: His remarkable ear for sound as well as his musical understanding - which are skills 17yos simply don’t have… I mean 17! I would have raised an eyebrow over a 27 year old with these qualities… Last I heard a 17 year old play this well his name was Ben Grosvenor.
No such feelings here. There’s no requirement on your ethnicity, hair colour etc to become a great pianist - or a great anything. It’s mind, environment & education.
Not overrated. Just a much different career trajectory than I thought he’d have after his debut and first few years of notoriety through about 2000. I was expecting more early/mid Horowitz and less late Sokolov.
Ahahahah da VOL reputation on da SDC durin antiquity tymz (pre 2010 ) actually
A bit zheeyat
Diz due to da cuntztant chairmofo + vice chair editorial propaganda dat da VOL tranzz all juz eazy tech zolutionz fo max effect, lackin in ‘difficulty’ n alzo da fact he avoid duelz in core SDC rep
That’s odd though. He never sounded anything like early/mid VH even in his youth. It’s the transcriptions I guess, but he said already back then that he thought Horowitz was a better composer than pianist.
The Sokolov influence is there though, for better or worse. He’s a huge fan.
Well, your vote is as good as mine, but I’d say career direction, repertoire, and as an inspirational force. I put them in the same drawer, but I think Volodos’ playing is more similar to Freire today for instance than Sokolov.
He has this extended Hamelin thing going on. He actively and deliberately wants to distance himself from his early virtuoso career. It makes perfect sense to me to stop playing the Carmen Variations in your 30s, but I think both Volodos and Hamelin lately have tried to rebrand themselves in such a deliberate way that it almost becomes silly.
He’s on his way back to some moderate middle position with the repertoire now at least, and I hope his playing will follow suit soon as well. Where it’s about making music again and not just to play boootifulli in every single bar.
We shall see, gonna hear him in a few weeks (unless the roof falls down again). Not too much pretty going on in the rep this time, and I just saw he’s swapped kreisleriana for humoreske and some bunte blatters, so that’s pretty annoying.