What recording changed your perception of a piece?

twocats

Sometimes it really takes a great interpretation to completely change your opinion of a musical work. Has anyone else experienced this? I'll start with three Chopin pieces!

The Polonaise in C# minor was just ok to me until I recently listened to the Horowitz 1950 version. This recording is everything and I'm obsessed; this Polonaise is now one of my favorite Chopin works:

The Barcarolle is a piece I don't particularly like, I have never felt a connection to it. But my friend (who studied with the late great Mark Wescott, whose performing career sadly ended early due to illness) sent me Mark's recording, and there's always something magical in every recording I've heard of his playing. My friend considers him to be the last in the lineage of Golden Age pianists-- actually, perhaps Yunchan Lim is now carrying the torch, but anyway, Mark's Barcarolle is extremely lovely and I could listen to it over and over:

And lastly, who doesn't love the "Aeolian Harp" Étude? But Rubinstein's version is very special and played as if it were a beautiful dream:

pianoloverus

Not a recording but a live performance of several pieces from Albeniz's Iberia by Jose Ramos Santana convinced me that Iberia was a very great masterpiece. There's something in this piece that, for me, can only be appreciated hearing it live. Before hearing that live performance I thought Iberia was an excellent piece but didn't think of it as a masterpiece.

keystring

What Sokolov did with the Chopin Ocean Etude especially as it progresses.

rsl12

Not much piano, but Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 was kind of boring for me until...

rsl12

I'm excited for this thread! The videos presented so far have been excellent!

thepianoplayer416

In 1985 Keith Jarrett made 2 recordings of Bach Italian Concerto in F mvt 1 and French Suite #3: Sarabande. Both are short recordings under 4 minutes each. Back in those days my knowledge in Classical music was limited. Nice to hear a Jazz improviser perform Baroque pieces and how far a performer can go to embellish a piece without changing its overall character.

BartK

It's interesting how people can have completely different feelings about a particular recording. All the recordings here, except the Sokolov which is legendary, leave me pretty cold even though I love these pieces. I would much rather listen to modern high-fidelity recordings than grainy ones from an idealized "golden age" of piano. As for Shostakovich 5, I'm more into Bernstein's interpretation.

To each their own!

keff

I am struggling to think of a recording which changed my perception of a piece. I can relate to two recordings which changed my perception of classical music although I cannot name the orchestras or the conductors. Both recordings were in mono and played to the science students at my secondary school with the aim of widening our outlook on the arts. It certainly worked for me and resulted in a lifetime love of serious music and eventually a return to playing piano. The two pieces were symphony no.6 by LvB and symphony no.9 by Dvorak.

I remain so grateful that I participated in this short musical education programme and just before he passed away I was able to track down the music teacher and to let him know how important music had become in my life.

Ornstein

Bertrand Chamayou's recordings of Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin and Gaspard de la Nuit bring out a very interesting megalaphobic aspect to the music (specifically in the toccata and Scarbo respectively. The stacking of fast chords and of the harmonic series across the whole keyboard has a very singular imagistic quality I haven't heard in any other performance).