I pulled the Perahia/Haitink Beethoven PCs off the self and listened to 1/2 yesterday. It was great to be reminded of what a great Artist the young Perahia was. For the record I still think he is superb, but his earlier recordings had a freshness and spontaneity and superb passage work to die for. The Second sometimes eludes great artists, but here it sounds youthful, boisterous but well behaved, and the musicians phrase completely naturally with bar lines completely disappearing.
Great classical pianists
Alexandra Dovgan is the pianist of her generation.
In the last century there was Richter. Today Trifonov. Now a new phenom. What is it in the Russian water that produces such giants of the keyboard?
We enjoy all great pianists. Rubinstein, Pollini, Argerich, Backhaus, Kempf, Michelangeli, Schnabel, Pogorelic, Gilels. Please add your favorite to this embarrassment of pianistic riches. But there is primus inter pares.
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I will not say that Jeroen van Veen is a great classical pianist in the specific way some others are as Marc André Hamelin is for example with his supreme cold mastery of the instrument ... But he is certainly a master of minimalism under control .... Here is an album of his own music but i want to get also everything he played from other minimalism composer... Perhaps 30 or 40 albums i dont know ...😁 His Gurdjieff/Hartmann music is the best version for me among the two others i own ...he make the Gurdjieff music dance...His rythm sense is first rate ...Over Kremsky and Cecil Lytle interpretation of Gurdjieff hartmann ...
His music is only a catalyst for meditation or best for trance induction or lucid dreaming ... Amazing musician , if not a pianist in the more traditional way as Moravec ,Sofronitsky and my others heroes... As Sun Ra was in his own way in a very different way, van Veen draw his own path , then as Sun Ra i consider him more a great musician than a great pianist ...But as Sun Ra did he plays mainly piano then he is a pianist as Sun Ra was...😊But saying that Sun Ra is a pianist even a great one as Oscar Peterson for example , is saying almost nothing about him and his music ...The same is true of van Veen ... Here i think also about Scriabin music...Saying that Scriabin is a pianist is almost saying nothing about Scriabin music...Scriabin dont played the piano , he used it to convey a new vision and a new mystery to sight ...Sun Ra and Van Veen certainly do it in their own way and in their own world in their own vision style ...As Sorabji did .... But if you dont like to meditate or to see ectasy again time to time because you already know it, if you dont like to think ; you may judge his music without any content, repetitive and even mechanical and full of borrowing from other composers themas ... It is not my feeling at all nor my perception of Van Veen genius ... Van Veen music swim like a small serpent in the huge cosmic soul waters.... It is the way i will describe it ...
« What appear as a mystery for Gandhi may be boring for Rockfeller»-- Groucho Marx 🤓
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Very well said... Thanks ... The eccentricities of a performer are sometimes his free expression on the keyboard, without being afraid to appear anymore as imperfect in his playing .. There is a cost to pay for expression because expression is a choice excluding perfection at all cost ...Vulnerability and openness to emotions exclude the superficial mastery of perfect sound, it is a deepest mastery , it is mastery of the emotional content of a work , not his mere esthetical proposed surface ...Ervin Nyiregyházi whom i admired is a supreme master in this risky business of expression ... As well said by drbond , as listener we must learn to listen to piano playing, it takes me years ... My today choices are not my choices from 40 years ago ...My past choices are always great though for sure : Kristian Zimerman in the Brahms concerto no 2 my favorite piano concerto ever ... Or Uchida in the Mozart concertos ... The perfection balanced by the expressiveness here with Uchida as with Zimerman is always a top choices ... But i learned how to listen to, apparently and at first glance, some less "perfect" playing but in the brink of the abyss ...😊 I begun to love Liszt the day i encountered someone really able to play it at his utmost expressive peak ... This was E.N. I begun to love Scriabin when i encountered someone able to play it not as salon Chopinesque piece, i will not give name here, 😁 but as the volcano of ectasy Scriabin is , and as one of the greatest composer in history between tonal and atonal ... Sofronitsky, his devoted son-in-law, the one Richter and Gilels called a God ...
