# The Greatest Pianist of all Time?



## michael walsh

Surely, Ludwig van Beethoven but I suppose it is subjective? It seems every talented virtuoso who (impudently?) took him on was thrashed and humiliated. It was never merely a points win; each occasion emphasised Beethoven's absolute supremacy. That was of course in a contemporary sense. What of others who followed? I wonder what Beethoven's thoughts would have been on say Chopin, the 'poet of the keyboard'?


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## David58117

Hmm...I wonder what Beethoven would of thought of Liszt, or Rachmaninoff? 

Anyway, Liszt gets me vote, not only because of his virtuosity but because of his dedication to the arts and his selfless promotion of his contemporaries. His concerts are at the top of my "wish I was there" list.


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## jhar26

It's impossible for us to know just how good those guys were for the very obvious reason that there aren't any recordings. All we have are comments from contemporaries. I mean, I'm sure Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and the rest of them were great, but we can only imagine.... Maybe it's sacrilege to say so, but I wouldn't be surprised if people like Horowitz, Richter, Argerich and so on were/are even a bit better than them because they only need(ed) to focus on the piano while those composers also had to spend a lot of time doing other things. But we will never know...


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## Air

Ludwig Van Beethoven was surely a great pianist, but certainly not THE greatest.

The problem with the general question "Who is the greatest _ of all time?" is that the standards for eras over time are all different. For example, Paganini was the violin god of his day, but if you put him in our day, he would be considered a super-virtuoso hack. 

Another thing to consider is that the ideals of pianism have changed radically especially between the 18th-19th centuries, and 19th-20th centuries. The second of these movements showed a drastic shift from romantic pianism to intellectual pianism. The romantics allowed for loose rhythm (excessive rubato), unfaithfulness to the score, personal embellishment (Liszt would only play the piece as written when he first sight-read it), and other things that would be considered unacceptable in this day. Moreover, concert transcriptions , paraphrases, and salon music (Liszt, Thalberg, Gottshalk, Henselt) were preferred over much of the standard repertoire we see today (of course Chopin got ridiciously popular between the 19th-20th centuries though- I was thinking more on the line of Haydn, Mozart, Liszt's good stuff, a lot of Beethoven, Schubert...). 

Of course there have always been exceptions. Clara Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Ignaz Moscheles despised the romantic era OF PIANISM and worked to counter-act it. Romantic pianists dominated the 1st third of the 20th century and continued to work into it: We see Liszt and Leschetizky such as Paderewski, Rosenthal, Friedman, and Moseiwitsch as well as others: Cortot, Horowitz (who died in 1989, well into the era of the modern school.)

And then we have more problems. First of all, the credibility of our "original" sources. Adolf von Henselt has always been considered one of the greatest pianists of all time, yet he was too nervous to perform in public. This claim is only credited by a few primary sources, but many experts believe that it is enough to be credible. However,we all know too well that primary sources cannot be trusted, especially in the form of romantic inventions. 

A fact like this can be assumed only after there is a substantial amount of evidence for it, and there are some pianists who can claim this: Clementi, Mozart, Beethoven, Hummel, Kalbrenner, Moscheles, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Thalberg, Henselt, Herz, C.Schumann, Anton Rubinstein, Tausig, D'Albert, Godowsky, Busoni, Hofmann, Rachmaninoff, Cortot, Moseiwitsch, Artur Rubinstein, Richter, Horowitz... 

It is all very subjective: Pianists like Dreyshock had amazing technical abilities (Rev. etude with left hand octaves) but were considered shallow even in their day; Chopin did not have sufficient power yet he had a handful of qualities that even Liszt envied; Alkan could of well been a great pianist, but he was eccentric, and ignored in his day; Anton Rubinstein, much like Beethoven, had demonic power and perhaps unmatched expression...

The general consensus seems to be Franz Liszt, and it is almost hard to disagree with that.


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## David58117

jhar26 said:


> It's impossible for us to know just how good those guys were for the very obvious reason that there aren't any recordings. All we have are comments from contemporaries.


Well in the case of Liszt, we have many transcriptions and etudes that are still impossibly hard to play. There have been comments about him taking very difficult passages in octaves, and other acrobatics which must of been amazing to witness.


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## Weston

I'd put my money on today's pianists, Argerich, Kissin, or Schiff simply because we have so much larger population than in the 19th century. We should have a lot more chances for really high achievers. I must have faith they learned their craft through determination and not through being whipped into it.

[ETA: I now remember the stories Beethoven's alleged whippings by his father may be unfounded, just part of the Beethoven myth. It all depends on which biography you read.]


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## Artemis

I have never before heard the suggestion that LvB was one of history's greatest pianists. I'm sure he was extremely good but "best ever" doesn't sound right to me. Based on reputation only (ie before sound recording) the greatest pianist ever is reckoned to be Liszt. Another contender is Clara Schumann, who incidentally couldn't stand Liszt because of the latter's very flashy style. Alkan was also reckoned to be a very impressive pianist. 

Among the greatest 20 th Century pianists the likes of Rachmaninoff, Hoffman, Schnabel, Arrau, Cortot, Horowitz, Bronfman, Rubinstein, Richter, Michelangeli, are ones who are normally mentioned as forming the top tier. Which of these was "best" is highly debatable because each was especially good with regard to certain composers. For example, Schnabel is usually associated with Beethoven, Richter with Schumann, and both Cortot and Rubinstein with Chopin. I would pick out Rubinstein as my top runner, partly because the sound quality of his recorded legacy is very high, and I happen to prefer those composers in which he excelled.

Other stars include Gould, Argerich, Hamelin, Brendel, Ciccolini, Kissin, Ashkenazy, Wilhelm Kempf, Alicia De Larrocha. The list is almost endless. Some reckon that Hamelin is technically the most perfect of the whole lot. Others rate Argerich very highly. For me, the best of the lot here is Brendel, who retired recently. I regard him as the best all-rounder; his playing of Schubert is unrivalled as far as I'm concerned, except possibly for Richter.


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## Ignis Fatuus

Weston said:


> I'd put my money on today's pianists, Argerich, Kissin, or Schiff simply because we have so much larger population than in the 19th century. We should have a lot more chances for really high achievers. I must have faith they learned their craft through determination and not through being whipped into it.


Good statistical reasoning 
I would be tempted to go with Liszt but I think you are right Weston.


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## Sorin Eushayson

David58117 said:


> Hmm...I wonder what Beethoven would of thought of Liszt


Check this out...



Franz Liszt in 1875 said:


> 'I was about eleven years of age when my venerated teacher Czerny took me to Beethoven. He had told the latter about me a long time before, and had begged him to listen to me play some time. Yet Beethoven had such a repugnance to infant prodigies that he had always violently objected to receiving me. Finally, however, he allowed himself to be persuaded by the indefatigable Czerny, and in the end cried impatiently. "In God's name, then, bring me the young Turk!" It was ten o'clock in the morning when we entered the two small rooms in the Schwarzspanierhaus [Liszt made a mistake in the address, since in April 1823 Beethoven was living at Oberepfarrgasse 60, Kothgasse] which Beethoven occupied; I somewhat shyly, Czerny amiably encouraging me. Beethoven was working at a long, narrow table by the window. He looked gloomily at us for a time, said a few brief words to Czerny and remained silent when my kind teacher beckoned me to the piano. I first played a short piece by Ries. When I had finished Beethoven asked me whether I could play a Bach fugue. I chose the C minor Fugue from the Well Tempered Clavier. "And could you also transpose the Fugue at once into another key?" Beethoven asked me.
> 
> Fortunately I was able to do so. After my closing chord I glanced up. The great Master's darkly glowing gaze lay piercingly upon me. Yet suddenly a gentle smile passed over the gloomy features, and Beethoven came quite close to me, stooped down, put his hand on my head, and stroked my hair several times." A devil of a fellow," he whispered, "a regular young Turk!" Suddenly I felt quite brave. "May I play something of yours now?" I boldly asked. Beethoven smiled and nodded. I played the first movement of the C major Concerto. When I had concluded Beethoven caught hold of me with both hands, kissed me on the forehead and said gently. "Go! You are one of the fortunate ones! For you will give joy and happiness to many other people! There is nothing better or finer!". This event in my life has remained my greatest pride - the palladium of my whole career as an artist.'


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## Argus

The fact that there are no recordings of the 19th century greats like Liszt, Chopin etc shouldn't be detrimental to their status. There are plenty of recordings of guys like Richter, Horowitz, Brendel, Arrau, Rubinstein, Gould etc yet no concensus on the greatest among them can be reached, so I believe eye witness or more correctly ear witness accounts by credible sources are just as valuable.

There are some names that automatically come up when one thinks of the greatest on a particular instrument.

Violin - Paganini
Classical Guitar - Segovia
Electric Guitar - Hendrix
Saxophone - Charlie Parker
Harmonica - Little Walter

And for piano it's nearly always between Liszt and Chopin. This however may be due to their status as piano _composers_ and not strictly on their piano playing abilities, but surely composition for an instrument one plays should be taken into consideration.

Anyway, a question for the pianists. How do the jazz greats like Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Keith Jarrett etc compare to the great classicists. Here's a quote apparently from Sergei Rachmaninoff on Art Tatum :'he has better technique than any other living pianist, and may be the greatest ever'. Horowitz, Godowsky, Rubinstein and Gershwin were all supposed be amazed by Tatum's genius on the piano.


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## Artemis

Sorin Eushayson said:


> Check this out...


The quote by Liszt might be more plausibile if:


Beethoven hadn't been stone deaf at the time of the encounter (1823)


Liszt had been a few years older than his very modest 12 at that time (when he was still running around in short trousers)


There hadn't been more than half a century separating the time of encounter and Liszt's writing up of it.


Someone other than Liszt himself had written it (as it is, it rather smacks of conceited arrogance).
All in all, it looks rather like something which should be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

P.S I like the bit about being "originally posted in 1875". Was T-C around at that time?


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## Praine

Artemis said:


> Beethoven hadn't been stone deaf at the time of the encounter (1823)


This may not be true. That Beethoven had completely lost his hearing is something often extrapolated in "the Beethoven Myth". It is widely believed that Beethoven remained a limited amount of hearing until his death, and if he had even a modicum of hearing, he probably would've been able to assess Liszt's abilities quite fairly.



> Liszt had been a few years older than his very modest 12 at that time (when he was still running around in short trousers)


I don't really see how this matters. It was Czerny, after all, that drove Liszt to Beethoven.



> There hadn't been more than half a century separating the time of encounter and Liszt's writing up of it.


Doesn't matter.



> Someone other than Liszt himself had written it (as it is, it rather smacks of conceited arrogance).


No, not really.



> All in all, it looks rather like something which should be taken with a huge pinch of salt.


Although a quote like this shouldn't be blindly accepted at face value, there are many more references towards this (you can "Google" passages if you would like to see them), and your methods for repudiating this aren't entirely watertight.


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## Artemis

Reign of Praine said:


> Although it would be incorrect to blindly accept this quote as "true", there are many more references towards this (you can "Google" passages if you would like to see them), and your methods for repudiating this aren't entirely watertight.


I had understood that by about 1814 Beethoven was almost totally deaf, and his situation got even worse over his remaining 13 years to the point where he could virtually hear nothing several years before the end of his life. This being the case it would seem quite fantastic to me that by 1823 he could merely watch a 12 year old Liszt playing a few piano pieces and suggest that this child prodigy was so good. Even if Beethoven thought he was very good indeed, it doesn't prove a thing about Liszt's greatness as a pianist in terms of all the other competition that he was to face later, and which Beethoven could not possibly assess.


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## TresPicos

Nobody's mentioned Bizet yet. 

At least Liszt liked him: "Liszt proclaimed that Bizet was one of the three finest pianists in Europe." (Wikipedia)


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## scytheavatar

There's no way pianists from the 19th century can be a match for those from the 20th century; it took a long time before we could get pianists skillfully enough to play Schubert's late sonata or Beeethoven's Hammerklavier (I quote from its wikipedia article: "The work, particularly the last movement, had more or less to wait until the twentieth century before its significance was realised (possibly due to the difficulty of gaining a technically competent performance). Even as progressive a musician as Wagner, who appreciated the work and fully admired the late string quartets, held reservations for what he perceived as a lack of succinctness in its composition.") So Beethoven is unlikely to have the skill level of Brendel or Pollini.


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## Artemis

scytheavatar said:


> There's no way pianists from the 19th century can be a match for those from the 20th century; it took a long time before we could get pianists skillfully enough to play *Schubert's late sonata* or Beeethoven's Hammerklavier


Schubert wrote three late piano sonatas, Nos 19, 20, 21 which were completed more or less together, only a couple of months before he died in November 1828. They are known as his "last sonatas". The sonata before those, No 18, was completed two years earlier in October 1826.

These "last sonatas" were not published until about 10 years after the composer's death. The main reason why they were not played much during the 19th Century had nothing to do with their difficulty or playability but was because they were not considered to be all that significant works by Schubert. In other respects, however, his fame grew considerably during the 19th C. Regarding the piano sonatas, by the late 20th/early 21st century the old attitude changed considerably and they (along with several other sonatas) are now highly esteemed masterpieces by Schubert.


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## Lukecash12

Let's see... *ALKAN*!!

Here's an illustrated lecture full of absolute fact on just how damned amazing Alkan was: 




That and *Sofronitsky*, the interpretive king of the piano.


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## emiellucifuge

Yes I agree Alkan was an equal and contemporary of Liszt and Chopin, as well as being Chopins neighbour and friend


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## emiellucifuge

Haha! and after watching your video i hear the narrator uses my near exact wording:

A friend and neighbour of Chopin, and a rival of Liszt


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## Lukecash12

I'd even venture to say he was better than Liszt. From a piano composition standpoint for sure, but of course he didn't compose orchestral pieces like Liszt could (although there that missing orchestral piece in B that just might point out otherwise). He made Liszt really nervous, and I'm fairly sure no one else did that.


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## emiellucifuge

The reason I became familiar with Alkan is actually through an orchestral composition, the two chamber concertos - the orchestra writing is of a good standard, but yes youre right there is not enough of him to make a judgement.


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## nimmysnv

Hi,

This is very difficult to say,who is best becuase there is no recordings or any other proof for judgment.From mys sid, based on reputation only the greatest pianist ever is reckoned to be Liszt. No one is better than him!!!!!:angry:

Thanks.


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## Air

vijendrasnv said:


> Hi,
> 
> This is very difficult to say,who is best becuase there is no recordings or any other proof for judgment.From mys sid, based on reputation only the greatest pianist ever is reckoned to be Liszt. No one is better than him!!!!!:angry:
> 
> Thanks.


As I said before, recordings cannot be a subjective judge because the standards of Liszt's time era differs too much from our standards today. If he had left any recordings, they would most likely be full of personal embellishments, so much so that we may not even recognize the piece he is performing. (As I said before, Liszt would only play a piece as written the first time he sight-read it)

I know a fellow from another forum who is an avid pianophile. After years of collecting historical recordings, he has grown accustomed to the "romantic" style of Rosenthal, Paderewski, Friedman, and such but to many of our ears, the recordings (especially of Paderewski) leave us merely curious and confused. Now go back 50 more years, and you have Liszt, Chopin, Henselt, Herz, Thalberg, Mendelssohn. You get the point.

