Debussy wrote of L'isle joyeuse: 'This piece seems to embrace every possible manner of treating the piano, combining as it does strength with grace, if I may presume to say so.'
These are recordings of live events during my piano concertizing years in Northern California. Along with my love of Rachmaninoff and Ravel, I often chose more obscure pieces to perform. Their lack of predictability and uncommon virtuosity were distinct challenges.
As winner of the Artist's Showcase Competition in Redding, California, I appeared three times with the Shasta Symphony Orchestra and performed the MacDowell Second, Rachmaninoff Second, and Saint Saens Fifth piano concertos. I also performed solo concerts at California State University, Chico; Shasta College, Redding; College of the Siskiyous, Weed; and the Crocker Art Museum Gallery in Sacramento. My performances were featured three times on the local PBS affiliate.
I hope you enjoy these performances!
Well played- however I beleive this piece demands a shimmering legato over a cantabile melody, it sounds too marcato, the phrases should be heard as a single breath not as a series of notes but as a wash. ( Im not condoning pedal fetishism, rather keeping the motive elements and the lyrical separate through this type of phrasing. ) That said, I've never played the piece, so I am not saying I can do better. You did very well. But the difference between very well and exceptional is exactly this matter of "touch". I adore Rach or I wouldn't bother posting about it. To me this song should sound like the shimmering light on a lake at twilight, with the melody as the clear firefly hovering over it.