«Imperfection is the peak»-- French poet René Char
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Yes, as @magister notes: my "favorite" pianist has probably changed more than 10 times over the past 30 years, so that leaves about 3 years per favorite pianist. I remember when I first started listening to classical music, I only wanted to hear the melody, perfectly played, without extraneous additions. Now, I appreciate the eccentricities of the performers more (e.g. Gould humming, and Arrau breathing), which makes the piece a more personal experience. |
Eloquently stated @magister . |
Glad to see another mention of Mitsuku Uchida, her Mozart Piano Concertos are my favorites, and I have many other recordings of them. Also her Schubert. I'm lucky to have lived in NYC for a very long time, and so have seen most of the greats from the 1970s on. I met my wife at a very young age, as a teenager in fact, and we started going to classical music concerts back then. One day we went to Carnegie Hall to see Ashkenazy. She only told this to me recently, but she said that was the concert when she finally 'got' classical music. I guess that counts for something. |
Expression of the essence of a complex set of emotions is not accomplished through plastic formal perfection ... Listening music with the partition to verify the playing is not the way to listen music... Elementary teaching is not playing nor listening ... Here we propose 4 top pianists and ask the question , which of them give the impression that Lucifer and Mephisto themselves play at the piano ? The projection of an emotion mesmerizing the crowds as Liszt did, the first pianist putting crowds in trance , cannot be only the mere "representation" of emotions in a perfect -plastic way...It takes a power to put a spell in the way Mephisto was able to do to buy the soul of Faust or even of crowds... How Liszt was able to create a music piece able to describe the spell as working ? How a pianist can do it really not as a mere esthetical moment, but really convey the spell itself as working really ? For me Ervin Nyiregyhazi win... Fiorentino amazing beautiful version : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSaQB5YXV7g&list=PLMeOYP-ZXc_2THgAtVRu9yEOlvDVIc0E-&index=6
Ervin Nyiregyházi imperfect but stunning spell version : mephisto valses no1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpzW7RH0cgY Now try the second mephisto waltzes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtSHsZj566Q
Horowitz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPE83YfNcZY Richter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIWqTWeVKKk
Which version put you in front of the devil playing himself ? Which version does not give a mere"representation" of the evil madness but give you the evil madness itself playing in you ? For me it is without even without a doubt E. N. who does not even try to play well but instead play powerfully ...So much we feel uncomfortable ...Incredible vertigo confronted with madness .. if you think that E.N. is a failed pianist unable to play perfection listen to this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIC-bGI_Frc
«Ervin Nyiregyházi was a direct pianistic descendant of Liszt and Beethoven, as he studied with: Erno Dohnányi, a pupil of Eugen d’Albert, a pupil of Franz Liszt, a pupil of Carl Czerny, a pupil of Ludwig van Beethoven .
Arnold Schoenberg wrote the following about Ervin Nyiregyházi: "...a pianist who appears to be something really quite extraordinary... I must say that I have never heard such a pianist before... What he plays is expression in the older sense of the word, nothing else; but such power of expression I have never heard before. You will disagree with his tempis as much as I did. You will also note that he often seems to give primacy to sharp contrasts at the expense of form, the latter appearing to get lost. I say appearing to; for then, in its own way, his music surprisingly regains its form, makes sense, establishes its own boundaries. The sound he brings out of the piano is unheard of... And such fullness of tone, achieved without ever becoming rough, I have never before encountered... as a whole it displays incredible novelty and persuasiveness. ...it is amazing what he plays and how he plays it". »
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One of the greatest not so well recognized Italian pianist is Sergio Fiorentino ... “The only other pianist” – Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli “Recently I listened to a pianist on the radio who impressed me very much: Sergio Fiorentino, do you know him?” – Vladimir Horowitz
This pianist as Radu Lupu as Moravec, never play less than at his top usual expressive and tone colors mastery ... In Rachmaninoff he play as expressively as the Russian Neuhaus fluid mastery and as Raphael and Michaelangeli for the brush colors ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnmUNLgB944 Natural spontaneous simplicity as the only sophistication is with him over any proposed mere plastic perfection ....He is more than perfect ... And to convince the sceptic: Chopin as not heard often , here virtuosity serve the expression in a natural never affected way as in Jazz improvisation : Chopin etudes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD2AKelo8M8&list=PLMeOYP-ZXc_2THgAtVRu9yEOlvDVIc0E- Chopin preludes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASX7qQCKOc0&list=PLMeOYP-ZXc_2THgAtVRu9yEOlvDVIc0E-&index=2 Chopin Nocturnes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvoI1nl-MmM&list=PLMeOYP-ZXc_2THgAtVRu9yEOlvDVIc0E-&index=4 The Version of Moravec , the most perfect one i listened too had this one as a rival , here we listen the pieces not as idealized perfection but more as a spontaneous intimate moment ... I dont criticize Moravec here by the way who is one of my best three pianists... |
My favorite version of the Chopin mazurkas which is my best prefered opus from Chopin was by Antonio Guedes Barbosa... A pianist with a natural rythmical sense and a spontaneous simplicity of expression that is very convincing to me in these idealized dances ... Most others pianist so high are they in perfect playing for me miss the difficult cut/transition between rythmic parts to some degree ... Yakov Flier is not so successful in this as Barbosa but he play very well anyway and did not annoy me anywhere by a lack of rythmic coherency ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5UKFIHGwJk&t=13s Now listen Flier strong expressive power in Rachmaninoff : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0VOoJG-O_Q&t=103s
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Nobody can negate what you just say about them... I discovered Bach thanks to intense Gould playing of the Goldberg ... And Horowitz is Russian pianist... It is enough for me ... And his reputation need no advocate so much he is great pianist in every aspects universally recognized ... But each one of us had our own personal intimacy moments with someone... We are partial because we love too much, especially me ... 😊 My strong convictions about pianists does not means that i am right about all i said ...This goes without saying but is better if i say it ...😊 The only very good thing about very strongly expressed opinions, right or wrong, would be that some will listen a less known pianist for the first or the second time in a different mood, or way , to test any claims or to perceive it perhaps... Thanks OP for this piano thread...