But what we do have is primary sources (see my original post). The reputation of a pianist like Liszt, Tausig, Thalberg, Henselt, Alkan, D'Albert, Clementi, Hummel, Mendelssohn, and A.Rubinstein is backed by a continuous amount of primary sources. Remember that history is backed by primary sources alone, there was no technology to prove one thing or another.

Which is why, by the way, religious texts are such a problem to some people. But that is another debate for another forum.


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## World Violist

Air said:


> The general consensus seems to be Franz Liszt, and it is almost hard to disagree with that.


In fact, it's too easy to disagree with. None of us have ever heard Franz Liszt. That alone derails the entire proposition for putting him in the top spot.

What about Marc-Andre Hamelin or Martha Argerich or Vladimir Horowitz? Sviatoslav Richter? They seem pretty top-notch, _and_ we're all well able to listen to them play.


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## Air

World Violist said:


> In fact, it's too easy to disagree with. None of us have ever heard Franz Liszt. That alone derails the entire proposition for putting him in the top spot.
> 
> What about Marc-Andre Hamelin or Martha Argerich or Vladimir Horowitz? Sviatoslav Richter? They seem pretty top-notch, _and_ we're all well able to listen to them play.


WV I completely agree, that's why I said "almost", but one cannot deny that there is an overwhelming amount of primary evidence in favor of Liszt. (Check out any book on piano history)

What I said earlier was that *even if* we had recordings from Liszt, Thalberg, Henselt, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Herz, Tausig, and C.Schumann, the standards have so much changed between their time and ours that it is impossible to decide for ourselves. If you just go 80-90 years back to recordings of Godowsky, Friedman, Moseiwitsch, Rosenthal, D'Albert etc., you'll already see how much pianism has changed. Thus, we have primary evidence.

I'm not degrading these pianists you name in any way by the way: Richter is my favorite pianist, if you know (look at my avatar), not to mention I've been in love with Argerich for a good number of years now, so...


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## World Violist

Air said:


> WV I completely agree, that's why I said "almost", but one cannot deny that there is an overwhelming amount of primary evidence in favor of Liszt. (Check out any book on piano history)
> 
> What I said earlier was that *even if* we had recordings from Liszt, Thalberg, Henselt, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Herz, Tausig, and C.Schumann, the standards have so much changed between their time and ours that it is impossible to decide for ourselves. If you just go 80-90 years back to recordings of Godowsky, Friedman, Moseiwitsch, Rosenthal, D'Albert etc., you'll already see how much pianism has changed. Thus, we have primary evidence.
> 
> I'm not degrading these pianists you name in any way by the way: Richter is my favorite pianist, if you know (look at my avatar), not to mention I've been in love with Argerich for a good number of years now, so...


I'm sorry, I didn't mean to step on anyone's toes by that comment. I mustn't have read things entirely clearly.

I totally get what you mean. I've heard Lionel Tertis' (first great violist, almost exact contemporary of Pablo Casals) recordings, and his style would be practically unacceptable by today's standards, but I vastly prefer his playing over most other violists. I suppose that what I'm most afraid of is that Liszt might have been a super-virtuoso with virtually no musicality in his playing, which in my book would make him not a great pianist. After all, most of the reviews I've read of his playing are sensational, only dealing with his showmanship as a performer and the amazing technique he had. Besides, Brahms actually fell asleep while hearing Liszt perform his B minor sonata.

I'll just let people think what they will, how about that?


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## Lukecash12

What is it that makes Liszt have such a divine authority as the greatest pianist in the minds of so many? Don't basically all of us here know full well that several others wrote pieces more difficult than that of Liszt? 

I've heard several recordings of Bartok, and think he is incredible, just as good as Liszt is reputed to be, and in several different genres of music to boot. Liszt said that Alkan was his technical superior (and Alkan was also known as an incredibly sensitive interpreter of music), Sofronitzky certainly seems just as good in my eyes, Richter is a technical master, Michaelangeli is a human metronome and super perfectionist, Marc Andre Hamelin is similar to Michaelangeli, Cziffra was an interpretive genius, Rubinstein was a very noble and well rounded pianist, and so on for several more names. Why is it that we mystify the name of Liszt? I think we all know that the people in France at that time had a way of overstating things, and obviously were superficial enough in their studies of music to view much of Liszt's purely technical works (that he admitted himself to be only the work of a young gun of a showman) as the highest order of good music.

Liszt was a very great pianist, but how do we know whether or not Thalberg was much better than him? He was simply a cultural phenomenon of the times.


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## Air

Lukecash12 said:


> Liszt was a very great pianist, but how do we know whether or not Thalberg was much better than him? He was simply a cultural phenomenon of the times.


Those two did have a showdown at some point and apparently Liszt "won." Go figure. Don't bother me about how one can be the judge of that.


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## Sid James

It's interesting how we're interested in who is the greatest pianist (or violinist), but no-one cares about who is greatest at the less popular instruments. I mean, does anyone talk about who is the greatest violist, bassoonist or organist?


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## World Violist

Andre said:


> I mean, does anyone talk about who is the greatest violist


I talk about the greatest violist.


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## Aramis

Andre said:


> I mean, does anyone talk about who is the greatest violist, bassoonist or organist?


Or crash cymbalist. Very underrated figure in orchestra. Who is your favourite one?


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## World Violist

Aramis said:


> Or crash cymbalist. Very underrated figure in orchestra. Who is your favourite one?


The one who plays in Bernstein's recording of Candide.


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## Argus

Andre said:


> It's interesting how we're interested in who is the greatest pianist (or violinist), but no-one cares about who is greatest at the less popular instruments. I mean, does anyone talk about who is the greatest violist, bassoonist or organist?


I'm certain that violist's, bassoonist's and organist's, respectively, pose similar questions about who is the greatest on their chosen instrument. I actually wouldn't mind knowing who is considered the greatest organist. It'll be quite intesesting as the organ is older than the piano so should have more players of note and more evolution of techniques. How would Bach or Buxtehude compare to say Franck or Widor or even modern players like Richter. Then there's the Hammond organ used in jazz and funk most notably Jimmy Smith.

The real question, however, is who is the greatest triangle player? Or even tubular bells.


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## Davidjo

One thing I know about Chopin - he recommended playing piano scales thumb first whatever the key to develop dexterity with the keys. It's an interesting challenge - especially C sharp for my fingers.


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## Lukecash12

Andre said:


> It's interesting how we're interested in who is the greatest pianist (or violinist), but no-one cares about who is greatest at the less popular instruments. I mean, does anyone talk about who is the greatest violist, bassoonist or organist?


I'd have to say that Kevin Bowyer is the greatest organist. Just putting that out there


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## SalieriIsInnocent

I really don't think there is anybody that the whole world will say is the best. Everybody will have a different opinion. Some days I cant decide whether I think Mozart is the best composer or Beethoven is. I think everybody has their way of being the best. Too many composers and musicians for their to be a definitive artist. 

Most people think Yngwie Malmsteen is a guitar god, but I think his playing is to robotic. Some say Jascha Heifetz was the best violinist of all time, but I think Augustin Dumay is just as good. Some say Picasso's paintings are beautiful, but I can't ever decide what I am looking at.


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## jhar26

Salieri=Innocent said:


> I really don't think there is anybody that the whole world will say is the best. Everybody will have a different opinion. Some days I cant decide whether I think Mozart is the best composer or Beethoven is. I think everybody has their way of being the best. Too many composers and musicians for their to be a definitive artist.
> 
> Most people think Yngwie Malmsteen is a guitar god, but I think his playing is to robotic. Some say Jascha Heifetz was the best violinist of all time, but I think Augustin Dumay is just as good. Some say Picasso's paintings are beautiful, but I can't ever decide what I am looking at.


Well, it's not a competition where whoever crosses the finishing line the first, jumps the highest or scores the most goals has proven himself to be better than the competition.


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## fredkemp

Beethovan is good sometimes ago but there are many men & women knocking the doors and I think Liszt is good to my view point.


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## Mozartgirl92

I think this is a hard question to answer.
I know that I will never be able to hear how pianist from the 1700s to 1800s sounds compared to those who are living today or a pianist from the 2200s(I highly doubt that I will live that long), but I know that I like Arthur Rubinsteins piano playing among others.
So I guess this is a case of each to his own.


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## Artemis

Mozartgirl92 said:


> I think this is a hard question to answer.
> I know that I will never be able to hear how pianist from the 1700s to 1800s sounds compared to those who are living today or a pianist from the 2200s(I highly doubt that I will live that long), but I know that I like Arthur Rubinsteins piano playing among others.
> So I guess this is a case of each to his own.


Artur Rubinstein is among my favourite pianists. To me he played with more charm and warmth than Horowitz, a major contemporary.

Rubinstein and Chopin were made for each other. But as you are a Mozart fan you may be aware of other artists who are especially highly regarded playing his piano works. For the main Piano Concertos (nos 19-27) people like Ashkenazy and Barenboim stand out very well. Among the piano sonatas pianists like Mitsuko Uchida, Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia, Maria Joao-Pires, Lilli Krauss are very impressive.

These artists all play using modern pianos. If you would like to listen to a more "period" approach of Mozart's piano works based on the use of a fortepiano then some good names to look out for are Ronald Brautigam and Malcolm Bilson.


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## Mozartgirl92

Thank you Artemis, Im going to check out those pianists as soon as I can.


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## SamGuss

Artemis said:


> Artur Rubinstein is among my favourite pianists. To me he played with more charm and warmth than Horowitz, a major contemporary.


Ditto. I just got a DVD of his performance in Russia in 1964 - was brilliant!


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## MJTTOMB

Well here's my list. It's just few from the top of my head, so don't be offended if your favorite's not my favorite.

*Pre-20th century pianists:*

_Liszt_- 
No need to elaborate.

_Alkan_- 
A close friend of Chopin, and indeed a rival of Liszt, Alkan was certainly one of the greatest pianists of all time. Liszt confessed that Alkan had the greatest technique he had ever witnessed. His Etudes and Concerti for Solo Piano are a testament to his capabilities with the instrument.

_Scriabin_-
Scriabin was widely accepted to be one of the greatest pianists of his time, and was praised for the colorful and sensual elements of his sound. Known sometimes as a "Russian Chopin", Scriabin lived up to this title in both his early compositions (ex. Valse, Op. 1, Etude, Op. 2 No. 1), and his performing abilities.

*20th century Pianists:*

_Vladimir Horowitz_- 
His technical proficiency was absolutely fantastic. Though not without flaw, he is (in my opinion) inarguably the greatest interpreter. He was a man of outstanding musicality, humility, and humanity, and for that he goes down as my number one. A couple examples of exceptional recordings: Scriabin, Op. 42 no. 5, Etude in C# minor. Similarly, his recordings of Rachmaninoff preludes are simply divine. The recording that introduced me to this great man was Mozart's 23rd piano concerto, specifically the second movement. Perhaps more beautiful than the recording himself is watching him afterword speaking with other humans. The human element is all too often forgotten.

_Sviatoslav Richter_- 
Richter's ability to play a piece while holding the composer's intentions above his own was fantastic. interpretation, so to speak, is minimal, and he follows the directions of the composer religiously. His recordings are perhaps the closest to achieving the intentions of the composer. Specific examples would be his recordings of the Debussy Estampes in his later years, and similar to Horowitz, his recordings of the Rachmaninoff preludes.

_Glenn Gould_- 
Any list of the greats should include Gould. Love him or hate him, one must admit that his technique was absolutely impeccable. The name Gould is rightfully inseparable from the name Bach, and his recordings of the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Inventions are, in my eyes, the authoritative interpretations. Likewise, his recordings of the Goldberg Variations are fantastic. He was a strange, yet handsome and charming pianist. Oddly eccentric, but nonetheless deeply attached and in love with the music which he played. His documentaries record a the world through the eyes of a man who saw music everywhere, and I truly believe he was a genius.

_Marc-Andre Hamelin_-
Hamelin has gained my appreciation recently for the attention he pays to the composers that have slid to the periphery of the repertoire. He performs Alkan's Etudes with amazing proficiency, and even if you don't like them, his recordings of Roslavets are a significant achievement worthy of praise.


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## jhooper3581

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.


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## Sandy

May I simply choose Glenn Gould? I was fortunate to hear him in person years ago at a concert at UCLA. I frankly never heard anything before or after to top him. Be kind, I'm old and gray....

Sandy


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## Romantic Geek

Horowitz at time got a bit showy and would change a few compositions...added a few octaves here and there. It's happened it a quite a few of his recordings I've heard.

I love Martha Argerich. She plays wonderfully. At times, it can be a bit frantic...but for the most part, it's good stuff. On the opposite end, Van Cliburn tends to drag his feet...but I love his playing too.


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## Davidjo

I saw Richter play when he was quite old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sviatoslav_Richter

Not sure it gets much better than that .


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## Artemis

Davidjo said:


> I saw Richter play when he was quite old.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sviatoslav_Richter
> 
> Not sure it gets much better than that .


The fact is though that once you get into the super league of pianists it's difficult to tell them apart. I recall a test on another Forum some time back when a 5 minute section of one of Beethoven's more famous piano sonatas was played by about 8-10 famous anonymous pianists. The errors in the guesswork from the few brave souls who attempted to guess who was who who were quite embarrassing. Most people didn't even bother to guess, presumably out of fear of showing themselves up. And yet these same people are still today pontificating on who they consider to be best pianists whenever some vaguely relevant thread comes up. People make you laugh. This is not to suggest that Richter isn't great. Just saying ...


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## Romantic Geek

For what it's worth, what I've heard from James Barbello is quite impressive.


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## nefigah

Artemis said:


> The fact is though that once you get into the super league of pianists it's difficult to tell them apart. I recall a test on another Forum some time back when a 5 minute section of one of Beethoven's more famous piano sonatas was played by about 8-10 famous anonymous pianists. The errors in the guesswork from the few brave souls who attempted to guess who was who who were quite embarrassing. Most people didn't even bother to guess, presumably out of fear of showing themselves up. And yet these same people are still today pontificating on who they consider to be best pianists whenever some vaguely relevant thread comes up. People make you laugh. This is not to suggest that Richter isn't great. Just saying ...


Hear, hear. Personally I think it's more productive to seek out great individual recordings!

Sometimes when I listen to a recording or watch one on youtube, I like to imagine what it'd be like if the composer walked in and happened upon someone playing his music so beautifully. I'm in awe that men and women walk among us who can do so.


