Piano CD recommendations (1 Viewer)

Any recommendations for a piano album? Classical or jazz or both if you could. Thanks.

Murray Perahia - Bach: Goldberg Variations

Marcus Roberts - The Joy of Joplin

A Window in Time Vols. I and II -- Rachmaninoff

The most perfectly recorded piano I've ever heard.

ANYTHING by Theolonius Monk and Wynton Kelley.

Herbie Hancock lost it after "Mwandishi" and he got caught up in being hip with the young white audiences...he's a sellout and I hope he saves his money from those Bose infomercials...he is completely nowhere now.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet Time Out.

No jazz piano collection is complete without Bill Evans. "Portrait In Jazz" & "Conversations With Myself" are good places to start.

I'm a big Marcus Roberts fan, too. "Joy of Joplin" is amazing (you'll never think of The Entertainer or Maple Leaf Rag in the same way again!). I suppose some ragtime purists must hate his approach though. Very exciting stuff! I also highly recommend his "Cole After Midnight."
Fred Hersch is also great. I especially like his "Plays Rodgers & Hammerstein" CD.
and I just picked up something by David Osborne--an artist I am not familiar with--called "Red, White and Blue." As you might guess, its a collection of patriotic songs, some hymns and other songs, too. Its very nice. In something of the same style as Jacqueline Schwab who plays in many of the Ken Burns documentaries.
For classical, I recommend any of Murray Perahia's Mozart Piano Concerto CDs on CBS Masterworks.
Lots of hard decisions! But fun ones!

If you'd like some classical music, I recommend my favorite pianist Emil Gilels. Some of his renowned recordings are :

Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 8(Pathetique)

No. 14(Moonlight)

No. 21(Waldstein)

No. 23(Appassionata)

and many more..

Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1/2

Eugen Jochum, Berlin Philharmonic

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1

Zubin Mehta, New York Philharmonic

Pathetique/Moonlight and Waldstein/Appasionata are coupled in 2 CD's from DGG/Universal and Brahms piano concertos are also from DGG. Tchaikovsky's one is coupled with his violin concerto performed by Pinchas Zuckermann/Mehta/Israel Philharmonic and from CBS.

What's a really good Oscar Peterson album?

My favorite is "Oscar in Paris", a two disc live set from 1996. The CDs are in the exact sequence of the concert and it is fantastic.

I highly recommend "The Studio Recordings" - Vladimir Horowitz. This was recorded near the end of his life so there may be better examples of his mastery out there; but this disc is still pretty incredible, especially for an 81 year old man.

Check it out.

May I suggest Keith Jarrett? My personal favorite is The Koln Concert, but as he's done loads of albums I'm sure there are more great ones out there...

"Mwandishi" by Herbie Hancock...the stand alone, import only, digipak release...not necessarily the US 2Cd compilation. More compelling than the "Rock It" stuff.

I too would recommend Perahia doing the Bach Goldberg Variations on Sony Classical.

And the fantastic box set of all of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas played by Richard Goode on Nonesuch is a must.

I'm a big fan of Chick Corea. He has several "phases" to his long career. I like the Akoustic Band cd which nabbed a grammy when it was releasd a while back.

Michel Camilo is cool too. He's a pianist from the Dominican so his style is more latin/afro-cuban.

Depends what sort of jazz and what sort of classical.

Jazz is pretty much a closed book to me, but Oscar Peterson is a safe bet for (for want of a better word) 'easy on the ear' jazz. His earlier albums are generally more virtuoso displays, though often not as well recorded. Keith Jarrett can be a little toughter on the ear. Start with something like the Koln concert - if you don't like that, then chances are you're not going to like a lot of his other stuff. If you do get into Jarrett, then probably his greatest work is the Sun Bear Concerts - a boxed set of recordings from a solo tour of Japan. In recent years, Jarrett has tended to work in a trio, covering a lot of standards (most have 'Standards' in the title). I find these unlistenable, but this is purely a personal thing, and a lot of critics find these recordings the bee's knees.

Classical recordings are very thick on the ground. If you want an introduction to the various styles, try the series of 'great pianists' on the Phillips label. The whole series is *vast*, but there are a couple of sampler CDs at budget price.

Generally, classical pianists fall into two categories: the virtuosos and the interpreters, and this generally reflects the repertoire they choose.

The virtuosos generally go for the most technically demanding music. Good modern examples are Evgeny Kissin and Hamelin (Horowitz is another good example, but really only on his early recordings, which aren't exactly hi-fi in some cases). Try the latter on any of his recordings of the works of Alkan (a contemporary of Chopin and much much more technically demanding). Kissin's recordings are generally breathtaking (try his recording of the Moonlight Sonata), but can be murder on anything but a well set-up system. If you have a system where bass is god, but the midrange hasn't been attended to, Kissin's recordings will punish it mercilessly.

The interpreters tend to emphasise interpretation rather than pianistic fireworks (though this doesn't mean they're not technically accomplished as well). Perahia is a good example (also try his 'Songs Without Words' album; incidentally, IMHO Schiff's recording of the Goldberg Variations is even better than Perahia's, good as his is), as is Maria Pires (try the Schubert improtmptus and the Chopin nocturnes).