This is amazing. Young Japanese man Jan Lisiecki, blind from birth, plays Rachmaninov Symphony No 2… it’s that incredibly moving music that was used in the film ‘Brief Encounter’.
Really worth watching. Very inspiring.
Pat x (hope link works… if it doesn’t you can find it on BBC iplayer).
I turned on the radio in the car yesterday, and it was the end of a Proms concert recording of a Rachmaninov piano concerto, and when it was finished, the announcer casually mentioned the way that this Japanese pianist commits the music to memory: he finds Braille scores rather slow going, apparently, and the repertoire in this format is limited anyway, so her prefers just to listen to a recorded version of each hand’s part and learn it by ear… I nearly drove off the road! Never heard of the guy before. What an absolutely amazing thing. Mind you, even sighted concert pianists are pretty astonishing.
Alison
It was Nobuyuki Tsujii. Pure genius. I have it on the Sky thingy and watched it again this morning. It’s one of my favourites anyway and I wish I’d been there to see it. Not a dry eye in the house at the end. Wonderful stuff. Val
Sniff, sniff