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## Lukecash12

MJTTOMB said:


> Well here's my list. It's just few from the top of my head, so don't be offended if your favorite's not my favorite.
> 
> *Pre-20th century pianists:*
> 
> _Liszt_-
> No need to elaborate.
> 
> _Alkan_-
> A close friend of Chopin, and indeed a rival of Liszt, Alkan was certainly one of the greatest pianists of all time. Liszt confessed that Alkan had the greatest technique he had ever witnessed. His Etudes and Concerti for Solo Piano are a testament to his capabilities with the instrument.
> 
> _Scriabin_-
> Scriabin was widely accepted to be one of the greatest pianists of his time, and was praised for the colorful and sensual elements of his sound. Known sometimes as a "Russian Chopin", Scriabin lived up to this title in both his early compositions (ex. Valse, Op. 1, Etude, Op. 2 No. 1), and his performing abilities.
> 
> *20th century Pianists:*
> 
> _Vladimir Horowitz_-
> His technical proficiency was absolutely fantastic. Though not without flaw, he is (in my opinion) inarguably the greatest interpreter. He was a man of outstanding musicality, humility, and humanity, and for that he goes down as my number one. A couple examples of exceptional recordings: Scriabin, Op. 42 no. 5, Etude in C# minor. Similarly, his recordings of Rachmaninoff preludes are simply divine. The recording that introduced me to this great man was Mozart's 23rd piano concerto, specifically the second movement. Perhaps more beautiful than the recording himself is watching him afterword speaking with other humans. The human element is all too often forgotten.
> 
> _Sviatoslav Richter_-
> Richter's ability to play a piece while holding the composer's intentions above his own was fantastic. interpretation, so to speak, is minimal, and he follows the directions of the composer religiously. His recordings are perhaps the closest to achieving the intentions of the composer. Specific examples would be his recordings of the Debussy Estampes in his later years, and similar to Horowitz, his recordings of the Rachmaninoff preludes.
> 
> _Glenn Gould_-
> Any list of the greats should include Gould. Love him or hate him, one must admit that his technique was absolutely impeccable. The name Gould is rightfully inseparable from the name Bach, and his recordings of the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Inventions are, in my eyes, the authoritative interpretations. Likewise, his recordings of the Goldberg Variations are fantastic. He was a strange, yet handsome and charming pianist. Oddly eccentric, but nonetheless deeply attached and in love with the music which he played. His documentaries record a the world through the eyes of a man who saw music everywhere, and I truly believe he was a genius.
> 
> _Marc-Andre Hamelin_-
> Hamelin has gained my appreciation recently for the attention he pays to the composers that have slid to the periphery of the repertoire. He performs Alkan's Etudes with amazing proficiency, and even if you don't like them, his recordings of Roslavets are a significant achievement worthy of praise.


Thanks for highlighting on Scriabin. The recordings and piano rolls, that we are lucky enough to have of his, are full of sensitivity.


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## Lukecash12

Here's a few awesome recordings of Scriabin's apparent mastery of the instrument:
















I'd also like to add Samuil Feinberg to the list:

Quote: "Samuil Feinberg (1890-1962) was a major Russian pianist-composer in the early 20th-century. He was an acclaimed virtuoso with an eclectic repertoire and an esteemed teacher at the Moscow Conservatory. Today, he is mostly remembered for his Bach transcriptions and various recordings. However, his compositional output is substantial and his piano works, despite influences from Scriabin, are original, intense, and extremely virtuosic. Unlike Scriabin, he preferred a sound world of angst and pessimism. By 1934, Feinberg ceased playing his darker works in public. He also stopped composing in his early style and instead created simpler pieces according to Socialist Realism."











And one of his compositions that he played only a few times in public:


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## danae

michael walsh said:


> Surely, Ludwig van Beethoven but I suppose it is subjective? It seems every talented virtuoso who (impudently?) took him on was thrashed and humiliated. It was never merely a points win; each occasion emphasised Beethoven's absolute supremacy. That was of course in a contemporary sense. What of others who followed? I wonder what Beethoven's thoughts would have been on say Chopin, the 'poet of the keyboard'?


The question, as you put it, as at least illegitimate. Let me explain: there can be no *ONE* pianist / artist / painter / dancer / director bla bla bla and so on... that is the GREATEST in the world. The very notion is irrational, since it suggests that there are ways to objectively measure art and culture, and of course, that doesn't make any sense.

There can be great pianists, and there are many names which fit into that category, from LvB, Chopin, Liszt, Hummel, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, to modern day great pianists (Kissin and Argerich for instance). But is there a point to trying to figure out who was or is the greatest? Not only do I think that there is no point altogether, I even consider the question an insult to artists in general.


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## TresPicos

danae said:


> The question, as you put it, as at least illegitimate. Let me explain: there can be no *ONE* pianist / artist / painter / dancer / director bla bla bla and so on... that is the GREATEST in the world. The very notion is irrational, since it suggests that there are ways to objectively measure art and culture, and of course, that doesn't make any sense.
> 
> There can be great pianists, and there are many names which fit into that category, from LvB, Chopin, Liszt, Hummel, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, to modern day great pianists (Kissin and Argerich for instance). But is there a point to trying to figure out who was or is the greatest? Not only do I think that there is no point altogether, I even consider the question an insult to artists in general.


Even though the question could hardly be answered, the discussion can still be interesting. Which candidates are put forth, and why?

A more realistic thread title would, of course, be "The Greatest Pianist*s* of all Time?", but hey, at least it wasn't a poll or a Top 10 list.


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## danae

TresPicos said:


> Even though the question could hardly be answered, the discussion can still be interesting. Which candidates are put forth, and why?
> 
> A more realistic thread title would, of course, be "The Greatest Pianist*s* of all Time?", but hey, at least it wasn't a poll or a Top 10 list.


Exactly! If the question involved the greatest pianists (plural), then I would definately be able to answer it.


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## handlebar

I'm not even going to attempt a response to who might be the best. Now if it were who are your favourite pianists, then I would name the following:

Horowitz,Richter,Brendel,Gilels,Hofman,Perahia,Cortot,Paderewski,Liszt,etc,etc.

Jim


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## Alkanian

Liszt or Alkan.
Also depends on how you define "greatest", technically at least the above.


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## Alkanian

handlebar said:


> I'm not even going to attempt a response to who might be the best. Now if it were who are your favourite pianists, then I would name the following:
> 
> Horowitz,Richter,Brendel,Gilels,Hofman,Perahia,Cortot,Paderewski,Liszt,etc,etc.
> 
> Jim


I don't know, can you really say one of your favorite pianists is Liszt? Unless you actually heard him play...?

Oh well.


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## jhar26

*Martha, I do declare that YOU AND NOBODY ELSE BUT YOU is the chosen one! ((at least for me ) To all the other greats I can only say, "congratulations for being among the contenders for second place!"*


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## Lukecash12

jhar26 said:


> *Martha, I do declare that YOU AND NOBODY ELSE BUT YOU is the chosen one! ((at least for me ) To all the other greats I can only say, "congratulations for being among the contenders for second place!"*


Honestly, the only recording of hers that I found very insightful at all was of Prokofeiv's third piano concerto. Every other time I've found her to lack a lot of things that are a basic standard. Like healthy, rhythmic, clear, and consistent Baroque music. Have you any examples of her playing very well? Maybe I'm just too uneducated to make a conclusion.


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## Air

Lukecash12 said:


> Honestly, the only recording of hers that I found very insightful at all was of Prokofeiv's third piano concerto. Every other time I've found her to lack a lot of things that are a basic standard. Like healthy, rhythmic, clear, and consistent Baroque music. Have you any examples of her playing very well? Maybe I'm just too uneducated to make a conclusion.


Prok 3
Rach 3 (on par with/better than Horowitz, Janis, Rachmaninov, Volodos...but my personal favorite)
Liszt's Piano Sonata
Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit and Piano Concerto
Prokofiev's Toccata
Schumann's Piano Sonata No. 2
Chopin and Liszt 1
Chopin's Scherzo No. 3 (I despise this work, BTW)
Tchaikovsky's 1 (There are many great recordings, so I hesitate here)
Lots of Chamber Music and Two Piano Stuff...

Quite a list of superb recordings, methinks. Regarding Argerich, I find that there are generally two camps, those who like her style and those who do not, with very few in between. There are some recordings that I like (Schumann's PC and other piano works, Prok 7, Chopin, Scarlatti, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, de Falla, etc.) that _some_ people will think is trash and that is fine (well, not really...) as long as they've actually gave it a good try themselves.

Anyways, the performances above are the ones that I feel are definitive or near-definitive. She certainly is a marvel and I love to her death, but I wouldn't put her in a league with Richter, Gilels, Cortot, Sofronitsky, Rosenthal, Michelangeli and other piano-gods that I worship. However, I _will_ say that she certainly can claim the title for greatest _living_ pianist (along with a handful of others, of course).


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## dmg

I second Art Tatum.


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## Romantic Geek

I'm sorry, but Michelangeli is terrible. Beautiful tone but horrid interpretation. I heard him play a Chopin Mazurka like a waltz. It was honestly the most pathetic thing I've ever heard.


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## Air

Romantic Geek said:


> I'm sorry, but Michelangeli is terrible. Beautiful tone but horrid interpretation. I heard him play a Chopin Mazurka like a waltz. It was honestly the most pathetic thing I've ever heard.


Have you actually heard enough Michelangeli to come to this absurd conclusion? Probably not. But any educated listener, even those who aren't too fond of his playing, knows that he is indisputably considered to be one of the finest pianists of his era, even if _you_ don't think so.

However, I can't blame you _too_ much, as his playing, especially of Romantic era compositions, tends to be quite inconsistent. It all comes down to knowing what Michelangeli to get; his Debussy, Ravel, Brahms, Scarlatti, Liszt 1, Rach 4, Schumann Carnaval, some Beethoven, and as a matter of fact, his Chopin (Piano Sonata No. 2, Ballade No. 1, etc.) can be considered _definitive_ or near-definitive. Though his repertoire was much too small, he recorded each of these works a good number of times, and as a result, churned out many great recordings, each with their own value. Beware, though, that collecting Michelangeli is pretty difficult; his best recordings are dispersed over quite a few labels, and it is incredibly confusing to know which recordings are good and which are not. Therefore, you may have just been unlucky in your selection.

Honestly, I like his Mazurkas, but after your outburst I'll probably give them another spin, just to see what you are getting at.


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## Argus

Romantic Geek said:


> I'm sorry, but Michelangeli is terrible. Beautiful tone but horrid interpretation. I heard him play a Chopin Mazurka like a waltz. It was honestly the most pathetic thing I've ever heard.


You can't have listened to that much music then. None of the pianists listed in this thread are really capable of truly pathetic playing. You could say it's the worst verion of a Chopin mazurka you've ever heard but I think even that would be a gross overstatement.



> I second Art Tatum.


The thing is Tatum and his ilk could probably play a lot of the most difficult classical pieces to a somewhat decent standard whereas most of the great's listed here couldn't do anything close to what he could on a standard. I suppose it depends on whether you value a great interpreter over a great improviser or vice versa. Not saying classical guys can't improvise, because most can, but it's a totally different kind of improvisation.


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## Romantic Geek

Argus,

As much as you would like to think that, I've done a significant amount of research on mazurkas. The style, the history...everything. Out of all of the people who've played mazurkas, I would put Michelangeli quite near the bottom. I've heard him play a lot of Chopin and simply did not like one interpretation. This is quite possible because I have taken piano lessons from a Chopin competition winner for the last 4 years in college. 

Of what I've heard from Michelangeli, which is about a few CDs worth, I have found that more than half of his interpretations have been quite inconsistent with the style in which they were composed. Usually, I don't take offense to this, but for some reason Michelangeli just does it so wrong that I can't listen to it. I did not like his interpretation of the Debussy preludes. I have not liked anything Chopin he's played. Actually, anything past 1730 was pretty inaccurate. He's pretty rigid. I really only liked the Scarlatti that he played, and personally, I don't think Scarlatti should be played on the piano.

What I do like about Michelangeli is the tone he produces from the piano. It simply is beautiful. However, it is very hard to get around the lack of stylistic playing that each piece requires. Simply, if you can set a metronome to a mazurka, you're playing it wrong.

As far as the best pianist to play the mazurkas...you simply have to look to Rubenstein. He understood the mazurka.


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## Artemis

Lukecash12 said:


> Honestly, the only recording of hers that I found very insightful at all was of Prokofeiv's third piano concerto. Every other time I've found her to lack a lot of things that are a basic standard. Like healthy, rhythmic, clear, and consistent Baroque music. Have you any examples of her playing very well? Maybe I'm just too uneducated to make a conclusion.


I would like to make a few comments.

You ask specifically about Martha Argerich's playing of baroque. This is not an area she has done all much in but I have a CD of hers playing some Bach (Toccata BWV 911, and Partita No 2) which is pretty good. In fact I remember enjoying it quite a lot and almost wore out the CD. It's on the DG label. If you don't like that I would be surprised.

I don't much care for her Chopin. But there are very few pianists I do like apart from Cortot and Rubinstein, who were both made for Chopin. In fact, I'm biased against all others with the exception of Peter Katin, who is brilliant.

Her Schumann is good. There's an excellent Fantasia Op 18, which is among my favourite versions. I have lots of these as it's one of very favourite piano works.

More up her street is the heavy-end romantic, virtouso stuff. Her Rach 3 is highly regarded, and I would definitely say it's my favourite version. Her Tchaikovsky PC1 is good too (mine is an old version but I've herad good reports of a more recent one with BPO/Abbado).

She is a star in chamber works. I wouldn't have any hesitation in picking her out in works by the likes of Schumann or Brahms.

All in all she is very good. I haven't seen her perform in concert but I gather she has a great deal of charisma and audiences love her to bits. I can't understand why you make such heavy criticism of her. In general I would say that current opinion is that she is up at the top end of top league pianists, whatever your opinion of her may be.

Perhaps you could tell us which pianists (still playing) you like. Are they any good across the whole spectrum of the piano repertory? Can you spell out some individual works where you believe such people excel?


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## jhar26

I know I probably forget a few, but these are among the Argerich recordings I love the most.

Prokofiev - Toccata op.11
Prokofiev - Concerto no.3 in C major (Abbado)
Ravel - Jeux d'eau
Ravel - Gaspard de la Nuit
Ravel - Concerto in C major (Abbado, the 1967 recording)
Schumann - Fantasiestucke op.12
Schumann - Fantasie op.17
Schumann - Piano Concerto in A minor op.54 (Harnoncourt)
Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsody no.6
Liszt - Piano Sonata in B minor
Chopin - Piano Sonata no.2 in B flat minor
Chopin - Grande Polonaise brilliante précédéé d'un Andante spianato op.22
Bach - Toccata in C minor BWV 911
Bach - Partita no.2 in C minor BWV 826
Bach - English Suite no.2 in A minor BWV 807
Rachmaninov - Concerto no.3 in D minor (Chailly)


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## Taneyev

I think Martha and Rosalynd Tureck are the 2 faces of a coin. Tureck is like a turtle who drags painfully for a piece, slowly, very,very slowly. Martha is a Ferrari. At the first notes of a piece, she push the accelerator and jumps at 100MPH until the end. It's like she have to end what she's playing the soon as posible to go and do something urgent.


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## jhar26

Taneyev said:


> I think Martha and Rosalynd Tureck are the 2 faces of a coin. Tureck is like a turtle who drags painfully for a piece, slowly, very,very slowly. Martha is a Ferrari. At the first notes of a piece, she push the accelerator and jumps at 100MPH until the end. It's like she have to end what she's playing the soon as posible to go and do something urgent.


Well, Otto Klemperer's take on the Eroica is much slower than Beethoven intended. But it sounds right and therefore it is right. Too fast or not, Argerich usually sounds right to me. But it's obvious from the comments that Argerich is a pianist you either love or hate.


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## Romantic Geek

She plays the Brahms Rhapsody in B minor at a blistering pace. I love her...but if she played a tad bit slower (and literally just a tad) I think she would be incredible.


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## pradoswank

I'm not the biggest fan of any pianist but I love Yani's Nightingale. It was awesome.
===========================================================


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## Lukecash12

Romantic Geek said:


> I'm sorry, but Michelangeli is terrible. Beautiful tone but horrid interpretation. I heard him play a Chopin Mazurka like a waltz. It was honestly the most pathetic thing I've ever heard.


