Ashkenazy on Ansel Adams

[Cantab]

For those who may be interested, the BBC has a program with the pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy discussing Ansel Adams. It's available here (where there are more details): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07v...me=na&ns_fee=0

I've downloaded the program and am about to listen to it.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks for providing the link, Bruce. By the way, Ashkenazy has been a conductor of the most famous symphony orchestras for about 20 years, not just a pianist. It's also helpful to remember that Adams started out his career thinking he would be a classical pianist. So, as we listen to the recording, it will be helpful to think about the famous quote of Ansel Adams: "The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways."

[Mike Buckley]

I really enjoyed listening to the broadcast, so a big "thank you" again to Bruce.

The title of the broadcast is a bit misleading in the sense that very little of it attempts to explain how music influenced the photography of Ansel Adams, though that certainly is discussed. Instead, the broadcast is an interesting series of various people speaking about him, his music and his photography. Everyone speaking in the broadcast knew Adams as his child, friend and/or employee.

It was especially interesting to me to hear parts of two recordings made by Adams at the piano, as I had never heard any of his performances. Now that I've listened to them, I understand why he never made it to the big time as a pianist. Yet I'm also surprised to learn how good he really was. One heck of a lot of people aspiring to being a concert pianist never get to the artistic level displayed on the two brief recordings by Adams included in the broadcast.

A lot of really famous piano music is played in the background of the broadcast. It's surely not a coincidence that the only music that is played more than once is the Promenade from Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. That was a nice touch, not just for the obvious reason relating to the title and programmatic characteristic of the composition, but also because the Promenade was used in between listening to speakers just as Moussorgsky intended it to be thought of in between viewing pictures in the exhibition.

[Tringa]

Thanks for posting this Bruce, I had missed this programme.

I don't like to say anyone's work is the best because there will be work of others that I have not seen or others will come along in the future with as yet unseen work. However, in my opinion, the work of Ansel Adams is of the highest order and will continue to be so for a long time.

I'd like to add a quote by Adams which I think says a lot about landscape photography (and indeed any photographic genre)

"There is nothing worse than sharp image of a fuzzy concept"

Dave

[Cantab]

I'd like to add a quote by Adams which I think says a lot about landscape photography (and indeed any photographic genre)

"There is nothing worse than sharp image of a fuzzy concept"

Dave

Unfortunately this describes many of my attempts!

[Mike Buckley]

"There is nothing worse than sharp image of a fuzzy concept"

Adams was wrong when he said that. It's worse to make a fuzzy image of a fuzzy concept and I have made far too many images that prove it.

By the way, that quote is mentioned in the broadcast.

[Tringa]

"Unfortunately this describes many of my attempts!"

I'm with you there Bruce

Sometimes I manged a sharp image of what I thought was a sharp concept for the fuzziness to appear when I get the image on the monitor screen.

Dave

[davidedric]

Many thanks, I'll certainly view the link.

I'm not an aficionado of classical music, but I do remember an extraordinary evening in Manchester, listening to Vladimir Ashkenazy playing Chopin.

Apropo nothing at all, tomorrow we are going to hear the Cape Town Opera Company perform a celebration of the life of Nelson Mandela. Last year, we saw the same company perform a stunning rendition of Showboat - the bitterness of Old Man River will stay with me.

Dave