Path: ...!news.misty.com!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!i2pn.org!i2pn2.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: DeepBlue Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.recordings Subject: Re: Listening to Julius Asal Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2024 10:20:26 +0000 Organization: novaBBS Message-ID: <7130199a97038d659fe27fa5dab2cd55@www.novabbs.com> References: <1679b88780ed529c1781a1899f35231d@www.novabbs.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: i2pn2.org; logging-data="2537755"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@i2pn2.org"; posting-account="L4ozCGMUEbXVEIzIXD99et3+WnVNFBKXawH4b6+kPZQ"; User-Agent: Rocksolid Light X-Rslight-Posting-User: be875b3aae916c2b12c8684b10982543d49ec6b1 X-Rslight-Site: $2y$10$7Pt67fBg4elyQ0U0zeWaB.rjZxdTbshgXl915sSH.q.SLngM6bX4q X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 4.0.0 Bytes: 5762 Lines: 82 On Wed, 14 Aug 2024 2:23:21 +0000, DeepBlue wrote: > On Tue, 13 Aug 2024 23:45:48 +0000, PPeso wrote: > >> Julius Asal is a promising new addition to the DG/UMG roster of young >> pianists. His rather remarkable cd debut was a Prokofiev album (IBS >> 12022) recorded in Granada in May 2021 in the midst of the pandemic. It >> certainly caught my attention. It included the 4 Piano Pieces Op.4 (with >> an excellent Suggestion Diabolique) and the 3 Pensées Op.62 sandwiching >> the Romeo and Juliet ballet, not only the 10 Piano Pieces Op.75 arranged >> for piano by Prokofiev but also transcriptions by Asal himself of the >> other numbers from the original ballet Op.64, with appropriately fierce >> renderings of the Quarrel and the Revenge and Fight scenes. >> >> After such an auspicious beginning came the contract with Deutsche >> Grammophon. I expected he would choose to cover similar grounds for his >> big-label debut, say Bartok or Shostakovich. So it was quite a surprise >> that in 2023 he chose instead the combo Scriabin-Scarlatti. >> >> While unified in their love of miniatures, this is not the most obvious >> coupling. On the one hand the nepo baby Scarlatti, with one foot in the >> Baroque and the other foot in the Classicism, all crystalline textures >> and Spanish rhythms. On the other hand the synesthetic Scriabin, >> starting from Chopin and moving over time vers la flamme toward his own >> version of mystical Gesamtkunstwerk. While most pianists have in their >> repertoire a few bits here and there by these two authors - great >> appetizers to start off a concert or perfect encores - arguably there is >> only one top-rated pianist who has successfully explored both of them in >> detail and depth, and this is Horowitz. Great Scriabin interpreters like >> Sofronitzky and Richter have avoided Scarlatti like the plague, and on >> the other end committed Scarlattists like Michelangeli have shown zero >> interest in Scriabin. So, for Asal to start off his DG career with this >> pair of composers was intriguing but not riskfree, and in fact a few >> reviewers have been lukewarm, substantially welcoming his debut >> recording with a shrug. >> >> Quite unfair. While on balance less successful than his Prokofiev >> reading, the Scriabin-Scarlatti album is definitely worth considering. >> To make the concept works, Asal chooses the most compatible dimensions >> of the two composers, sampling their most melancholic and introspective >> aspects (quite a surprise in light of the aforementioned meteoric >> Prokofiev). For Scarlatti this means the masterful K87 in b (recorded by >> Horowitz both in 1935 and fifty years later), or the K466 in f, recorded >> by Horowitz in his wonderful collection of 1964 and recently revisited >> by, say, Grosvenor in 2008 and - yes! - Yuja Wang in 2010. Especially >> successful is the contrapuntal K58 in c. Makes one think about what Asal >> could do with the first book of JS Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (if he >> goes there my bet this will be among the most interesting 21st century >> WTCs since HJ Lim). >> >> About Scriabin, Asal mostly goes for the gentle, intimate, late-romantic >> pre-1904 Scriabin of the Preludes Op.8, Op.11 and Op.16. In other words, >> don't expect the Scriabin-as-a-prophet as in Sofronitzky (and Richter, >> and Sokolov), nor the demonically-possessed-Scriabin as (often) in >> Horowitz. If anything, Asal reminds me of Bashkirov in this repertoire. >> The core of the album is the 1892 Sonata No.1 in f Op.6, possibly the >> most overlooked among the ten sonatas. Asal plays it in its entirety, >> and also bookends the album with two short excerpts ("Quasi niente") >> from the haunting IV movement. >> >> There is an excellent pairing of Scarlatti's K544 in B flat and >> Scriabin's Prelude in e flat Op.16 No.4, with Asal acting as master >> somelier choosing the right wine to go with the food. And there are also >> a couple of prelude-like ruminative "transitions" originally improvised >> by Asal himself. Why? Just because. If there is a problem with the whole >> approach is a certain lack of textural variety, or – to put it plainly – >> some degree of sameness. Lovely recorded by the DG team (the executive >> producer is Christian Badzura, same as for Vikingur Olafsson’s recent >> albums). > > So what's your point? That someone can play both Scrtchabin > and Scratchlatti? HJ Lim, Katsaris, Pogo and Treif all do, > and probably others. This is actually pretty good: Asal Julius (Germany) Final round PALMA D'ORO 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJzaOjyFL3Q More revelatory about the kid's musical abilities than the Scrtchabin and the Scratchlatti Cheers!