I wouldn't ever venture to say something so insulting of any pianist. Not to sound very condescending (because I'm a pianist myself), but Michelangeli was capable of this: 



 




Can you say that you've ever played with such vitality and passion even once?


----------



## Romantic Geek

Lukecash12 said:


> I wouldn't ever venture to say something so insulting of any pianist. Not to sound very condescending (because I'm a pianist myself), but Michelangeli was capable of this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Can you say that you've ever played with such vitality and passion even once?


Do you think I'm not a pianist? Because I am myself. Just to clarify...

All of these pianists we've mentioned in here have absolutely beautiful tone. They all play with passion and vitality. So what separates them? Stylistic interpretations. I'm a firm believer that styleistic interpretations is what defines a good pianist from a great pianist and what separates the masters from the great pianists.

Michelangeli has beautiful tone but I find many of his stylistic interpretations to be historically incorrect, especially the newer the piece is. He plays Chopin Mazurkas wrong. It doesn't matter how beautiful your tone is.

And usually I'm up for different interpretations of certain pieces, but there are just some pieces, especially dances, that have a right and wrong way to play them. No one would play a saraband accenting only beat one or play a waltz accenting every beat two. That's why I can say with strong passion that Michelangeli just doesn't know how to play a mazurka. It's as painful to my ear as someone accenting beat ones in a saraband.

But it doesn't go just for the mazurkas with him. Much of his Chopin is mediocre at best, especially compared to the greats like Rubenstein. My piano teacher is an International Chopin Competition winner. I've been exposed to the greats in playing Chopin and I know that his Chopin is not terribly good.

You don't have to like what I have to say. He just wouldn't be in the conversation for the greatest pianists of all time for me.


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## Air

Romantic Geek said:


> Much of his Chopin is mediocre at best, especially compared to the greats like Rubenstein.


True, some of his Chopin _is_ mediocre, and I have already made the case for this. But _what matters to me isn't what Michelangeli I don't like, but what I do like_, and I can say for myself that when Michelangeli is on with his Chopin, he is on fire. He becomes one of the greatest Chopinists ever. I will say that his version of the first Ballade and Second Piano Sonata clearly win out for me over Rubinstein's (and I have heard at least a dozen versions of these works...).

It really troubles me, but some people think that the name Artur Rubinstein not only defines Chopin, but is the _only_ Chopin. This is much like how Schnabel and Gould were looked at during the mid-century in regards to Beethoven and Bach. Is Beethoven complete with Schnabel? No, certainly not. Or with Backhaus? Annie Fischer? Gilels? No, certainly not, and in the same way Rubinstein is not synonymous with Chopin. True, he is perhaps the most solid Chopinist, but if we are looking for individual recordings of each work, and this is what one _should_ care about (it's music after all, not composers), there are so many pianists out there that have/had something to offer in their interpretations of Chopin, and they musn't be Polish to "get it" either, may I add.

By the way, the best Mazurkas certainly belong to Ignaz Friedman, who's recordings I had the pleasure of downloading last week.

Who are your favorite pianists, may I ask?


----------



## Romantic Geek

I don't have any particular favorites. I enjoy specific pianists for their specific recordings. I do like a lot of Argerich's mid to late Romantic style interpretations. I like Rubenstein on the whole. Other than Rach 3, I don't care much for Horowitz. He's too showy. My favorite composer, Edward MacDowell, is not often performed by the greats, but James Barbello did an amazing job recording about 3/4 of his piano works. But I don't care for performers for their performances so much. That's usually why in iTunes I put the composer's name under the artist and not the performer. I only like to listen to what I think is a good performance and whether it comes from some no-name or Horowitz, it doesn't really matter.

Also, I know Rubenstein is not synonymous with Chopin. I just think he's a good example because a lot of people know him. I, for one, think my piano teacher plays Chopin much better than Rubenstein (though he'll never say he does.)


----------



## Air

Romantic Geek said:


> I don't have any particular favorites. I enjoy specific pianists for their specific recordings. I do like a lot of Argerich's mid to late Romantic style interpretations. I like Rubenstein on the whole. Other than Rach 3, I don't care much for Horowitz. He's too showy. My favorite composer, Edward MacDowell, is not often performed by the greats, but James Barbello did an amazing job recording about 3/4 of his piano works. But I don't care for performers for their performances so much. That's usually why in iTunes I put the composer's name under the artist and not the performer. I only like to listen to what I think is a good performance and whether it comes from some no-name or Horowitz, it doesn't really matter.
> 
> Also, I know Rubenstein is not synonymous with Chopin. I just think he's a good example because a lot of people know him. I, for one, think my piano teacher plays Chopin much better than Rubenstein (though he'll never say he does.)


No Richter? Heresy! 

It's interesting because I think exactly the opposite when I categorize solo piano. Over here is my Richter collection, over here my Cortot CDs. Hmm... I want to listen to some Yudina... oh, she's over here!

My piano collection is beginning to have tremendous depth, but not enough breadth. Not to say I don't have piano works by many MANY different composers, but I've been more curious acquiring different intepretations by different pianists recently. It adds a certain 4th and 5th dimension to each work, and this is the aspect that piano-philes are hooked to. Not just depth and quality, but an intimate experience with the performer / piece that (I find) very few orchestral performances can give.

Perhaps I need to concentrate on collecting solo piano for breadth more. A huge thanks to you for your recommendations of MacDowell. I am acquainted with a few of his piano works, but have hugely overlooked them in the past. You have sparked my curiosity so you can be sure that I will be looking for the recordings of Barbello ASAP.


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## Romantic Geek

Beware though of Barbello on some of his recordings. Occasionally, he gets a bit of Glenn Gould syndrome


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## robert1022

Well, personal prejudices with this cannot be avoided, since everyone is entitled to an opinion. I really do think that it is OBJECTIVE that Beethoven be the greatest pianist of all time. Not just of his fabulous compositions, like the never-disappearing FUR ELISE. Everyone who plays piano or keyboards will never fail to encounter his name, if ever for that famous "gray hair, sticking up, playing in the shadows with the form of a vulture" image icon or his works. Even though there are others that are very talented indeed, you have to admit, Mr. Ludwig van Beethoven has done most. Perseverance is always present there, considering the fact that he began being a little bit deaf at the age of 30 and completely deaf in 50 yet he still continued to write those wonderful compositions. With his musical mastery, he does not need hearing to make the richest melodies. He made Fur Elise when he was practically deaf. Imagine those he could have made had he not have been deaf. Mozart was deaf too, I know. But Mr. Beethoven was deaf longer and he left such a legacy he is probably the first man everyone thinks of in classical music composition! 

Well, some will disagree, but I just admire Mr. Beethhoven!


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## jhar26

robert1022 said:


> Well, personal prejudices with this cannot be avoided, since everyone is entitled to an opinion. I really do think that it is OBJECTIVE that Beethoven be the greatest pianist of all time. Not just of his fabulous compositions, like the never-disappearing FUR ELISE. Everyone who plays piano or keyboards will never fail to encounter his name, if ever for that famous "gray hair, sticking up, playing in the shadows with the form of a vulture" image icon or his works. Even though there are others that are very talented indeed, you have to admit, Mr. Ludwig van Beethoven has done most. Perseverance is always present there, considering the fact that he began being a little bit deaf at the age of 30 and completely deaf in 50 yet he still continued to write those wonderful compositions. With his musical mastery, he does not need hearing to make the richest melodies. He made Fur Elise when he was practically deaf. Imagine those he could have made had he not have been deaf. Mozart was deaf too, I know. But Mr. Beethoven was deaf longer and he left such a legacy he is probably the first man everyone thinks of in classical music composition!
> 
> Well, some will disagree, but I just admire Mr. Beethhoven!


Mozart was deaf   But anyway, I think you confuse "greatest composer for the piano" with "greatest pianist." There's not much doubt that Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, etc were great pianists, but it's impossible for us to know exactly how great they were for obvious reasons. All we have to go on are stories by third parties and the fact that their compositions require a lot of skill to play them.


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## AStarrii

I'm going to put up Richter Sviatoslav.

i welcome any disagreements but his performances are wonderous and they bring tears to my eyes. Horowitz of course is good but Richter truly caught my attention, please go listen to him, you'll understnad. 

I don't understand how we're supposed to know how good Beethoven was, for obvious reasons. We can only second guess ourselves, and truly even though he was amazing, his deafness surely would've brought down the quality of his music. 

But does anyone else think, at a certain professional level, the judging comes down to personal preference? I mean the pattern is seen in most piano competitions, (forgive me I do not know much of any other instruments)


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## AStarrii

maybe you are praising his composition skills more than his actual piano playing skills? feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.


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## Kieran

robert1022 said:


> Well, personal prejudices with this cannot be avoided, since everyone is entitled to an opinion. I really do think that it is OBJECTIVE that Beethoven be the greatest pianist of all time. Not just of his fabulous compositions, like the never-disappearing FUR ELISE. Everyone who plays piano or keyboards will never fail to encounter his name, if ever for that famous "gray hair, sticking up, playing in the shadows with the form of a vulture" image icon or his works. Even though there are others that are very talented indeed, you have to admit, Mr. Ludwig van Beethoven has done most. Perseverance is always present there, considering the fact that he began being a little bit deaf at the age of 30 and completely deaf in 50 yet he still continued to write those wonderful compositions. With his musical mastery, he does not need hearing to make the richest melodies. He made Fur Elise when he was practically deaf. Imagine those he could have made had he not have been deaf. Mozart was deaf too, I know. But Mr. Beethoven was deaf longer and he left such a legacy he is probably the first man everyone thinks of in classical music composition!
> 
> Well, some will disagree, but I just admire Mr. Beethhoven!


I think we can guess from the quality of their compositions that Beethoven, Mozart et al were excellent pianists, since they performed these works in public to great acclaim. If this were the criteria for deciding who's the greatest pianist, then Herr Mozart would be my choice  .

But of course, there's been possibly many pianists better again than the composers of these works, and it's really impossible to choose. Sorry for sitting on the fence in my first post, but how can we tell who's the greatest of all time, when all we hear are modern players?


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## graaf

Not many fans of Ivo Pogorelich on this forum.

Jhar26 might know that after Pogorelich was eliminated in the third round of the 1980 International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Martha Argerich proclaimed him a "genius" and left the jury in protest.

If Martha says someone is a genius, ho are we to judge?


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## Air

Well, judging by his current situation (and for the past decade), Pogolerich's future is not looking too bright.


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## jhar26

graaf said:


> Not many fans of Ivo Pogorelich on this forum.
> 
> Jhar26 might know that after Pogorelich was eliminated in the third round of the 1980 International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Martha Argerich proclaimed him a "genius" and left the jury in protest.
> 
> If Martha says someone is a genius, ho are we to judge?


Yes, I know the story. And of course you're right. If Martha says he's a genius it must be so. After all, it takes one to know one.


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## Damon

Hey pianists from the 19th century can be a match for those from the 20th century due to thier quality and style.........but in view 19th century pianists are really great to see.

 dreambox 500s


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## Yoshi

Greatest pianist of all Time? 
Impossible to tell.

My favourite?
Glenn Gould.


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## Chopin_Fan777

Having a thread about the greatest pianist of all will bring many debates. There is no greatest because they all have their particular style and finesse. Kempf and Argerich are geniuses though.

My favourite pianist would be Vladimir Ashkenazy. He plays Rachmaninoff's Piano Concertos with real fire.


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## Webernite

I'm partial to Richter, Gould and Rachmaninov. The greatest pianist ever was probably Anton Rubinstein. I wish he had left recordings.


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## parsa

i think beethoven is more composer than a great pianist. im sure franz liszt was finest pianist ever


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## Yoshi

I don't understand why people keep mentioning pianists that they never heard playing. Yes they might have been great, but how do you know they were better than some pianists today, if there aren't any recordings?


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## World Violist

Jan said:


> I don't understand why people keep mentioning pianists that they never heard playing. Yes they might have been great, but how do you know they were better than some pianists today, if there aren't any recordings?


Exactly my point! It's like violinists worshiping Paganini; there is no backup to their adulation of this person other than a few raving reviews that almost certainly completely exaggerate every aspect of their playing, and whatever compositions they left. We can't call them great because we can't see them and make our own subjective judgments, so what's the point (because "greatness" is, after all, an almost purely subjective thing)?

My favorite pianists are André Laplante and Sviatoslav Richter.


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## ScipioAfricanus

World Violist said:


> Exactly my point! It's like violinists worshiping Paganini; there is no backup to their adulation of this person other than a few raving reviews that almost certainly completely exaggerate every aspect of their playing, and whatever compositions they left. We can't call them great because we can't see them and make our own subjective judgments, so what's the point (because "greatness" is, after all, an almost purely subjective thing)?
> 
> My favorite pianists are André Laplante and Sviatoslav Richter.


my favorite are Helene Grimaud, Dubravka Tomsic, Andre Watts, Lazar Bermann.


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## Argus




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## Aramis




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## Webernite

World Violist said:


> Exactly my point! It's like violinists worshiping Paganini; there is no backup to their adulation of this person other than a few raving reviews that almost certainly completely exaggerate every aspect of their playing, and whatever compositions they left. We can't call them great because we can't see them and make our own subjective judgments, so what's the point (because "greatness" is, after all, an almost purely subjective thing)?


The difference is that Paganini _died_ in 1840, whereas a lot of the old pianists people have referred to (Liszt, Rubinstein, Hofmann, Busoni) lived recently enough for a judgement to be more reasonable. For example, Hofmann's few recordings may be too fuzzy to judge, but Charles Rosen, who actually met him, says he had the best tone of any pianist he ever heard. Many others who heard Hofmann agree. Rubinstein didn't leave any recordings, but Rachmaninov's style was supposedly based on his, and we have recordings of Rachmaninov. There are similar ways of judging Busoni, Liszt, Alkan, and so on.


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## World Violist

Webernite said:


> The difference is that Paganini _died_ in 1840, whereas a lot of the old pianists people have referred to (Liszt, Rubinstein, Hofmann, Busoni) lived recently enough for a judgement to be more reasonable. For example, Hofmann's few recordings may be too fuzzy to judge, but Charles Rosen, who actually met him, says he had the best tone of any pianist he ever heard. Many others who heard Hofmann agree. Rubinstein didn't leave any recordings, but Rachmaninov's style was supposedly based on his, and we have recordings of Rachmaninov. There are similar ways of judging Busoni, Liszt, Alkan, and so on.


But how much of it is biased? You can't judge a musician's style of performing in any other way than actually hearing them. Just because one musician's style is based on another's means absolutely nothing: recordings of Enescu and Menuhin show a great difference between the two, despite the fact that Menuhin practically worshiped his teacher.

Also, I'm pretty certain the oft-cited Beethoven's playing was very given to hysterical responses.


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## Orange Soda King

In a recent article, 100 of the top pianists were interviewed on who the 20 greatest pianists were. I believe they put Richter as 4th, Horowitz and Rubinstein as 3rd and 2nd (I forget which one is which), and Rachmaninoff as 1.

As a pianist who listens to pianists a whole lot, I don't know who the greatest pianist to exist could be. I could tell you my favorite and why, but that's about it.


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## Nicola

Orange Soda King said:


> In a recent article, 100 of the top pianists were interviewed on who the 20 greatest pianists were. I believe they put Richter as 4th, Horowitz and Rubinstein as 3rd and 2nd (I forget which one is which), and Rachmaninoff as 1.
> 
> As a pianist who listens to pianists a whole lot, I don't know who the greatest pianist to exist could be. I could tell you my favorite and why, but that's about it.


