I don’t like Pollini’s ballade’s very much at all. Though there is an early ballade 1 which is passable.
The only pollini I truly enjoy is the Bartok 2(for sheer technical freakiness, otherwise it’s pretty weak), the chopin etudes from when he was 14 and maybe even his Brahms quintet.
That’s all. Everything else, including his Chopin Etudes, I just consider to be of medium quality. Not a very compelling pianist IMO.
harsh.
I think his Pimp son is fantastic, easily my top 10, and I have around 130 versions of the bminor.
His ballades make great use of voicing, like Chopin would have liked, but not to the point where it sounds like straight counter point the whole time.
Just listen to the Ballade 4 again, listen to how connected the bass is, and the harmonic connection from chord to chord.
I just don’t understand why someone could dislike his ballades. Most recordings of those sound either too dry or too wet to me, and the voicing if Chopin is usually mediocre (With the exception of Pollini, Cecile Ousset, Katsarsis {but fuck him}, and Horowitz), his is a perfect mix for me.
IMO voicing in Chopin is equally important as in Mozart, and can really make or break a rec. When you listen to those 4 recordings, it’s obvious that they paid attention to phrasing, voicing, and the different lines.
I would love the Horowitz recording, but the D flat an octave above the one above middle C is so fucked up on that piano and bright compared to the other notes. I know it’s not the way Horowitz was playing it. No flat fingered technique can make a note sound that ugly, let alone his.
Now the only thing I would change about Pollini’s recording is the volumes of the highest voice with the melody… never cadences soft enough for me, and sometimes it sounds slightly disjointed but his excellent pedalling makes up for it. I still have to find a rec I like better, but I’m quite happy with his.
Does it not sound like two pianists are playing at 2:45? I love his contrapuntal control.
randomly I haven’t heard his ballades, cud sumbody post?
Pollini is good, but there are definitely better pianists…
i will post when finals week is over (2 more) unless i actually get more time
Umm he probably just overdubbed himself in the studio. He tends to do that shit, you know…
I have a hard time believing he played more than two bars at a time for his Bartok 2 sessions… i’d love to hear how poorly he plays that LIVE
haha i c
There is a vid of him playing Bartok 1, have you heard it?
When asked about your favourite recordings of the first Ballade:
Vlad '68 at CH, Gilels, Annie Fischer and Witold Malcuzynski are my favourites
Oh, and an early Pollini rec that I really like.
Yes indeed i have an insane memory. 
Da Pollen iz juzt a bit…
tru, da first one 
unmature
No i haven’t… But I have no experience with Bartok 1, so I wouldn’t even know if he was playing well or not 
I have vids of him playing Brahms 2 and Brahms 1 Live, and they are a bit lacking, but ultimately a bit better than his studio recs… but then, I don’t like his Studio Brahms at all.
wow, do you think it’s actually possible that he did one hand at a time? I’d be really fucking bummed, but it sounds kind of doubtful, although yeah i’ve heard about his punch ins…
i just think that would be strange to do.
well, it’s definately possible, he had done some erally erally heavy slicing and mixing with his widely-acclaimed chopet recordings. (WHich I don’t really understand, as his 14 yrs old live perf of these etudes are already to the point of note perfection and maturity).
well still,
you listen to EMI’s Cziffra HR’s, you hear splicing all of the freaking time, and they are generally good at producing…
this confuses me though because the recording was made in 75
i guess they were able to do that shit back then, just not well