Great classical pianists

All great pianist are beyond criticism by definition of being great....

When we pick some passionately as i did, it is not to disparage others great one, it is to express a part of myself resonating with one ...

Comparison is not reason , it is passion....

For me, Mr. Horowitz is beyond criticism

Eloquently stated @magister . 

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. 

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

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.

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 🤓