The article is from the August edition of the BBC music magazine, and no doubt will soon be doing "the rounds" on all the classical music forums. They interviewed 100 top pianists and asked each to nominate the 3 whom they considered to be the greatest, with the only constraint being that they must have them play on disc or stage, thus ruling out various histrical characters. Hence the maximum that any pianist could get was 100

The results for the top 10 were (with the number of votes according to my calculations in brackets):

1. Rachmaninov (24)
2. Rubinstein (22)
3. Horowitz (21)
4. Richter (17)
5. Cortot (15)
6. Lipatti (13)
7. Schnabel (11)
8. Gilels (10)
9. Argerich (10)
10. Michelangeli (9)

I understand that the 11-20 group comprises:

11. Zimerman
12. Friedman
13. Lupu
14. Fischer(Edwin)
15. Kempff
16. Perahia
17. Gould
18. Gieseking
19. Hofmann
20. Arrau

...

The remarkable thing about this list for the top 10 is how well it correlates with a list that has been around for several years writtem by "Piano Wizard" The top 10 pianists of the 20th century. This list includes 8 of the 10 listed in the BBC poll, which is a remarkable degree of correlation.

For me the over-riding thing about lists like these is that they pay no heed to one's favourite composers of piano music. For example, if it's J S Bach the top choices are more likely to be the likes of Gould and Perahia. On the other hand if it's Mozart one probably wouldn't select Gould, but more likely Uchida. If Beethoven is your man you wouldn't probably wouldn't select Rubinstein, but would tend to go for the likes of Schnabel and Gilels.

Personally, I wouldn't select Rachmaninov as all the recordings I've heard are far too noisy because of their vintage. I wouldn't select Horowitz: too much of a showman for my liking. I would be cagey about Richter: tends to be far too long winded and there's generally too much audience noise on many of his recordings, given most of them were live as he didn't like studio work. I'd definitely agree with the choice of Rubinstein, Lipatti and Michelangeli in the top 10. In the 11-20 group, I'd go with Zimerman and Perahia who are two of my favourites. Ashkenazy, Barenboim, Brendel should be in that group. My favourite female pianists are Catherine Collard and Imogen Cooper.


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## jhar26

Glad to see that her colleagues consider my girl the best living pianist.


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## Webernite

Strange list. Only one in five voted for Horowitz? Glenn Gould below Perahia? Rubinstein second? I guess this is what happens when you give people only three votes each.


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## Air

Webernite said:


> Strange list. Only one in five voted for Horowitz? Glenn Gould below Perahia? Rubinstein second? I guess this is what happens when you give people only three votes each.


Looks like someone has Horowitz syndrome.


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## Nicola

Webernite said:


> Strange list. Only one in five voted for Horowitz? Glenn Gould below Perahia? Rubinstein second? I guess this is what happens when you give people only three votes each.


Re your last sentence, if you give people more votes (say 5, 10 or whatever) you make the results potentially even more misleading. For example, if they had 10 choices it could be that one particular pianist might be listed 100 times even though he/she might be the 10th favourite pianist in each case. This would give the ludicrous result of that pianist coming at or very near 1st but in reality should be 10th. (I choose extreme figures merely to illustrate the potential problem).

There are other dubious features of the sampling procedure used. For example some of the 100 "top pianists" who were chosen to vote are a bit iffy in terms of status, and some others who are better known are missing. We are not told if any elaboration on the criteria of "greatness" was given to the voters, or whether they could interpret this term however they wished.

Shouldn't be too harsh though. The results are a lot more meaningful and valid to me than all the earlier speculation on this thread, the bulk of which has come from people with no known credentials in the piano world and some of which is comical in its irrelevance and naivety.


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## Keikobad

The problem, as I see it, is that we, as a society, tend to compartmentalize EVERYTHING. We need to label and assign and enumerate. One is either gay or straight.....there can be no continuum between the two (there certainly is in the animal world), for or against. Why is it necessary to create a category and then stick someone into it?

Asking who is the greatest pianist of all time is a worthless endeavor, for the answer will depend on the past experiences, perhaps even familiarity with the mechanics of playing the piano as well, of the individual.

And once THAT hurdle is surmounted, let's consider the enormous repertoire: Baroque, Romantic, 12-tone....... It's impossible to think that one pianist would excel in every possible style of playing; but wouldn't it be necessary that THE BEST PIANIST do so?

May we not appreciate and enjoy individual performers for their interpretive styles for various comosers? Angela Hewitt may never record the music of Sorabji or Busoni......but she's a damn good Bach performer. Isn't she entitled to credit for THAT????

Think outside the box, people. For goodness sake!


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## Webernite

Nicola, I guess in that case they should have weighted the votes, so that putting someone tenth would be worth less than putting them first.


Air said:


> Looks like someone has Horowitz syndrome.


I barely even listen to Horowitz's performances! But you'd think, given his reputation, that at least half the pianists would have voted for him. You get the feeling that they thought, "Oh, Horowitz is going to win whatever I do. Might as well vote for somebody more obscure."


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## Nicola

Webernite said:


> Nicola, I guess in that case they should have weighted the votes, so that putting someone tenth would be worth less than putting them first. I barely even listen to Horowitz's performances! But you'd think, given his reputation, that at least half the pianists would have voted for him. You get the feeling that they thought, "Oh, Horowitz is going to win whatever I do. Might as well vote for somebody more obscure."


Agreed that weighting might have reduced the problem to which I alluded but usually people run into trouble doing things like this. For instance, if the question was "_give your top 10 pianists in rank order_", it's very likely that some respondents would say they can't rank all 10, so that in reality they are in random order apart from the first few selections. If the researcher analysing the results then applied a set of declining weights to the 10 choices on the assumption that they reflected an intentional, thought-out ordinal ranking by each of the respondents, it would be incorrect. It might also annoy some of the respondents if they found out that their answers had been tampered with in this fashion after they had explicitly stated that their answers did not involve any ranking. There is the separate matter of what weights to use, and this is usually contentious since the results can be affected dramatically depending on how sharply the ones chosen (an arbitrary decision anyway) decline.


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## Yoshi

Gould is so low in that list


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## Ivan_cro

Horowitz, Richter, Rubinstein, Argerich, Pogorelić (he's from my country  ), Gould and many more
there is no Greatest pianist, there are only great pianists


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## Lukecash12

> Gould is so low in that list


I know, right? Gould had an extensive repertoire, and one of the most eclectic interpretation methods, after all.


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## toucan

Ivan_cro said:


> Horowitz, Richter, Rubinstein, Argerich, Pogorelić (he's from my country  ), Gould and many more
> there is no Greatest pianist, there are only great pianists


Except for Horowitz who is the Greatest pianist


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## Yolanda

it's hard to judge over such things. there's tons of amazing pianist through the time. but we don't have record of most of them---especially those classical and early-romantic pianist. if we don't actually listen to them...how do we know which one is the best.... only records we have is those 20th century pianist

by the way. I think chopin more perferred on Mozart's music....


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## Delicious Manager

How could anyone possibly say? No-one exists who has heard all of the great pianists of all time. And even if they did, how would they judge? What would be the criteria to do so?

The question is self-defeating, I'm afraid.


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## andrewbarnard

Of course no one can figure out who the greatest pianist of all time was. But we can talk about who the greatest pianist today is. I would say Murray Perahia. He deserves to be above Gould, by all means. After Perahia, I would say Alfred Brendel and Leif Ove Andsnes. That is not to mention Schiff, Ax, Ashkenazy, etc. The idea that Argerich or Horowitz deserve to be at the top of the list isn't defensible, I'm afraid.


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## SoundStroker

I think obviously we'll never reach a conclusion, but in the 20th century... Horowitz, Rachmaninoff, Hofmann, Gieseking, Cortot, Godowsky are just a couple... You've got to admit that Horowitz' use of colour was phenomenal, Rachmaninoff was so good rhythmically and the rest each have their own brilliant points.


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## Webernite

andrewbarnard said:


> Of course no one can figure out who the greatest pianist of all time was. But we can talk about who the greatest pianist today is. I would say Murray Perahia. He deserves to be above Gould, by all means. After Perahia, I would say Alfred Brendel and Leif Ove Andsnes. That is not to mention Schiff, Ax, Ashkenazy, etc. The idea that Argerich or Horowitz deserve to be at the top of the list isn't defensible, I'm afraid.


These are rather odd opinions!


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## Air

andrewbarnard said:


> Of course no one can figure out who the greatest pianist of all time was. But we can talk about who the greatest pianist today is. I would say Murray Perahia. He deserves to be above Gould, by all means. After Perahia, I would say Alfred Brendel and Leif Ove Andsnes. That is not to mention Schiff, Ax, Ashkenazy, etc. The idea that Argerich or Horowitz deserve to be at the top of the list isn't defensible, I'm afraid.


If we were dicussing living pianists, I think Argerich would _have_ to be near the top of the list (along with Pollini, Brendel, Hamelin, Perahia, and arguably others). She's the only pianist left with some sort of aura surrounding her, and I'm afraid that when she's gone, the old Romantic piano school will fade and finally come to an end. Not to say I'm not a fan of the new-gen Romantic pianists like Zimerman, Moravec, and Lupu, but it's true that these pianists do not really have the same qualities that mark the old Romantic tradition of Liszt, Chopin, and Thalberg.


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## andrewbarnard

I don't doubt that Argerich has some good qualities. But she is as great as Perahia, Brendel, Andsnes, Ax, Ashkenazy? Forget it. I find it interesting that everyone always mentions her effect on stage, rather than her actual playing. Just because she's attractive and impressive on stage doesn't make her the greatest pianist.


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## andrewbarnard

One quick thing about Horowitz. He was Perahia's teacher and Horowitz fiercly admired Perahia's playing. In fact, Perahia was the last person to hear him play. If you like Horowitz, you should certainly check Perahia out. He has a much stronger technique than Horowitz and an equally impressive tone-color.


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## jhar26

andrewbarnard said:


> I don't doubt that Argerich has some good qualities. But she is as great as Perahia, Brendel, Andsnes, Ax, Ashkenazy? Forget it. I find it interesting that everyone always mentions her effect on stage, rather than her actual playing. Just because she's attractive and impressive on stage doesn't make her the greatest pianist.


I guess those 100 top pianists don't have a clue what the're talking about then.


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## Air

andrewbarnard said:


> ...everyone always mentions her effect on stage, rather than her actual playing... attractive and impressive on stage doesn't make her the greatest pianist.


Well then, I am being misquoted: I _NEVER_ argued that Argerich was great just because she had a great stage persona, so please re-read my post.

Let me just say, I don't find 69 year old women _particularly_ attractive - there are so many younger female pianists (and other musicians) out there to fit that bill, and I admit that their appearance sometimes distracts from the actual quality of their playing. Argerich, however, is a legend recognized both by critics and other pianists, regardless of her current looks. As Jhar mentioned, she is considered by _many_ of her contemporaries (including those you mentioned, such as Perahia, Ax, Andnes, and Ashkenazy) one of the leading pianists of the day. If you admire these pianists, you have to consider the fact that they, in turn, consider Argerich a great pianist and influence on their work... and it may even lead you to a deeper understanding of these pianists themselves.

If anything, Argerich's tendency to produce an "effect" and "impression" on her listeners is only a testament to the greatness of her pianism.


----------



## andrewbarnard

What top hundred pianists? Can you explain?


----------



## andrewbarnard

Air said:


> Well then, I am being misquoted: I _NEVER_ argued that Argerich was great just because she had a great stage persona, so please re-read my post.
> 
> Let me just say, I don't find 69 year old women _particularly_ attractive - there are so many younger female pianists (and other musicians) out there to fit that bill, and I admit that their appearance sometimes distracts from the actual quality of their playing. Argerich, however, is a legend recognized both by critics and other pianists, regardless of her current looks. As Jhar mentioned, she is considered by _many_ of her contemporaries (including those you mentioned, such as Perahia, Ax, Andnes, and Ashkenazy) one of the leading pianists of the day. If you admire these pianists, you have to consider the fact that they, in turn, consider Argerich a great pianist and influence on their work... and it may even lead you to a deeper understanding of these pianists themselves.
> 
> If anything, Argerich's tendency to produce an "effect" and "impression" on her listeners is only a testament to the greatness of her pianism.


I never said that Argerich wasn't a great pianist. She simply isn't a Perahia, Brendel, Andsnes, or Ashkenazy. I would like to hear a qoute from one of these pianists about Argerich. Argerich's playing does not convey much of the inner qualities of the music she plays as much as the pianists I've mentioned. That is the real test of a pianist, namely to be able to display the real emotion and depth hidden in the piece. Argerich's playing focuses on the outward qualities. By the way, being a serious piano student myself, I have found it MUCH easier to imitate Lang Lang, Argerich, etc. than Perahia, Andsnes, or Brendel. So please hear me. I am not saying that Argerich isn't a good pianist - she simply doesn't belong on the same list as the pianists I've mentioned.


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## jhar26

andrewbarnard said:


> What top hundred pianists? Can you explain?


100 top pianists from around the world were asked who they thought were/are the three greatest pianists of whom recordings exist. Argerich was the most mentionned living pianist and the only one to make the top 10.


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## Nicola

jhar26 said:


> 100 top pianists from around the world were asked who they thought were/are the three greatest pianists of whom recordings exist. Argerich was the most mentionned living pianist and the only one to make the top 10.


It would have been simpler to refer back to post number 100 in this thread where this aspect of the discussion took place.


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## Webernite

Generally speaking, I think anyone who posts should read the thread beforehand.


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## Air

Webernite said:


> Generally speaking, I think anyone who posts should read the thread beforehand.


I'm just distressed that he mentioned the name Lang Lang in the same sentence as he did Argerich.


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## Webernite

I wonder what recordings he's been listening to.


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## Air

Webernite said:


> I wonder what recordings he's been listening to.


I dunno, YouTube could give one a pretty bad impression of Horowitz, I suppose. 

Webernite, since you're a "Webern"ite, I'm curious to know what you think of Maurizio Pollini, since he's one of the only big-name pianists to have played any Webern (along with Uchida). I'm not very experienced with this composer and only have the one disc of the Variations coupled with Prokofiev and Boulez sonatas. What other Webern did Pollini record?


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## Webernite

Air said:


> I dunno, YouTube could give one a pretty bad impression of Horowitz, I suppose.
> 
> Webernite, since you're a "Webern"ite, I'm curious to know what you think of Maurizio Pollini, since he's one of the only big-name pianists to have played any Webern (along with Uchida). I'm not very experienced with this composer and only have the one disc of the Variations coupled with Prokofiev and Boulez sonatas. What other Webern did Pollini record?


I'm not such an expert on Webern as my username might have you believe. When I joined this forum I was just then becoming interested in his music, and that's why I chose this name. I'm certainly no expert. Still, as far as I know, the only piece by Webern that Pollini has recorded are those Variations (Op. 27), probably because he wrote very little else for solo piano, and what he did write is without opus number (unpublished in his lifetime) and rarely performed. He does use the piano quite often in his lieder and chamber music, but I don't think Pollini has recorded any of that either, sadly.

In my opinion, Webern wasn't suited to the solo piano. Even late in life, he still seems to have that need for instrumental texture and contrast that he and Schoenberg inherited from Mahler. If you can bear his Variations for Orchestra (Op. 30), you might be able to see what I mean:


----------



## Great Gate

*Franz Liszt.*

(This is my fiirst post on this Forum)

I've heard many authorities over the years (I'm 74) say that Liszt was the greatest.

