A treat for those who like classical piano

"What troubles me about so many of the younger musicians I hear is that they think small and act small. They are afraid to feel, afraid to make a mistake. Who cares about that if you say something, say it with passion and pleasure? Piano-playing is a dangerous life. It must be lived dangerously.” - Arthur Rubinstein

Interesting three minutes lesson for all :

Why is the Russian piano school  the geatest in my opinion ?

listen to this almost unknown master who studied with the great Neuhaus family  to know the answer and hearing the test😊 :

Some know how to play Chopin...

Chopin added to the Bach perfection he studies well , his own "imperfect" rythmic  touch, which we may called "passion"... Some pianist know that and express it ...Incredible playing :

This Zukhov  playing is beside Sofronitsky...

Not much pianist are able to did this at this level of emotion and perfection and simplicity  ....

We dont lack great pianists playing Liszt...For sure...

I must precise my point here...

It takes very great one to educate me to begin with about the Liszt genius which composer is underscored sometimes as a mere pianist...

These very few pianists able to play Liszt as it can sound are very rare for me... The same is true for Scriabin...

My point is that BEFORE hearing one in Liszt i was not so much admirative of Liszt...it is my insensibility and it is my fault...

The same is true for Scriabin... Almost no one can play it as he must sound for me... It takes a genius able to play it to astound me really and initiate me to a music for which i was before indifferent ...

I dont want to devalorize great pianists who played these two in an acceptable way... I am not competent enough to separate and criticize them...

But some rare pianists are on another levels...These few pianists it is easy to spot them for me now because now i put Liszt beside Bach Beethoven Monteverdi or Bruckner and the greatest composer , the same is true for Scriabin . I understand Liszt and Scriabin in the center of my being thanks to those rare pianist able to awake me ...

Then i am not competent enough to judge Sonata in B great pianists various propositions... Anyway my favorite Lisztian do not recorded it anyway ... And for me he is out of any contest so much poweful he is or can be ...and it is him who reveal the greatness of Liszt to me, nobody else.,..

Like Sofronitsky revealing Scriabin is unique and impossible to exceed ...

In a word i am not competent in pianistic interpretation to judge any pianist...

But i know what is a transcendent revelation which exceed piano playing when i hear one ...I need these few pianist Master initiators  able to do that for me  because i was musically ignorant  and unable to discover greatness by myself alone listening various  acceptable and good interpretations...

i discovered Bruckner as a revelation in the same fashion ...

And all the composers i love as Josquin Des Prez or Monteverdi or Bach etc were pure spiritual revelation not leisure listenings and ordinary casual discovery ....

I discovered Liszt after Scriabin for the same reason, i could not understand their music meanings till i listened played by a transcendant pianist... Just listening them with any great pianist was not enough to move my ignorance and my deafness... Sometimes it takes a miracle to give us sight ... It is why i loved some less well known pianist so much...

In the same way i had to wait till i listened Antonio Barbosa playing the mazurkas of Chopin to enter ectasy...The reason is the peculiar rythmic structure of these pieces asking for a pianist who feel a specific inner rythm and is able to play it with an ease and simplicity associated with a dance ... This mazurka rythm is very difficult to do it right...

My admiration are then the other side of my ignorance about music... I needed nuclear bomb playing to awaken sometimes from my indifference...

Mahgister, you mention one of my long time favorite composers (and transcribers) of music for solo piano. Liszt! Too many performers and recordings to mention but I started with Annees De Pelerinage played by Berman on DG. Great performance, I think, but not the best recording (what’s new, with DG!) and I went from there. So many of his greatest tunes are, I think, therein. And if you want to hear it all there is always Leslie Howard’s extensive collection on Hyperion. Of current performers I like Louis Lortie in this and his Chopin as well.

If a person has nothing better to do he could survey all of the available Sonata In B recordings and rate them. :-)

With Scriabin,each chord of the keyboard each harmony deployed must boil like molten lava and not flow only like a calm and melodious river.. This is why most pianist struggle to play it with heart it is not only difficult technically but more difficult poetically ...

With Scriabin  writings musical time is used as an hologram of eternity, his timing is spiralling , not linear and is really an image of the beating heart out of mundane time but immersed and suffering in it  and delivered from linear time at the same moment , we must enter in a vertigo near ectasy ... How pianist can play it as such ? No technician, nevermind how great they are can , it takes a supreme poet on the keyboeard...

Sofronitsky concert :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxNOfFdkcKs

Here in this Liszt piece each note is a bullet in the heart :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLk6vqaxU1Y

This piece is well recorded and give an idea about Ponti genius in Scriabin :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBxMKwZB2cA

The son is less than the father Heinrich but is also a giant :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyVHCLRT0fI

The father Heinrich Neuhaus is beside Sofronitsky :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1hHPu9e8bI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kegxB1aBllM

The best version ever of this piece of Scriabin by Neuhaus father and even Horowitz dont even compare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMWx-F35awQ

And on par with my favorite the great Zhukov 2 hours :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-BbYY41UIk

mahgister, OT. I've noticed you often speak highly of Scriabin. I have Maria Lettberg's complete set.  I find them rewarding.  Am I missing anything? 

For me Olafsson is the one who master controlling himself totally, the piece perfectly without too much virtuosity demonstration or excessive mannerism...He played perfectly well but with expressivity not too slowly and not too vivace...

Beraia and Sokolov and Cziffra please me... But when we listen the same pieces hundred times or only a few times our choice differ , this is why even if Sokolov impress me a lot for example, he will not be my choice...😁

I want to listen the piece of Rameau at the end not the pianist interpretation...

Because with Rameau we have plenty of choices with good interesting interpretation... It is not the case with Scriabin, here i listen the pianist able to play Scriabin at his optimal to begin with and they are only a few... With Rameau we have plenty of choices in piano or harpsichord...

make your choice and ex😊plain why....