On August 17th, 18th and 19th 2010 I attended in the Beethovensaal in Hannover Valentina Lisitsa’s rehearsal (17th) and recording sessions (18th and 19th) of the 24 Etudes of Chopin. While a live-webstream was running during Valentina’s playing and Alexei (Valentina’s husband) was putting it on his cameras, I did some webhosting and on the 17th I also filmed some of the rehearsing.
In the upstairs studio there was producer Michael Fine, assisted by Tammy Fine and sound engineer Wolf-Dieter Karwatky.
Valentina and producer Michael Fine
Alexei (Valentina’s husband), Valentina and producer Michael Fine
Valentina played on a veery beautiful Steinway D Hamburg, prepared and taken care off by piano technician Gerd Finkenstein.
Valentina in the Beethovensaal in Hannover
The 24 Etudes were played by Valentina with great artistic depth and a deep understanding of Chopin. There were tiny details and truly magnificent colours that I had not heard before in her playing of the Etudes. Truly amazing!
Me and Valentina during a coffee break
Valentina and the whole crew really loved the wonderful response from the livestream webcast’s visitors.
Right after finishing the recordings Valentina takes a look into the chatroom and starts chatting
As soon as Valentina had finished Op.25-12 she switched to another keyboard and entered the chatroom for a final talk with the viewers and ‘followers’. Big Fun for evryone ! 🙂
Appreciate this post, Pieter! Get an even more “inside scoop” here… especially love the picture where Valentina is laughing at the chat. She made me laugh when she said, “I lose! Gimme a break! I can only use two fingers!” (except that it was in all caps with lots of typos) 🙂 She makes me smile… and laugh.
Hi, Pieter.
Thanks for more Youtube documentaries of VL.
Her solo recordings of the Warenberg/Rachmaninoff are great, and
the whole documentary is well presented.
I have a question about the earlier Rachmaninoff concerto recordings: Valentina is known for recording unedited performances.
So why did she have to play those solo passages over and over again for Michael Fine?
Were these dubbed in to cover mistakes? And, by the way, do you know when and by whom the Rachmaninoff concertos will be releases?
Thanks again.
Stan
Dear Stan,
Thanks very much for your kind words of appreciation. Making that Rachmaninoff/Warenberg concerto-report was a real pleasure.
Kind Regards,
Pieter
Valentina is an incredible pianist. I put her in the same class as the great of yesterday. Horowitz, Hofmann, Rubinstein, Cziffra etc…
Pingback: Pianist Valentina Lisitsa LIVE-streams her Royal Albert Hall concert-rehearsals « Tonal Ties