Great classical pianists

apr records released a series of recordings entitled The Russian Piano Tradition. Lot’s of Soviet Era recordings in this catalogue. I used to believe the Russian school to be mostly psychological but right after the Orange Revolution, I visited a friend in Odessa, Ukraine. We went to the Philharmonia Concert Hall and I saw a Juilliard schooled pianist who also studied under the Soviet system. After seeing and hearing that, I had a new appreciation for Russian musical training.

Anyway, the apr recordings are out of print but they are scattered about on the internet. I have a couple originally recorded in the early to mid 1950’s and the remastering is excellent.

I just acquired a 2 LP album of Khatia Buiatishvili playing Chopin. I must say it is a superb recording. 

These days, I listen to Josep Colom a lot, I think he's great. But in general for me too, it's Glenn Gould who first comes into mind among the many others. I tend to be forgiving with respect to the idiosyncrasies of geniuses like him (like his singing, etc.), I find that "part of the package", and it doesn't bother me. Genius often comes with very strong opinion about others, and thus "unorthodox" interpretation of their works -- I guess we all know that about Gould. One of my favourite recordings by him is Haydn's late piano sonatas, escpecially the C Major Hob. XVI:48. If it could be quantified at all, I wouldn't be sure how many percents are Haydn in that recording, and how many are Gould, but I have a feeling that it's about as much Gould as it is Haydn (of course, just like none of us can know how a recorded music sounded live, unless you were there [and even then...], we may never know how Haydn played that sonata to himself one late night back in those days, whether Schiff is closer to him than Gould, etc; so I would say the piece is up to strong interpretations -- as long as you enjoy it).  

@psf4972 

Heard Helene Grimaud play Brahms Piano Concerto Number One in Dallas on Friday 07 October 2022. A stupendous, monumental performance with tremendous accompaniment by the Dallas Symphony conducted by their music director Fabio Luisi. The pianist puts her awesome technical powers at the service of Brahms shaping the music into new and arresting forms. But never flash.

A great performance at the same exalted level of her Beethoven Fourth with Orchestre de Paris and Christoph Eschenbach.on YouTube.

Looking forward to two more performances today and tomorrow.

@chowkwan 

Fabulous, I can only imagine how wonderful to be there in Dallas. You have inspired me to check; she will play in London in May the Bach / Busoni Chaconne and more, in the very same hall I heard Lang Lang play --like a well oiled machine-- last May !  Beauty and judgement will reign next May.