Frankly... I think I would have to give him the nod over Fats Domino...

Great Gate


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## Saul_Dzorelashvili

Horowitz and Felix Mendelssohn.


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## Sebastien Melmoth

The Greatest Pianist of all Time?

*Glenn Gould*.

Second? Possibly *Liszt*, but in the modern era? Tie between *Kempff* and *Arrau*.

Greatest living *pianist*? Tough call; probably a tie between *Schiff*, *Lupu*, and *Zimerman*.


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## Yoshi

Sebastien Melmoth said:


> The Greatest Pianist of all Time?
> 
> *Glenn Gould*.


I like you


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## Sebastien Melmoth

I admit it: I've been a Gould fanatic for nearly forty years.

Jan: have you read *Wondrous Strange*? It's really very good indeed.

http://www.amazon.com/Wondrous-Stra...=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292272412&sr=1-3


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## Yoshi

Sebastien Melmoth said:


> I admit it: I've been a Gould fanatic for nearly forty years.


It's nice to meet another fanatic then :tiphat:


----------



## motpasm23

andrewbarnard said:


> By the way, being a serious piano student myself, I have found it MUCH easier to imitate Lang Lang, Argerich, etc. than Perahia, Andsnes, or Brendel. So please hear me. I am not saying that Argerich isn't a good pianist - she simply doesn't belong on the same list as the pianists I've mentioned.


Ouch. I think there is a pretty simple litmus test for this: listen to Brendel's Liszt B Minor and then listen to Argerich's. But don't let yourself know which is which. Repeat with Martha's Rach 3 and Leif's Rach 3. Perhaps she just shares my philosophy of music, but any piece I hear recorded by her I can ONLY hear performed by her. Gould is my favorite pianist after Martha, but even her Bach I prefer to his.


----------



## MrLisztian

Yes... your most probably right... remembering when Rachmaninoff was told he was the greatest pianist "they'd" ever heard, he would reply... "That's because you never heard Anton Rubenstein"... and Anton... when told the same thing would respond... "that's because you never heard Franz Liszt...!" From ALL accounts... it must have been just OTHER world... And remember... Liszt was GREAT at improvisation... just like that master Bach! an ART lost on so MANY of todays PIANISTS... which was originally a VERY important aspect of playing... It keep EVERYTHING alive and fresh... An art that NEEDS to return (and not just on the organ bench...!)


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## PetrB

... greatest of all time? 

Ha haa haaa haaa haaaa haaaaaaa

sorry, but -- really.


----------



## DeepR

Recently I stumbled upon a bunch of old live recordings from Richter on youtube. Despite of their bad recording quality and audience noise, it still gives a good impression of how great he was. Some of the recitals from the 50s are incredible.


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## Itullian

Michelangeli easily


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## kv466

Hmmm, I'm not sure but I think it's gonna be a tossup between these two guys:


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## DavidA

andrewbarnard said:


> I never said that Argerich wasn't a great pianist. She simply isn't a Perahia, Brendel, Andsnes, or Ashkenazy. I would like to hear a qoute from one of these pianists about Argerich. Argerich's playing does not convey much of the inner qualities of the music she plays as much as the pianists I've mentioned. That is the real test of a pianist, namely to be able to display the real emotion and depth hidden in the piece. Argerich's playing focuses on the outward qualities. By the way, being a serious piano student myself, I have found it MUCH easier to imitate Lang Lang, Argerich, etc. than Perahia, Andsnes, or Brendel. So please hear me. I am not saying that Argerich isn't a good pianist - she simply doesn't belong on the same list as the pianists I've mentioned.


Able to imitate Argerich? You are, of course, an internationally renowned pianist, then, if you can play like this?


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## DavidA

Let's face it. Athletes have been getting faster, swimmers doing shorter times, etc.. Mankind is tending to get better at doing things (apart from living at peace with himself). Standards increase. Hence we can expect the best pianists of today to be better - technically at least - than those of a previous generation. Sure there were great pianists in the past. But I bet there are more of them around today.


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## KenOC

kv466 said:


> Hmmm, I'm not sure but I think it's gonna be a tossup between these two guys:


Glenn Gould and Frank Drebin???


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## Vaneyes

DavidA said:


> Let's face it. Athletes have been getting faster, swimmers doing shorter times, etc.. Mankind is tending to get better at doing things (apart from living at peace with himself). Standards increase. Hence we can expect the best pianists of today to be better - technically at least - than those of a previous generation. Sure there were great pianists in the past. But I bet there are more of them around today.


Many Olympics sports illustrate the physical evolution thinking convincingly. It can be less clear in other activities.

Baseball has had to use hormonal growth steroids to beat many long standing records. In golf, the equipment and course maintenance is far superior.

I believe the greats from certain sports (and other activities such as classical music) in the past would be just as great today. What today's sports/activities benefit from is huge population growth, thus larger pools of candidates to each discipline, thus more talent depth, as in numbers.


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## Novelette

I'm a bit surprised by the supposition that Beethoven was among the best. Surely he was very good, but how can one develop technique that hasn't been called for yet?

Liszt, Saint-Saens, Clara Schumann, Thalberg, Brendel, Argerich, etc., etc. Having not heard most of those, I cannot say who was the greatest, still, I've always been a little intrigued by the suggestion that some have made that Clara Schumann was a more technically proficient pianist than Liszt. Very difficult to imagine. Perhaps it is so, but I'm sure we will never know.


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## KenOC

Novelette said:


> I'm a bit surprised by the supposition that Beethoven was among the best. Surely he was very good, but how can one develop technique that hasn't been called for yet?


In Beethoven's day, there was more to being a pianist than just technique. From 1799:

"Beethoven's play is exceedingly brilliant, but less delicate and at times somewhat unclear. He shows himself to best advantage in free improvisation. And here the lightness and at the same time firmness in the sequence of his ideas is really quite extraordinary. B. instantly varies every theme, and not only in its figures. Since the death of Mozart who will always remain the _non plus ultra_ in this, I have never found this kind of pleasure to the degree with which B. provides it."

(from a review of a "piano duel" with Wölffl)


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## DavidA

I think is well we need to define what we mean by greatness. Is technical proficiency to play the notes then we certainly have some of the greatest pianists of all time today. Works that used to be deemed unplayable are played by many pianists today. One only has to look at the modern piano competition and there are many many Technically brilliant young pianists. Even in my lifetime I have seen the standard rise incredibly. However huge technical proficiency doesn't necessarily mean greatness. A great pianist has the ability to somehow thrill us and get the hairs on the back of our neck standing up when we hear them.
Horowitz was such a pianist. So in a different way was Glenn Gould. Argerich is the same and so was Richter in his prime. 
From what I've heard of Rachmaninov through the poor recordings he could do this to.
I am sure Beethoven could and also Liszt from contemporary accounts. They were also great in that they expanded the range and the repertory of the piano. One can even argue that their music changed the very construction of the piano into that which we know today.


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## Ravndal

DavidA said:


> Let's face it. Athletes have been getting faster, swimmers doing shorter times, etc.. Mankind is tending to get better at doing things (apart from living at peace with himself). Standards increase. Hence we can expect the best pianists of today to be better - technically at least - than those of a previous generation. Sure there were great pianists in the past. But I bet there are more of them around today.


True, but there are less really good pianists now than before. I mean... Most pianist now plays music like it is a race, and they are scared of playing wrong notes - some of the best recordings i know got tons of mistakes.

there are plenty of "virtuosos", but less and less real musicians.

Edit: im sorry, i didnt see your last post.


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## DavidA

Ravndal said:


> True, but there are less really good pianists now than before. I mean... Most pianist now plays music like it is a race, and they are scared of playing wrong notes - some of the best recordings i know got tons of mistakes.
> 
> there are plenty of "virtuosos", but less and less real musicians.
> 
> Edit: im sorry, i didnt see your last post.


Believe that it was Schnabel's teacher, Theodor Leschetizky, who said to him, 'You will never make a pianist because you are too much of a musician.' One could see what he meant. Schnabel was a musician first and a pianist second. However, there is no reason why great virtuosic expertise cannot go hand in hand with great musicianship. I believe there are plenty of great pianists around today who have something to say. Just of living pianists one would think of Argerich with her electrifying pianism. Hamelin would be celebrated in any age. There have been few better players of the classical repertoire than Kovacevich - his playing of Beethoven would be exceptional in any age. Perahia's Mozart and Lupu's Schubert would be celebrated in the history of piano playing. I went to recital by one of our less celebrated English pianists, Benjamin Frith, and he gave a terrific performance of Beethoven and Schubert. His Beethoven reminded me a Schnabel.So there are plenty of pianists today who could hold their heads high in any age.
What I believe is that today we have vastly more technically proficient pianists who can give acceptable performances without really having too much to say. it has the effect of diluting the really great pianists that are around today.


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## Ravndal

I agree. I didn't mean that you had to play a lot of wrong notes to be a musician. The pianists you mentioned is great examples of great technique and musicality! 

Kovacevich's Beethoven is good, but can be dull sometimes.


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## DavidA

Ravndal said:


> I agree. I didn't mean that you had to play a lot of wrong notes to be a musician. The pianists you mentioned is great examples of great technique and musicality!
> 
> Kovacevich's Beethoven is good, but can be dull sometimes.


One problem is that just about every pianist can be dull or wrong headed on occasions. Schnabel's notorious Hammerklavier is an example of ambition gone wrong. Some of Arrau's performances were desperate. I have Mozart by Michelangeli which sounds as subtle as a sledgehammer. Even the greatest pianists were not good at everything they played.
There were also some pianists - eg Cziffra - who were great in a limited range. You wouldn't go to him for a profound performance of Beethoven's late piano sonatas, but he played Liszt like no-one else.


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## Ravndal

Good point. Gulda's Beethoven is very good though. Most of it atleast. I dont think i have heard anyone play the nr21 as good as him


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## DavidA

Ravndal said:


> Good point. Gulda's Beethoven is very good though. Most of it atleast. I dont think i have heard anyone play the nr21 as good as him


I have heard people say that about Gulda's Beethoven although I haven't heard a lot of it. Interesting that during his life he was considered by many critics as just a maverick but since he has departed this life people are waking up to the fact that he was also a great pianist.


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## moody

DavidA said:


> Let's face it. Athletes have been getting faster, swimmers doing shorter times, etc.. Mankind is tending to get better at doing things (apart from living at peace with himself). Standards increase. Hence we can expect the best pianists of today to be better - technically at least - than those of a previous generation. Sure there were great pianists in the past. But I bet there are more of them around today.


Mankind is getting better at being at peace,once wars raged continually across Europe year in and year out.
As for technical expertise,have you listened to Rachmaninoff playing his concertiii ?
Do you know Simon Barere,William Kapell,Vladimir Horowitz, Earl Wild, Jorge Bolet, Leonard Pennario,Michael Ponti, Gina Bachauer, Shura Cherkassky, Egon Petri,Raymond Lewenthal. Byron Janis,Emil Gilels, etc.etc.
The pianists of today are not better technically but there are more of them because ,in China for instance, people now have money to spend on their children.
But what a souless lot--that's where Schnabel scores ,he is the essence of Beethoven !
Who exactlydid you compare your list with?
One point ,you will not hear any of these people on Classic FM of course.
As for sporting stars,certainly in most case it is the equipment now in use,certainly in the cases of tennis,golf and soccer.
The great tennis players of the past such as Pancho Gonzalez and Rod Laver would be champions today of that there is no doubt.


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## DavidA

moody said:


> Mankind is getting better at being at peace,once wars raged continually across Europe year in and year out.


Do you ever read the newspapers or listen to the news about what is going on in the world? The numbers of people who are being killed every day in armed conflict? And don't forget that some of this conflict has been sponsored by the West.

I don't think in Europe we have been exactly good at keeping from killing each other. During the last century 15 million people were killed in the First World War. And 50 million in the Second World War. That is comparatively recent history that some of us can remember. It's been estimated that during the last century more people are being killed than in all the other centuries of conflict.


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## Ravndal

We are a lot more people though.


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## DavidA

moody said:


> As for technical expertise,have you listened to Rachmaninoff playing his concertiii ?
> Do you know Simon Barere,William Kapell,Vladimir Horowitz, Earl Wild, Jorge Bolet, Leonard Pennario,Michael Ponti, Gina Bachauer, Shura Cherkassky, Egon Petri,Raymond Lewenthal. Byron Janis,Emil Gilels, etc.etc.
> The pianists of today are not better technically but there are more of them because ,in China for instance, people now have money to spend on their children.
> But what a souless lot--that's where Schnabel scores ,he is the essence of Beethoven !
> Who exactlydid you compare your list with?
> One point ,you will not hear any of these people on Classic FM of course.
> As for sporting stars,certainly in most case it is the equipment now in use,certainly in the cases of tennis,golf and soccer.
> The great tennis players of the past such as Pancho Gonzalez and Rod Laver would be champions today of that there is no doubt.


Yes I have heard Rachmaninov play his concertos. I actually have his recordings. But I do believe that at least some of them have been equalled if not surpassed by other pianists. 
Of the list you have given I have heard most if not all of those. I don't know why you haven't included Richter among those. 
But there are pianists around today who can at least equal some of those on your list and surpass others. For example I believe that Martha Argerich can certainly equal Rachmaninov and also Horowitz in her reading of the Rachmaninov third piano Concerto.
And yes I have all the recordings.
Just what the correlation between great pianists and classic FM is is quite beyond me! You mean someone automatically becomes a second rate pianist if they play their record on classic FM
Your comment in dismissing modern pianists as soulless is just typical of someone who lives in the good old days and will not recognise that there are other talented pianists around today. Sure there were some great pianists of yesterday. But there are also some highly talented pianists around today.

As for sportsmen, I recognise that yesterday's talented sportsmen would probably be talented today given modern training facilities. But that doesn't mean that they would necessarily have been better than the best players today.


----------



## joen_cph

DavidA said:


> Do you ever read the newspapers or listen to the news about what is going on in the world? The numbers of people who are being killed every day in armed conflict? And don't forget that some of this conflict has been sponsored by the West.
> 
> I don't think in Europe we have been exactly good at keeping from killing each other. During the last century 15 million people were killed in the First World War. And 50 million in the Second World War. That is comparatively recent history that some of us can remember. It's been estimated that during the last century more people are being killed than in all the other centuries of conflict.


Statistics show that in spite of the extreme excesses of the 20th century, the risk of being killed by a fellow human being has actually been less considerable than in the previous centuries, and that some earlier wars had destruction on a similar or even larger scale, cf. for instance

http://theagenda.tvo.org/blog/agenda-blogs/20th-century-not-violent-you-d-think

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/07/143285836/war-and-violence-on-the-decline-in-modern-times

(example: _one-on-one homicides ... have fallen by about a factor of 35 since the Middle Ages in every European country for which statistics are available. Another example is the abolition of cruel and barbaric institutionalized practices like human sacrifice, like chattel slavery, like the use of the death penalty for trivial infractions, the burning of heretics, bear-baiting, the list goes on_.)


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## moody

DavidA said:


> Do you ever read the newspapers or listen to the news about what is going on in the world? The numbers of people who are being killed every day in armed conflict? And don't forget that some of this conflict has been sponsored by the West.
> 
> I don't think in Europe we have been exactly good at keeping from killing each other. During the last century 15 million people were killed in the First World War. And 50 million in the Second World War. That is comparatively recent history that some of us can remember. It's been estimated that during the last century more people are being killed than in all the other centuries of conflict.


