Let's talk music, no genre boundaries

@mahgister @stuartk 

Fascinating! Moravec wins in my opinion. But I will post Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli who is mentioned as the best Debussy interpreter on almost every forum I have looked at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsdIkUSjXv8

And now my previous favorite Phillipe Entremont:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=895XJSyyrEs

Overall, I would say Moravec for power, Michelangeli for precision, Entremont for lyricism, and Bavouzet for being laid back. That’s after one listening, though. I heard Bavouzet today, I know Entremont and Michelangeli well, I would like to hear more of Moravec. Perhaps tomorrow.

Feux d'Artifice Michelangeli

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgSgVktjd4g

Entremont Feux d'artifice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiT7-IiBsZA

Overall, I would say Moravec for power, Michelangeli for precision, Entremont for lyricism,

What you call power , i call expression; and expressive power is the main thing in playing as "timbre perception" is the main thing in audio, not details perception promoted by sellers ignoring acoustics...I dont want to taste music i want to be possessed by it...

I like Scriabin because almost no pianist nevermind most virtuoso are unable to play him at all ...Scriabin is a God beside Bach, Mozart Beethoven Josquin Des Prez and some others as Liszt whom almost no pianist could play really too ...

MIchelangeli is "perfect" like Hamelin is...But i want to be moved not  just esthetically pleased...I want a pianist who tell me a story whose images i can see like in a movie...Moravec do so more than anyone here and he can makes "feux d’artifice" speaks and sings not only be seen ...try his Chopin nocturnes... Only Rubinstein rival him in fluid expression they are my Chopin choices...

Perfection is often only a flattening of the necessary  imperfection, a flat wall with no movie.A dripping  mountain eroded to be a dry plain.

"Imperfection is the peak" René Char

The same is true if we compare Michelangeli with Moravec in the "cathédrale engloutie", here note the "pulse" the internal rythm in Moravec 3-D playing as if it was a song and a movie:

Moravec

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlDyXZ74kf0&list=RDPlDyXZ74kf0&start_radio=1

Michelangeli 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsdIkUSjXv8

Musical time is not linear, it cannot be measured but only felt as a singing and spoken  quality or as a walking  abyss,  the perfect note one after the other dont make music...I learn this listening Furtwangler...Unparallel maestro ...Try Schumann fourth symphony, a radiography of Schumann soul , perhaps one greatest album ever recorded beside few others.

@audio-b-dog 

I could not make a list like @simonmoon of the musical attributes that appeal to me. 

Szymanowski’s Symphonie Concertante. It sounded "experimental" enough (although probably a hundred years old) to be on @simonmoon’s list. Do you know this composer?

 

Let me be clear, I did not consciously choose to only like music with the attributes I listed previously. I didn't create that list with intent to only only listen to music with those attributes. 

I just noticed over time, that music that did not have most or all of those attributes became less and less interesting to me, and my tastes and search for new music kept heading toward those attributes.

I have several recordings by Szymanowski that I like quite a bit.

Those criteria I previously mentioned:

Those criteria being (no particular order): very high level of musicianship, deep and broad levels of emotional and/or intellectual content conveyed, fairly high levels of complexity and sophistication, (usually) long form song structure that goes through changes in: mood, intensity, tempo, dynamics, time changes, etc., over its length.

I like a lot  Sorabji madness played by Ogdon (almost mad himself but a formidable pianist in Busoni too) 

I own many Sorabji music...pure genius and total madness...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OrAewTxBrc&list=RD_OrAewTxBrc&start_radio=1

 The transcendental studies is incredible  too by Ullen  :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsunU1Jyigk&list=PLRs_FxzJLU50ArgMv2Ykm9IUsELIYwoML 

But so much i admire Sorabji  and i like him a lot, he does not moves me at all...like Scriabin or Liszt well played (which is almost impossible by most pianists)

Music is not just creative esthetical research, it is a spiritual spell...

If i listen Gesualdo well interpreted madrigals i dont even note that his music has more than 500 years old... It moves us because it is not only inventive but rooted in the heart...

@mahgister 

Is Monteverdi 8th book of madrigals, all Gesualdo and  Josquin Des Prez   are boring or correspond to your definition ?

For me there is no relation between genius and chronological time ?

Those composers you mention, are not boring to me based on the attributes I previously mentioned. They are boring to me because they do nothing for my personal artistic sensibilities.

For me also, there no relationship between genius and chronolectal time. 

I am able to fully admit, that: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, the composers you mentioned above, and many others of similar periods,  were probably geniuses. That doesn’t change the fact that I am mostly unmoved by their music. 

I have no problems understanding their: contributions to music, their innovations, their skill, their knowledge of theory,  etc, without actually enjoying their music. In fact, I will go one step further; I can listen to their music, and even hear what others: find so appealing, are moved by, what they hear and interpret as beauty, etc.

But I always feel like I am removed from it, emotionally and/or intellectually speaking. When I listen to music by those composers, I can’t help but think to myself, "Oh, this is the part where the composer is trying to elicit feelings of awe, here’s the part where the composer is trying to create tension, this is the part where the composer is trying create a pastoral atmosphere, here’s the part where the composer is trying to create excitement, etc". 

But despite hearing what the composer is going for, it doesn’t reach into me and actually create those feelings within me.