Ashish Xiangyi Kumar

Another great one -- no swooning over beauty or transcendence, just keeping things moving very naturally, focusing on the big line and building to key moments. Bit Argerichian in that there's lots of expressiveness at high speed. It's always a good sign when the audience wants to start clapping before the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPS49...

1 week ago | [YT] | 50

Ashish Xiangyi Kumar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eJpM...

Goddamn, they let a personality in there!

1 week ago | [YT] | 69

Ashish Xiangyi Kumar

Rehab tour starting soon.

(But first, Ballades!)

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 276

Ashish Xiangyi Kumar

www.instagram.com/reel/DPNFhAygmwI/?igsh=N2oxYjVmM…

Reminds me of when I had just uploaded the last of the Beethoven sonatas and was able to, while sitting on the train, go through every theme of every sonata in order in my head.

Felt really cool, was totally useless, lost it after 2 months. (For some reason the interval between sonatas 15-20 always defeats me. Even today I'll get to one of those and completely draw a blank; bit shameful because three of my favourite sonatas (16-18) are in there!)

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 156

Ashish Xiangyi Kumar

[Fixed issue -- you can now comment!]

youtube.com/@jaybacevicius3606

I need help with some detective work. This channel (Jason Bacevicius) has posted three astonishing-to-superhuman recordings -- of the Liszt/Horowitz Mephisto Waltz, the Rigoletto Paraphrase, and an entire recital comprising Brahms' PC 1, the Brahms/Paganini Variations, and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. (The tempi in the final pages of the latter work...)

All three recordings appear to have been made live, and the pianist isn't indicated. Any idea who this may be?

The unbelievable (possibly suspicious?) playing makes me think it can't be someone unknown, but strangely nothing's ringing any bells

1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 116

Ashish Xiangyi Kumar

Amazingly enough there aren't any proper analyses of Chopin's Sonata No.1 anywhere, so I sat down in a cafe with a pen yesterday and got to work.

After a while, I was convinced it was a pretty good sonata. Then a very good one. And then when I got to the finale and all those cyclic things planted in the earlier movements paid off, I was blown away. This is ridiculously good music, and deserves to be performed as often as the other two sonatas. No idea where the terrible reputation this work got comes from -- it's obviously the product of someone insanely talented & ambitious and is in several ways the most radical & subversive of Chopin's sonatas. And it just sounds *so good* -- probably the most immediately accessible of the sonatas.

In fact there were so many nice things going on I couldn’t keep track of them and had to list them down on the last page of the score so I didn't get completely lost. (Not depicted on the last photo: over the last bar to the left I scribbled "Absolute top-tier shit", which is a fair reflection of how enthusiastic I got.)

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6 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 986

Ashish Xiangyi Kumar

Some days running this channel gets me into some really fun rabbitholes.

For instance: I recently uploaded a video of Chopin’s 4th Scherzo, which opens with a blisteringly fast recording by Ashkenazy; after the video went public, a couple of you pointed out that it was pitch-shifted, and thus probably slightly sped up. I’d noticed the weird pitch when listening to the recording, but just shrugged it off.

I thought: huh, yeah, that’s interesting. Let's see where I got that recording so I can figure this out (it’s not the first old pitch-shifted recording I’ve come across, but I was curious nonetheless). I open the scherzos folder on my comp, and that recording is labelled “Ashkenazy 1955, Chopin Competition”. Just a .wav file though, no metadata. I recall first hearing this recording on Idagio, so I check the app and find two Ashkenazy recordings from 1955: one from the Chopin Competition, the other just labelled “Warsaw”. Still no surprises, since I know Ashkenazy made a studio recording after the comp.

Then things get weird. From the literal first seconds of the Idagio 1955 competition recording, it becomes obvious this isn’t what I’ve got. It’s not pitch-shifted. It’s slower at 9:31; nearly a minute longer than the recording I have, though still very fast (an average recording lasts 11+ minutes). I check out the other 1955, which I assume is the studio recording – and it’s identical to the first. Literally just the same even though it’s 9:27 (less silence at the end).

Now I’m puzzled. One obvious possibility is my recording is just the recording on Idagio, but sped up. Have I been duped? Why would someone do this? Did I do this by accident when converting the FLAC? But then it turns out the recording I have is a *different performance altogether*. The rubato in lots of places is different, mine has applause at the end (though that can be spliced in), and in mine Ashkenazy smudges one of the octaves in the final run (the Idagio recordings are clean).

I abandon Idagio for Spotify and I finally find where my recording came from. It’s a Urania Records CD made of Ashkenazy’s performance in the second round, probably lifted from the radio broadcast – one of Urania’s last recordings before it was sold the next year to American Sound. The other Idagio recordings were from the Warsaw studio. As far as I can tell, no other recording of Ashkenazy’s live competition performances exists.

How long was the actual live performance? Well, the recording I have is pitched up by a semitone (-ish; sounds like 120 cents, but close enough). A bit of math suggests that [length of actual performance]:[length of the recording] is roughly equal to [2^1/12]:[1]. So the original is nine minutes, still insanely fast. Perhaps somewhere out there this recording exists, although that still doesn’t tell me why the Urania recording was pitched up to begin with. Variable bit rates? Something about the transfer from vinyl? Varispeed for excitement? If you have an idea let me know.

In any case: as an addendum to the original Scherzo 4 video I have uploaded Ashkenazy’s 1955 studio recording, since it’s a fun point of comparison and also excellent in its own right. I’ve also added in a 1936 Horowitz recording that clocks in at 8:45 – I have something close to a “no Horowitz” rule on this channel, but since this recording is both amazing and not that well-known I figure an exception is fine!

(Pics: the Urania Record + the studio recording)

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8 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 301

Ashish Xiangyi Kumar

Been listening to the Leeds Competition livestreams on and off, and I'm surprised by how much more I'm enjoying it more than the Chopin. The programs are often ambitious and interesting (tbh it's weird that the world's most competitive piano competition ends with all the finalists having to play some of Chopin's most pianistically uninteresting works), plus you get p interesting interviews with the participants too.

Anyway, what I really wanted to highlight was this performance by Chen Junyan of the Rach PC 4. Because:

1. The PC 4 is amazing, I love it so much it hurts, & it's never played enough (let alone in a final)
2. This performance really isn't a competition-winning kind of performance (although I'm happy to have my prejudices about competition juries proven wrong!). It's unshowy and intimate -- so much so I think the second movement is the standout here -- yet I was really persuaded by it. I say this as someone who really likes Rach quite lithe and steely most of the time, so yeah, excellent stuff
3. The orchestra sounds *so good*. Tuttis a bit underpowered, maybe, the mikes for the hall's string bloom could be a bit further up in the mix? But oh God the string pizzicati sound so rich (Mvt 2) and the WOODWINDS, lordy what a sound they make. The PC 4 is a lean, concentrated, transparent thing; really demands careful orchestral texturing and the Liverpool Phil (in the final of a piano competition no less) more than delivers. Just listen to the bit timestamped in the pinned comment!

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 71

Ashish Xiangyi Kumar

In Calgary on the afternoon/eve of the 28th and the whole of the 29th with no specific plans. If you wanna meet for a bite/chat/coffee meet lmk!

(opusoneonetwo@gmail.com)

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1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 246

Ashish Xiangyi Kumar

Have a free day in Dubai on 17 June - lmk if any of yall wanna hang for a bit

1 year ago | [YT] | 114