), and partly because Wakeman's performance here can never be up to such giant interpreters of the work as Emil Gilels, Artur Schnabel, Alfred Brendel, Wilhelm Kempff. etc. But it is nice to see that there is a this kind of thing. This can be also said about the second Beethoven work, which is sonata in c-sharp Op. 27 No. 2 interpreted here by David Bryan, at least the first mouvement of the opus marked adagio sostenuto, it is quite okay as an interpretation if not having any marking because it is lacking it. Names to compare rather not be said here, no offence. Ginastera's music is not so popular as the others on the recording (although his concertos are to be heard in the concert halls quite sometimes), so might have been said to be got over soon, that's probably why it is the first on the disc. Danse creole (played by Keith Emerson a bit too ELP-Like) is quite a nice and absurd piece, although it is played not so weird to a european ear as was written to be. Chopin is known by almost everybody taking care of music, his pieces are part of piano repertoire everywhere. And so many people have played them in history. We have two of his shorter compositions, which are far more than simple finger exercises. Sadly, the more play them the less do it in the appropriate manner they deserve to be played. Jordan Rudess, sadly this is right about my big favourite Tony MacAlpine, is one of them to play Chopin without the true light and nature, as interpreted by for example Alfred Cortot, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, or Maurizio Pollini Garrick Ohlsson, as later ones. Jordan Rudess, Dizzy Reed, Tony MacAlpine, and Chuck Leavell (let's just not speak about his eclectic jazz-smelly paraphrase like thingy on the prelude in e here) have the zealousness about Chopin's ouevre, and that's okay. Everybody has. By the way, It would be great if we were to finally hear Op. 53 polonaise in a-flat major by a prog-key-man not the Op. 40 here! The Brahms seems almost okay, but we would be interested in hearing the whole piece of the two books, but maybe you have to be Julius Katchen, Wilhelm Backhaus, Claudio Arrau for instance to do it, whose deeds are superb in the work. Gabriel Fauré wrote better music than this pavane Op. 50 here; but is an interesting choice to play. Kathryn Stott's complete piano music of Fauré is highly recommended to see the difference, but Brian Auger is not that bad at it either, of course. Liszt's music has always been popular and will always be, although his late pieces are much heavier to digest. Petrarca 104 from Années is somewhere in the middle, and we can agree that this performance of the piece done by Mark Robertson is the peak point of the record. Finally, the last two tracks are of two 20th century composers being Prokofiev and Ravel. Prokofiev's Op. 4 No. 4 is a bit colourless, the Ravel Pavane also, to cut it short. But this all does not matter. The best thing is that we can here hear these wonderful musicians playing these great and beautiful compositions, which are still great and beautiful even played not so well.