I love it when someone states the obvious,of course you kill more people with high explosives,etc.
But your point was regarding mankind not learning to be peaceful, compared with the period I nentioned there have been FEWER CONFLICTS= that means that we are now more peaceful.


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## moody

DavidA said:


> Yes I have heard Rachmaninov play his concertos. I actually have his recordings. But I do believe that at least some of them have been equalled if not surpassed by other pianists.
> Of the list you have given I have heard most if not all of those. I don't know why you haven't included Richter among those.
> But there are pianists around today who can at least equal some of those on your list and surpass others. For example I believe that Martha Argerich can certainly equal Rachmaninov and also Horowitz in her reading of the Rachmaninov third piano Concerto.
> And yes I have all the recordings.
> Just what the correlation between great pianists and classic FM is is quite beyond me! You mean someone automatically becomes a second rate pianist if they play their record on classic FM
> Your comment in dismissing modern pianists as soulless is just typical of someone who lives in the good old days and will not recognise that there are other talented pianists around today. Sure there were some great pianists of yesterday. But there are also some highly talented pianists around today.
> 
> As for sportsmen, I recognise that yesterday's talented sportsmen would probably be talented today given modern training facilities. But that doesn't mean that they would necessarily have been better than the best players today.


Did I have to include Richter ?---Sorry you should have said .

i certainly don't agree with your comments on Rachmaninoff. The only person to really approach him has been Earl Wild who knew him well.
Re: Classic FM---I said ,quite plainly,that they do not play these pianists,they don't appear to play "old" recordings.
Once again you are bordering on the insulting with your remark about me amd the good old days.How do you know that I don't have recordings of all the people chosen by you and why on earth would I not say they were so good if they obviously were ?
I'm sure that there are TALENTED pianists around today but that's the key word.

I did not say that the sportsmen of yesteryear would have been better than today's --you love to put words into my mouth,please read what I actually say.
With one or two exceptions ,Ms.Argerich being one of them,the pianists now have little personality,but that is true across most areas of life. It's probably frowned upon,you must comply you know, we don't want personalities now do we---so troublesome you know!
Of course all that you've said about technique is bad news for Callas fans as she had terrible problems with her technique and voice production. But you see she wasn't soulless (!) and she had PERSONALITY !


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## DavidA

moody said:


> I love it when someone states the obvious,of course you kill more people with high explosives,etc.
> But your point was regarding mankind not learning to be peaceful, compared with the period I nentioned there have been FEWER CONFLICTS= that means that we are now more peaceful.


Oh I see. We are more peaceful because we have learned to kill people more efficiently?


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## DavidA

joen_cph said:


> Statistics show that in spite of the extreme excesses of the 20th century, the risk of being killed by a fellow human being has actually been less considerable than in the previous centuries, and that some earlier wars had destruction on a similar or even larger scale, cf. for instance
> 
> http://theagenda.tvo.org/blog/agenda-blogs/20th-century-not-violent-you-d-think
> 
> http://www.npr.org/2011/12/07/143285836/war-and-violence-on-the-decline-in-modern-times
> 
> (example: _one-on-one homicides ... have fallen by about a factor of 35 since the Middle Ages in every European country for which statistics are available. Another example is the abolition of cruel and barbaric institutionalized practices like human sacrifice, like chattel slavery, like the use of the death penalty for trivial infractions, the burning of heretics, bear-baiting, the list goes on_.)


People like Pinker use statistics for their own purposes. Pinker certainly hasn't visited some of the countries I have been in! In terms of killing in the last century we are well ahead of our predecessors, including in Europe. That's not to mention the millions who died under Stalin. Nor the fact that thousands are being every year in our present time.


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## joen_cph

DavidA said:


> People like Pinker use statistics for their own purposes. Pinker certainly hasn't visited some of the countries I have been in! In terms of killing in the last century we are well ahead of our predecessors, including in Europe. That's not to mention the millions who died under Stalin. Nor the fact that thousands are being every year in our present time.


Well, there´s some objective truth to Pinker´s views: an excerpt from the mentioned link:

_"Thus, one murder per year in a town of 1,000 people is very different than one murder per year in a city of three million people. Based on this adjusted scale, World War II's 55 million deaths makes it only (if I can use the word "only") the ninth most deadly conflict in history. The most violent conflict was the An Lushan Revolt that killed 36 million people in 8th century CE China. Adjusted to the world's population in 1950 that is the equivalent of 429 million deaths. Even the Mongol conquests of the 13th century killed 40 million people (surprisingly close to the absolute number of deaths in WWII), but adjusted to world's population in 1950 that is the equivalent of 278 million deaths.

If you had to list the most deadly conflicts in human history, I doubt many people would include the Mongol conquests or the An Lushan Revolt. This is Pinker's second point on qualifying the violence of the 20th century: most people suffer from historical myopia.

For instance, no one should pine for the peaceful 19th century which experienced: the Napoleonic wars (4 million deaths); the Taiping Rebellion (20 million deaths); the American Civil War (650,000 deaths); Shaka Zulu (1 to 2 million deaths); the War of the Triple Alliance (which is thought to have killed 60 per cent of Paraguayans, making it the most deadly war in history as a percentage of a nation's population killed); not to mention the virtually incalculable deaths in the African slave trade wars and the imperial campaigns.__

Finally, Pinker reminds us that there are 100 years in a century, not just 50. For Pinker, the most important number from the second half of the 20th century is zero. Since 1945: zero wars have featured a nuclear strike; at no point did the United States and the Soviet Union directly fight each other; zero interstate wars were fought between Western European countries; no internationally recognized states have gone out of existence due to external violence (depending on your interpretation of the North Vietnam's absorption of South Vietnam - was it the end of an internationalized civil war?); and zero wars were fought between developed countries anywhere in the world (with the exception of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956)."_


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## DavidA

joen_cph said:


> Well, there´s some objective truth to Pinker´s views: an excerpt from the mentioned link:
> 
> _"Thus, one murder per year in a town of 1,000 people is very different than one murder per year in a city of three million people. Based on this adjusted scale, World War II's 55 million deaths makes it only (if I can use the word "only") the ninth most deadly conflict in history. The most violent conflict was the An Lushan Revolt that killed 36 million people in 8th century CE China. Adjusted to the world's population in 1950 that is the equivalent of 429 million deaths. Even the Mongol conquests of the 13th century killed 40 million people (surprisingly close to the absolute number of deaths in WWII), but adjusted to world's population in 1950 that is the equivalent of 278 million deaths.
> 
> If you had to list the most deadly conflicts in human history, I doubt many people would include the Mongol conquests or the An Lushan Revolt. This is Pinker's second point on qualifying the violence of the 20th century: most people suffer from historical myopia.
> 
> For instance, no one should pine for the peaceful 19th century which experienced: the Napoleonic wars (4 million deaths); the Taiping Rebellion (20 million deaths); the American Civil War (650,000 deaths); Shaka Zulu (1 to 2 million deaths); the War of the Triple Alliance (which is thought to have killed 60 per cent of Paraguayans, making it the most deadly war in history as a percentage of a nation's population killed); not to mention the virtually incalculable deaths in the African slave trade wars and the imperial campaigns.__
> 
> Finally, Pinker reminds us that there are 100 years in a century, not just 50. For Pinker, the most important number from the second half of the 20th century is zero. Since 1945: zero wars have featured a nuclear strike; at no point did the United States and the Soviet Union directly fight each other; zero interstate wars were fought between Western European countries; no internationally recognized states have gone out of existence due to external violence (depending on your interpretation of the North Vietnam's absorption of South Vietnam - was it the end of an internationalized civil war?); and zero wars were fought between developed countries anywhere in the world (with the exception of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956)."_


But what does Pinker do with the wars that are being fought all across the globe even today, some by the West. The reason we have not had another war directly between the major powers is pretty plane - the fear of nuclear weapons. But we must remember that proxy-wars - like Vietnam - were fought between the ideologies with huge loss of life. Of course, I am glad I do live in an age of relative peace - I have never had to go to war like my father and grandfather. But the reasons for this probably lie in the fear of the consequences rather than the fact that man is evolving into a more moral species.


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## DavidA

moody said:


> Did I have to include Richter ?---Sorry you should have said .
> 
> i certainly don't agree with your comments on Rachmaninoff. The only person to really approach him has been Earl Wild who knew him well.
> Re: Classic FM---I said ,quite plainly,that they do not play these pianists,they don't appear to play "old" recordings.
> Once again you are bordering on the insulting with your remark about me amd the good old days.How do you know that I don't have recordings of all the people chosen by you and why on earth would I not say they were so good if they obviously were ?
> I'm sure that there are TALENTED pianists around today but that's the key word.
> 
> I did not say that the sportsmen of yesteryear would have been better than today's --you love to put words into my mouth,please read what I actually say.
> With one or two exceptions ,Ms.Argerich being one of them,the pianists now have little personality,but that is true across most areas of life. It's probably frowned upon,you must comply you know, we don't want personalities now do we---so troublesome you know!
> Of course all that you've said about technique is bad news for Callas fans as she had terrible problems with her technique and voice production. But you see she wasn't soulless (!) and she had PERSONALITY !


I just can't see why you have to have this black and white policy that it's either the oldies or the newbies. I have Tosca with Callas and also with Gheorghiu. While I wouldn't necessarily say the Romanian is better than Callas she certainly comes close to matching her in fire and personality. There were great singers of the past and there are great singers today.

As to Rach, I can only go by what I hear on the discs. IMO he is surpassed in his concerto no 3 by Argerich and Horowitz. Of course, we don't know just how the restrictions of primitive recording techniques placed on him. In no 4 Michelangeli's performance puts Rach in the shade. That's not saying Rach was not a great pianist. His recordings of Carnival and Chopin 2 are wonderful. But in comparison it would seem that certain of his performances of his own music have been bettered by others. That is not a minus point. Rather a plus. I'm sure Rach would have agreed.


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## mitchflorida

Vladimir Horowitz is the best ever. Listen to his Scarlatti as an example.


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## DavidA

mitchflorida said:


> Vladimir Horowitz is the best ever. Listen to his Scarlatti as an example.


He was one of the best ever in certain repertoire. Other things he didn't play as well as others. But he certainly was one of the greatest concert performance of all time and could thrill an audience like nobody else


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## moody

DavidA said:


> I just can't see why you have to have this black and white policy that it's either the oldies or the newbies. I have Tosca with Callas and also with Gheorghiu. While I wouldn't necessarily say the Romanian is better than Callas she certainly comes close to matching her in fire and personality. There were great singers of the past and there are great singers today.
> 
> As to Rach, I can only go by what I hear on the discs. IMO he is surpassed in his concerto no 3 by Argerich and Horowitz. Of course, we don't know just how the restrictions of primitive recording techniques placed on him. In no 4 Michelangeli's performance puts Rach in the shade. That's not saying Rach was not a great pianist. His recordings of Carnival and Chopin 2 are wonderful. But in comparison it would seem that certain of his performances of his own music have been bettered by others. That is not a minus point. Rather a plus. I'm sure Rach would have agreed.


This is becoming somewhat arid,I don't remember sayng there was a con flict between oldies and newbies--- I believe it was you who accused me of living in the past.
I too only can hear what my ears take in and the amusing thing is that the pianists you mention above are not today's generation at all,how old is Ms. Argerich ?
But you seem determined to have the last word with very little evidence whether it be music or war.


----------



## DavidA

moody said:


> This is becoming somewhat arid,I don't remember sayng there was a con flict between oldies and newbies--- I believe it was you who accused me of living in the past.
> I too only can hear what my ears take in and the amusing thing is that the pianists you mention above are not today's generation at all,how old is Ms. Argerich ?
> But you seem determined to have the last word with very little evidence whether it be music or war.


Ms Argerich is certainly my generation. Just a few years older than me. What about you?


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## moody

DavidA said:


> Oh I see. We are more peaceful because we have learned to kill people more efficiently?


I have noticed that you are in a whirl from thread to thread,why don't you stop and take the time to work out what a person is attempting to convey to you---or doesn't it really matter?


----------



## KenOC

joen_cph said:


> Statistics show that in spite of the extreme excesses of the 20th century, the risk of being killed by a fellow human being has actually been less considerable than in the previous centuries, and that some earlier wars had destruction on a similar or even larger scale...


Pinker's book "The Better Angels of our Nature" has his full arguments. He claims that rates of violence of all kinds, including violence toward women, children, and animals have declined hugely over the past few hundred years. His evidence is largely convincing.

Re wars, yes we do seem to be involved in a few! But using Afghanistan as an example, we have been fighting there for over eleven years (hey, even WW II took only four years!) and total casualties, both military and civilian, are certainly far below the two-day total in Tokyo from our WW II firebombing. Deaths alone there, mostly civilian, were estimated at 97,000! In fact, the entire Afghanistan war has probably caused fewer deaths than occurred on single Pacific islands in that war.

However, Pinker is concerned with the 20th-century "spikes" such as WW II, Ruanda, Cambodia, and so forth, but hopes (on no evidence at all) that they too will decline.


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## moody

DavidA said:


> Ms Argerich is certainly my generation. Just a few years older than me. What about you?


ms.Argerich most certainly is not of the now generation as she appears to be 72 years old.
As for me I thought from your nasty little crack about living in the past that you knew all about me--I'm 75.


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## Vaneyes

Let's learn from the past, not live it.


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## moody

Vaneyes said:


> Let's learn from the past, not live it.


Of course that all depends on a person being willing to learn as opposed to thinking he knows all .
!


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## moody

Ravndal said:


> Good point. Gulda's Beethoven is very good though. Most of it atleast. I dont think i have heard anyone play the nr21 as good as him


Gulda was always known as a brilliant pianist and certainly not as a maverick .he was just a "character"like Gould you know beloved of so many. All his Beethoven,including the concerti,are first class and you may know that he was deeply into jazz---he had his own group.
I have a fascinating recording of him doing Mozart's concerti nos.21 and 27with Swarowsky and the Vienna State Opera Orch.
I have always thought that there were akward "gaps" in the concerti and Gulda addresses this,I quote from the sleeve note by Dr.Stanley Sadie ,at the time editor of "The New Grove".
"It is accepted by musicologists that the scores of Mozart's concertos give the barest minimum of the soloist's part and that Mozart would elaborate on them and that is what Gulda does here ...".
It makes a big difference !


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## DavidA

moody said:


> Gulda was always known as a brilliant pianist and certainly not as a maverick .he was just a "character"like Gould you know beloved of so many. All his Beethoven,including the concerti,are first class and you may know that he was deeply into jazz---he had his own group.
> I have a fascinating recording of him doing Mozart's concerti nos.21 and 27with Swarowsky and the Vienna State Opera Orch.
> I have always thought that there were akward "gaps" in the concerti and Gulda addresses this,I quote from the sleeve note by Dr.Stanley Sadie ,at the time editor of "The New Grove".
> "It is accepted by musicologists that the scores of Mozart's concertos give the barest minimum of the soloist's part and that Mozart would elaborate on them and that is what Gulda does here ...".
> It makes a big difference !


Gulda was a fine pianist but he was a maverick

I mean who else but a maverick would pose nude with his girlfriend at a concert?

