Search - Mozart - Music for Piano: Friedrich Gulda on DVD

Great pianist roughly treated by the cameras

musiklas (Joel Grill) | New York, NY USA | 04/26/2001

(2 out of 5 stars)

"gulda, who died recently,is shown playing some mozart solos on this 58 minute dvd program from 1990. he gives great pleasure but the visuals are too variable and often distracting - too many visible mikes, speakers, pianos plus unnecessary announcements from the artist. this looks like carelessness to me. if you want to see this pianist in performance a better bet is his dvd of the k.466 and k.537 concerti."

There is Much Poetry Here

BLee | HK | 02/09/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It seems that some audience are distracted by the form this recital took. But for those who don't relish Gulda's touch or his sound, they should note tha by this stage, his sound is sublime: everything in perfect balance and harmony, passion and intellect, poetry and structure etc which is simply awe-inspiring. Needless to say, his mastery of the keyborad is superb, his polyphonic lines are beautiful, his playing lyrical and colourful, and he is very rhythmic and dynamic as usual. And above all, his sense of structure is awefully strong that brings him close to Michelangeli or even Rachmaninov.

As far as his Mozart is concerned, he is on par with Horszowski, each excells in a different way. Very Gulda is very easy listening and ear catching as his readings would go directly to your heart. A very good and enjoyable performance indeed. The camerawork here is perfect, with a lot of coverage of the hands taken from a comfortable angle. And the recorded sound is good enough to carry through Gulda's readings and colours.

I also recommend audience to look for his Beethoven No.5 Piano Concerto where he conducts on the piano the Munich Philharmonic: a most gratifying performance which compared favourably with the performance by Zimermann/Bernstein. But for the Mozart sonatas that followed, they were filmed when Gulda was so old. Even though he was almost as discipined as Geiseking's Mozart, he was nonetheless a bit more passionate, and with life almost coming to an end, there is a sense of bitterness behind..."