Great classical pianists

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.

My favorites are:

Paderewsky, Cortot, Rachmaninov, Schnabel, Gould, Yudina, Horowitz, Richter.

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".