Ivo Pogorelich, Alice Kezeradze, 1983 Master Class on Maurice Ravel Gaspard de la nuit, Documentary.

Ivo Pogorelich, Alice Kezeradze, 1983 Master Class, Maurice Ravel ,Gaspard de la nuit, Documentary. Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit ranks among the most important piano works of the 20th century and, as it were, represents the pinnacle of the extension of the piano playing techniques and tonal possibilities which started in the 19th century. Ravel took poems by Aloysius Bertrand as a basis of the three movements Ondine, Le Gibet and Scarbo. Thus, he follows the 19th-century tradition to combine instrumental music with literary works. Parts of 1983 documentary ( available in Amazon ) in the intimacy of his home with his wife and teacher Alice Kezeradze, who died in 1996. Ivo Pogorelich was born in Belgrade in 1958 as son of a musician. He received his first piano lessons at the age of seven and went to Moscow at the age of twelve to study at the Central Special Music School and then at the Tchaikowsky Conservatory. In 1976 he began intensive studies with the renowned pianist and teacher Aliza Kezeradze, with whom he was married from 1980 until her untimely death in 1996. Mme. Kezeradze was able to transmit the spirit and matter of the school of Beethoven and Liszt, the tradition of the Liszt-Siloti school, originated in Vienna and than carried through to the Conservatory of St. Petersburg, flourishing towards the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th. Century. Pogorelich´s sound, concerts and recordings pay homage to this exceptionally refined, visionary, and truly revolutionary woman, who so lovingly made Pogorelich a unique artist of genius. Ivo Pogorelich won the first prize at the Alessandro Casagrande Competition at Terni (Italy) in 1978 and the first price at the Montreal International Music Competition in 1980. In October of the same year he entered the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw where, when prevented from participating in the final contest as a soloist with the orchestra, a fierce controversy resulted in the renowned argentinian pianist Martha Argerich, a member of the jury, protesting and leaving the competition, joined by other members of the jury panel, with the words “He is a genius”. The New York Times once wrote “He played each note exactly, with such a feeling, such expression, he was an entire orchestra– it was as if he played 200 years ahead of our time”. In this spirit Ivo Pogorelich is known today as a poet of the instrument. Ivo Pogorelich is not only an artist of the highest caliber, discipline and musicianship, but the archetype of the modern artist, the isolated and courageous master, who finds his own way to new heights of expression, no matter the prejudices or the barriers of misunderstanding raised against him. He stands alone at the beginning of a new epoch like a prophet, mapping the routes that art would take. Pogorelich´s cathartic and mystical sound, is concerned with the ultimate mysteries that transcend this world. His grandiose, colossal and majestic art, symbolizes the struggle of the human soul to find release from the bonds of its material body. His exquisite and overwhelming music continues to echo throughout the entire performance and beyond, so the action is at once momentary, eternal and complete. Pogorelich´s interpretations are indescribably beautiful and irresistible. His sound is pure poetry and extremely emotional, yet entirely unsentimental. We are hypnotized by his new and radical naturalness, by his nobility, dignity, severity and sobriety; transporting us to states of wonder, ecstasy, meditation, love and compassion. -- Sound and Silence, Life and Death, Time and Space; collapse into the Eternal moment of Infinity. --