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«Sofronitsky met Elena Scriabina, Scriabin’s daughter in 1917, two years after the death of her father, and they were married in 1920. He never met Scriabin, but Scriabina said that her husband was the ‘most authentic interpreter’ of his works. He’s little known in the west due to his few appearances outside the Soviet Union but he was held in high regard by other pianists such as Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels. They held him in such high esteem that when he acclaimed Richter as a genius, Richter responded by calling Sofronitsky a god.» Maureen Buja
listen to this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx1FN-a47eg Now compare the God to a great pianist, Horowitz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudZ3J4EeoQ So extraordinary Horowitz is here , Sofronitsky exceed him in sheer intensity without loosing anything in mastery of colors ... Richter is nearer to Sofronitsky in intensity : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwqaOGikyNs As a comparison the young Kissin look only like a first of the class , under the great Horowitz and under the intensity of Sofrontisky ......
In Russia Neuhaus was a god , beside Scriabin and Sofronitsky ... Listen to the expressive and perfect rendition of Bach : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UwQqePIpRA His son is one of the great russian pianist too : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvIMWyMxjq0
I forgot to say that all the above are only my impressions ... Others can differ ... 😊 |
Thanks for the correction ... 😊 But you certainly know more about Schiff playing than about Schiff origin ... Sir András Schiff (Hungarian: [ˈɒndraːʃ ˈʃiff]; born 21 December 1953) is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist Wikipedia... And here is the source of my confusion : Schiff, known for his video broadcast masterclasses, is currently on the faculty of the Barenboim–Said Akademie in Berlin, Germany, serving as distinguished visiting professor of piano.[17] Wikipedia
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My prefered version of the Bach well tempered klavier is first Feltsman and second Schiff ...I enjoy the two but with a preference here ... The Russian is more balanced between perfection and expression ...😊 So impressive the self controlled german could be , and he is ... This Schiff interpretation is the top of his career ... But Feltsman give something more than perfection... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4271Rm9TSU&list=PLTL_aYkQ5li7bET5sqlPJVRqWEF2JVCJZ Feltsman is also my favorite Goldberg interpretation because he is irresistible in joy expression and we feel as if he spontaneously improvise the piece ... ...For me it exceed Gould mannerism so interesting Gould can be and it is ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIujuXIwQms&list=PLr0MsaDpKsY-biupbCUhZf55V3rNEzU_v |
Some giants of the piano taught and plays concerts more than they were recorded... One of the greatest pianist of the last century is certainly Heinrich Neuhaus ... This documentary explain why : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izCfrtFuYAc&t=53s here he play Chopin concerto no 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf_73gQr6OQ Here the master of Lupu, Gilels and Richter and of many other great pianists play Brahms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTrQUJ4okM4 Here the master in Rachmaninoff : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so0UgBBR2VQ He perfectly master not only tone colors and rythm but the expression power at a height reach only by a few as Sofronitsky and Nyiregyházi...
Power of expression test is done when we compare any pianist interpretation of Liszt Mephisto waltzes for example ... Nyiregyházi here transcend anyone in powerful madness expression .... Richter cannot even compare to Nyiregyházi Richter - 0:00 Nyiregyházi - 3:40 Comparison of Sviatoslav Richter and Ervin Nyiregyházi playing the same passage from Liszt's 'Vallée d'Obermann'.
