Every artist takes cues and influences from their surroundings. Listening to recordings is one of the most important cues in the development of an interpretation, a great tool for growth of one’s musicianship and technique.
Here are the ten recordings that influenced me most on my path as a musician:
The Lioness of the Piano! When I listened the first time to Gaspard de la Nuit I was in my early teens and it was Martha Argerich’s recording
Alfred Brendel would have to be very high on the list of pianists who had a big influence on me.
During my undergraduate years in Freiburg, Germany, I had a student subscription to a chamber music series featuring Martha Argerich relatively regularly.
Grigory Sokolov’s 1969 two CD set features a selection of the monuments of piano repertoire including Stravinsky’s Petruchka, Schumann’s Carnaval and Prokofiev’s 8th and 7th sonatas.
A gold standard recording of a set of pieces that are in themselves gold standards of music.
I love well programmed and thematic recordings, which is why I enjoy this 1999 CD of Murray Perahia so very much.
Larger than life: Arcadi Volodos's Carnegie Hall debut recital in 1998. If you feel starved for live music, this is the album to hear.
If someone were to asked me, what recordings I would take to a lonely island, I would put on top of my list Franz Schubert’s song cycle “Winterreise”
Growing up in Germany and moving through the music conservatory system meant playing lots of Bartòk
When I was about 5 or 6 years old my mom and I began listening together to music. We just sat and listened