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There is too many great not well known piano interpretation miracles ... Antonio Barbosa playing effortlessly the impossible Mazurkas of Chopin which ask for a complex rythm mastery ...Because of this complex rythm oscillation of this peculiar polish dance, Chopin takes all his short life to write them all ...It is my favorite Chopin works ...Almost no pianist perform them as Barbosa effortlessly did ... Brazilian knows something about rythms....Nobody beat him in the mazurkas... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYdYwk3Vjqg&list=PLQopr5raEipfPQXYanmfhTpHhPp9abuNZ Or Thierry de Brunhoff rivaling Moravec perfect Nocturnes interpretation in his own warmer intimate way : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8djkKNN4f90&t=803s Preludes : |
My three favorite are : Ivan Moravec, Vladimir Sofrontisky, and the greatest of all even in his ruined old age , Ervin Nyiregyházi... Why ? Because music is not about sound and playing perfection but about meanings and expressive emotions first and last ... We listen to meanings and not only that in fact we felt meaning and react to it ...... The Russian school is unrivalled by the great number of top pianists produced ... The best test for a pianist is the impossible task to play Scriabin with expression or Liszt with rythm and colors control ... I forgot many not so well recognized non Russian genius as for example Yves Nat in Beethoven or Michael Ponti in Scriabin ( in spite of a horrible recording sound ) and many others ... Or John Ogdon expressive interpretation of Busoni or Sorabji in the clavicem balisticum ... And the goddess of piano is Maria Yudina, a so strong woman that she said no to Stalin money, at the risk of loosing his life , and Stalin died listening his playing always turning at the side of his deathbed ,a recording of Mozart made in the night at high speed after an unrecorded concert few years before his death and after the monster which was calmed by his playing asked for the recording which was never made and was replayed with Yudina awaken to did it for him in the night again ... Yudina feared only God and refused Stalin money and said to his face that she will pray for his sins in a telephone call from the monster so feared Shostakovitch could not sleep ... Now imagine this woman so poor not owning a piano most of his life and playing, Russians know what a pianist saint is , she was one ... Now german piano school is extraordinary too ... listen to this miraculous version : Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto - Gieseking/Karl Böhm (1939)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAfCW2-3NxA
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Over the past year, I’ve discovered another “classical” pianist, who does excellent “interpretive” work, as he prided himself on being a jazz pianist who played classical music: Samson Francois. Some of his Chopin interpretations are unparalleled, but he is definitely unconventional. I think he prided himself over never playing the same piece the same way twice, which should appeal to some of those who think that classical music has become too formulaic. |
When I was a young record collector my pianistic god was Arrau who couldn't put a finger wrong for me. When it came to the eighties though he just became slow and cumbersome and a lot of the recordings during that period should never have been released. For instance, he recorded Bach's Partitas and they were released a long time after his death "big mistake" the tempi were all over the place and a very poor copy of what was once the greatest pianist on the planet "for me". Today I favour some of the Russian pianists, Sokolov, Trifonov, Buniatishvili and my personal favourite of them Arkady Volodos who is undeniably a technical wizard without comparison. In a class of her own though is Martha Argerich who is still giving spellbinding performances in her eighties. I have heard Pletnev live a few times in Edinburgh and when on form he is incomparable. His was the most electrifying Bach/Busoni Chaconne I have ever heard live or recorded and thank goodness he is recording piano again. I think we are all in an age now of so many specialists that it is difficult to say who is best but it should now be " who plays this or that composer best". |
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. |
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). |
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. |
For the Beethoven sonatas -- the New Testament of solo piano -- I prefer Annie Fisher. Her playing is full-blooded, passionate, engaged. Among current pianists, I find Vikingur Olaffson compelling, especially in Philip Glass. His technique is staggering. Another contemporary player with impressive command of the instrument is Marc-Andre Hamelin. His recording of Frederic Rzewski's "The People United" is a blast.
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Lots of great classical pianists, of course. But I find it extremely curious that no one (unless I missed it) has mentioned Yuja Wang, who is very easily as splendid or more so than any number of the folks listed even multiple times above. Is it because she is also fun and a bit provocatively sexy, which is not to be approved?
Oh, and it's Jeremy Denk, not "Denker". |
There are so many great pianists that I find making comparisons to be somewhat silly. I’ve heard conservatory students who were amazing and many of them will go through life without getting the attention they deserve. As for those who enjoy stardom, I saw in concert Andre Watts, Helene Grimaud, Fredrick Rzewski. At the Theatre Champs Elysee in Paris I caught Elisabeth Leonskaja perform Beethoven Sonatas. Around 1983, I saw Paul Bley with Steve Swallow and Paul Motion in Greenwich Village at the Lush Lounge. The club was very small; Jaco Pastorius and myself sat together in the far back. Paul Bley is forever etched in my mind from that experience. As far as recordings go, I’m loyal listener to; Clara Haskil, Edwin Fischer, Alexander Melnikov, Andras Schiff, Maurizio Pollini, Angela Hewett, Marc-Andre Hamlin, Artur Rubinstein and recently Anna Malikova, to name a few. |
@drbond |