According to the New York Times:

Mr. Gulda rebelled against the formalities of the classical music world in grand and often comical ways. In the 1950's, he began sitting in with jazz bands -- sometimes celebrated ones, like Dizzy Gillespie's -- while he was touring as a recitalist and concerto soloist. By the mid-1950's he was including jazz improvisations on his recital programs, and by the early 1970's he was refusing to announce his recital programs in advance. He reportedly once performed a concert in the nude, and last March he faxed news agencies a false report of his own death, apparently to promote a concert at which he was to be resurrected.


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## Hausmusik

KenOC said:


> He claims that rates of violence of all kinds, including violence toward women, children, and animals have declined hugely over the past few hundred years.


Yes, Ken, Pinker argue that _rates_ of violence are declining, as a percentage of world population, but not absolute numbers. So your _chance_ of becoming a victim of homicide, e.g., are way down compared with previous centuries, but the absolute numbers of murder victims is not in decline. He definitely proves there are more people dying of non-violent causes these days, but there are more dying from violence, too in absolute rather than relative numbers. So I don't know I accept his conclusion that this equates to the world being "less violent."

I don't own his book & can't cite his actual figures from memory, but just to use hypothetical numbers as an example, is a world in which say 10% of 640,035,774 (1700 global pop., estimated) are victims of homicide more violent than one in which 1% of 6,842,925,208 people (2010 global pop. by same estimate) are? That's 6.4m v. 68.4 m.


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## moody

I note that Martha Argerich was a pupil of Gulda---I didn't know that.


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## KenOC

Hausmusik said:


> I don't own his book & can't cite his actual figures from memory, but just to use hypothetical numbers as an example, is a world in which say 10% of 640,035,774 (1700 global pop., estimated) are victims of homicide more violent than one in which 1% of 6,842,925,208 people (2010 global pop. by same estimate) are? That's 6.4m v. 68.4 m.


Mmmm, better double-check those numbers. But your point is taken. I think of things in common-ratio terms, always.


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## DavidA

moody said:


> I note that Martha Argerich was a pupil of Gulda---I didn't know that.


Yes. He had a tremendous influence on her and she amazed him with her prodigious learning of pieces.
One story is, Gulda kept giving little Argerich (she was like 14,15) really difficult pieces to learn and she always came back playing them perfectly after a week. (At a point, she prepares 2 chopin etudes every week)
And one day Gulda was kinda curious how far he could push Argerich, so without telling Argerich what it is, he gave her the Gaspard de la Nuit. And Argerich didn't show up the next lesson, but she did the next one; after 2 weeks of practicing, she mastered the Gaspard, played it perfectly for Gulda. Of course Gulda wasn't capable of giving any comment since he was so stunned.
And later in her life, Argerich recalled this fine memory and said "I didn't know it was supposed to be difficult."


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## Hausmusik

KenOC said:


> Mmmm, better double-check those numbers. But your point is taken. I think of things in common-ratio terms, always.


Sorry Ken it should be 64 v. 68 m.
Speaking in terms of ratio and probability, you are even less likely to die by violence if you are a middle class person living in a "first world" country, as Pinker is. How lovely to be us.


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## DavidA

Hausmusik said:


> Sorry Ken it should be 64 v. 68 m.
> Speaking in terms of ratio and probability, you are even less likely to die by violence if you are a middle class person living in a "first world" country, as Pinker is. How lovely to be us.


I can tell you that it is not so in other parts of the world, sadly. I have visited a small African country where nearly everyone you meet has had some relative or friend die by violence or war.


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## Vaneyes

I think Gulda would've enjoyed the scale of disbelief for his legitimate death.


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## Zabirilog

Gulda's Mozart D minor Fantasy is... Yeah, watch it. (It's adorable!!!)

But, what my and many other heads say, is that the greatest really was Liszt. Mazeppa is crazy!
And Berezovsky I think, is the best today.


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## sehmett

There are so many great pianists! My favourite are _Evgeny Kissin, Berezovsky and Freddy Kempf_.

There are also many young emerging talents. _Daniil Trifonov _is my favourite now.


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## kv466

Ok, so I've discussed this at length with Moody and we've come up with a tie: Gould and Wild


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## ptr

It's not the easiest thing to determine, can you really tell anything about a pianist's qualities based on the works he wrote and/or written sources from his/her own time? I'm not sure you can? 

If one limits oneself to recorded history, i.e. the history of recordings, the last 130 years. For me there's a tie between Sergei Rachmaninoff and Vladimir Horowitz, runners up include names like Sviatoslav Richter, Glenn Gould and Arthur Rubinstein..

/ptr


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## JCarmel

I would agree to a considerable extent with ptr in his choice of Rachmaninov and Richter...though it all depends on interpretation, as well.
Rachmaninov loved the music of Chopin for example and in the complete cd set I have of Rachmaninov's recorded legacy, there are several recordings of the pianist playing Chopin. But if I were to chose my preferred interpretations of any of those works, Rachmaninov's wouldn't figure in _any_ of them.

Again, I admire and appreciate Richter... and in particular, his Schubert...but I'd be likely to chose at least some other pianist's interpretations over his recordings, exclusively. Does this mean that I am insufficiently able to appreciate 'great artistry'...no, I don't think so. There are other personal considerations involved here, surely?


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## DavidA

There is no such thing as the 'greatest' pianist. There are those who we consider great. But the whole thing depends on repertoire and personal taste.


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## worov

> Gulda's Mozart D minor Fantasy is... Yeah, watch it. (It's adorable!!!)


I have a preference for Lili Kraus : 





Though Gulda's is interesting too (but not my taste).


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## ptr

DavidA said:


> There is no such thing as the 'greatest' pianist. There are those who we consider great. But the whole thing depends on repertoire and personal taste.


Well everything that is written here about performances and the abilities of any musician (on TC ore other places) are just opinions, if you need a purely objective scientifically quantified resolution to whom is the best pianist in history then it is probably the dude who copies sheet music on to midi-files to play on a Yamaha disclaiver or Bösendorfer CEUS, because then You will have eliminated the failures of a human that makes music exciting, but it will be perfect! Boring but perfect and nothing either of us want, I'm bold enough to guess! (IMHO) 

/ptr


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## worov

The greatest of all ? Gee, I don't know. I guess he must be in this list : 

Claudio Arrau, Artur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Serguei Prokofiev, Serguei Rachmaninoff, Sviatoslav Richter, Lili Kraus, Artur Schnabel, Wilhelm Kempff, Clara Haskil, Solomon, Yves Nat, Rosalyn Tureck, Anton Kuerti, Annie Fischer, György Sándor, Earl Wild, Alicia de Larrocha, Maria Tipo, Ivo Pogorelich, Martha Argerich, Alfred Cortot, Ivan Moravec, Maria João Pires, Radu Lupu, Mitsuko Uchida, Andras Schiff, Christoph von Eschenbach, Nelson Freire, Cristina Ortiz, Tatiana Nikolayeva, Malcom Bilson, Ronald Brautigan, Edwin Fischer, Angela Hewitt, Glenn Gould, John MacCabe, Walter Olbertz, Emanuel Ax, Jorge Bolet, Ilse von Alpenheim, Mikhail Pletnev, Idil Biret, John Browning, Ignaz Friedmann, Andrzej Wasowski, Tamas Vasary, Anne Queffelec, Inger Södergren, Maria Tipo, Margarita Fyodorova, Steven Osborne, Stephen Hough, Walter Gieseking, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Julius Katchen, Emil Gilels, Leif Ove Andsnes, Wilhelm Backhaus, Stephen Kovacevich, Richard Goode, Myra Hess, Rudolf Serkin, John Lill, Louis Lortie, Zoltan Kocsis, Joanna McGregor.

If it's one of these, then I don't know.



EDIT : Oh, I forgot Lang Lang! (just kidding!)


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## WJM

_It's absolute sheer, horrible nosense. There isn't such a thing as the greatest pianist of any time, of anyone, of anything. Nothing in art can be the best. It is only different._
- *Artur Rubinstein*

What he said.

Anyway, greatest or not, he is my favorite pianist.


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## worov

> It's absolute sheer, horrible nosense. There isn't such a thing as the greatest pianist of any time, of anyone, of anything. Nothing in art can be the best. It is only different.
> - Artur Rubinstein
> 
> What he said.
> 
> Anyway, greatest or not, he is my favorite pianist.


I agree with what Rubinstein said. He's an excellent musician. He's certainly in my list.


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## trajcep

I don't know if he is the greatest pianist of all time, but definitely the greatest composer of all time.


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## trajcep

michael walsh said:


> Surely, Ludwig van Beethoven but I suppose it is subjective? It seems every talented virtuoso who (impudently?) took him on was thrashed and humiliated. It was never merely a points win; each occasion emphasised Beethoven's absolute supremacy. That was of course in a contemporary sense. What of others who followed? I wonder what Beethoven's thoughts would have been on say Chopin, the 'poet of the keyboard'?


I don't know if he is the greatest pianist of all time, but definitely the greatest composer of all time.


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## Op.123

Best recorded pianist = Richter


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## moody

Burroughs said:


> Best recorded pianist = Richter


Heard many of the great pianists on record have you ?


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## bigshot

Burroughs said:


> Best recorded pianist = Richter


I have some Richter recordings that are abysmally recorded.


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## ptr

bigshot said:


> I have some Richter recordings that are abysmally recorded.


Way many Richter Recordings that have surface since his death are Audience mono Bootlegs or in the best case concert hall archival tapes, with mikes set with very little concern for fidelity! .. Like the Bucharest version of Mussorgsky's Pictures issued by Philips...

/ptr


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## Vaneyes

moody said:


> I note that Martha Argerich was a pupil of Gulda---I didn't know that.


Martha was also a pupil of ABM.


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## Op.123

moody said:


> Heard many of the great pianists on record have you ?


Yes
.......................


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## moody

Burroughs said:


> Yes
> .......................


Well I don't particularly understand why you choose Richter although he was good,but to me that's all.


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## Ukko

moody said:


> Well I don't particularly understand why you choose Richter although he was good,but to me that's all.


Richter was _very_ good. He came up well after the time when ***pianist virtuosos enjoyed great 'interpretational freedom' _and_ were recorded well enough to preserve the result of that freedom with some degree of adequacy.***

[The text within the asterisks describes the last decades of The Golden Age of Pianism.]

Along with the rest of us, the great pianists were and are bound by time. For instance: Between ~1940 and ~1960, ABM was as good as anybody.


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## Ravndal

What does ABM stand for?


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## Ukko

Ravndal said:


> What does ABM stand for?


Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. The middle name is nearly always included. I gather that, in Italy, the Michelangeli is occasionally omitted.


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## schuberkovich

Those that doubt Richter, listen to this. This is the greatest rendition of one of the most elusive pieces of music ever. You may feel initially that the tempo is too slow, but it lets the music flow without sounding rushed (especially in the climactic forte triplet sections).


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## moody

Of course the whole iea behind this thread is extremely tenuous. One asks,the best pianist at what ?
But from the evidence we can actually check against where do we place the following ?
Rachmaninoff,Horowitz, Shura Cherkassky, Egon Petri,Magda Tagliaferro, Elly Ney. Wilhelm Kempf,Percy Grainger, Rosenthal,Moseiwitsch,Maria Judina, Annie Fischer,Juilius Katchen,Arthur Rubinstein,Emil Gilels, Josef Lhevinne,Cortot, Schnabel,Guiomar Novaes,,William Kapell,Claudio Arrau,Dinu Lipatti,Gina Lipatti.
Regarding Michelangeli,he could be famously uneven depending upon the day.
The point being that there is no point to this type of time wasting.


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## DavidA

moody said:


> Of course the whole iea behind this thread is extremely tenuous. One asks,the best pianist at what ?
> But from the evidence we can actually check against where do we place the following ?
> Rachmaninoff,Horowitz, Shura Cherkassky, Egon Petri,Magda Tagliaferro, Elly Ney. Wilhelm Kempf,Percy Grainger, Rosenthal,Moseiwitsch,Maria Judina, Annie Fischer,Juilius Katchen,Arthur Rubinstein,Emil Gilels, Josef Lhevinne,Cortot, Schnabel,Guiomar Novaes,,William Kapell,Claudio Arrau,Dinu Lipatti,Gina Lipatti.
> Regarding Michelangeli,he could be famously uneven depending upon the day.
> The point being that there is no point to this type of time wasting.


John Culshaw tells a story about Michelangeli. He had a recording contract with Decca and they lined up four pianos for him to try. He walked in, kicked each piano, and walked out again!


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## DavidA

moody said:


> Of course the whole iea behind this thread is extremely tenuous. One asks,the best pianist at what ?
> But from the evidence we can actually check against where do we place the following ?
> Rachmaninoff,Horowitz, Shura Cherkassky, Egon Petri,Magda Tagliaferro, Elly Ney. Wilhelm Kempf,Percy Grainger, Rosenthal,Moseiwitsch,Maria Judina, Annie Fischer,Juilius Katchen,Arthur Rubinstein,Emil Gilels, Josef Lhevinne,Cortot, Schnabel,Guiomar Novaes,,William Kapell,Claudio Arrau,Dinu Lipatti,Gina Lipatti.
> Regarding Michelangeli,he could be famously uneven depending upon the day.
> The point being that there is no point to this type of time wasting.


John Culshaw tells a story about Michelangeli. He had a recording contract with Decca and they lined up four pianos for him to try. He walked in, kicked each piano, and walked out again!


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## Ukko

moody said:


> [...]
> Regarding Michelangeli,he could be famously uneven depending upon the day.
> The point being that there is no point to this type of time wasting.


The preconceptions and preferences of the listener are major contributors to the pointlessness of "this type of time wasting."

For example: the 1958 recordings of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G and Rachmaninoff's 4th Piano Concerto, on the EMI "Great Recordings of the Century" CD. Michelangeli/Gracis/Philharmonia Orchestra. The musicianship is superb - and the jazz element is front-and-center. If you do not much like jazz, the Rachmaninoff is grotesquely misinterpreted, detracting considerably from any virtuosity displayed.


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## Air

I often wonder if Richter's reputation is tarnished by the fact that many of his best recordings can only be found on obscure labels such as Melodiya, Praga, Parnassus, and Music and Arts. He wasn't the DG, Sony and RCA titans that Horowitz and Rubinstein were. Though some of his best work can still be found on major labels, he didn't produce enough on them to come out with big boxes such as those of Horowitz and Rubinstein. The closest things to a Richter big box that we have are the fairly small DG set (9 discs) and the ridiculously overpriced Sviatoslav Richter in Prague (15 discs). I would say that the latter of these boxes represents his best work, yet the Praga label has not made any attempt to make the box set affordable as RCA has done with the much larger Rubinstein Collection.


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## Ukko

Air said:


> I often wonder if Richter's reputation is tarnished by the fact that many of his best recordings can only be found on obscure labels such as Melodiya, Praga, Parnassus, and Music and Arts. [...]


Many of the recordings on Melodiya (and other recordings in state-owned archives that made their way onto CDs) are in mediocre sound, of pianos in less-than-excellent condition. Some of the recordings in the Praga set are not very well recorded - and audience 'participation' can be distracting. For a world renowned pianist in the modern era, he really was not well served in recordings.


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## DavidA

Hilltroll72 said:


> Many of the recordings on Melodiya (and other recordings in state-owned archives that made their way onto CDs) are in mediocre sound, of pianos in less-than-excellent condition. Some of the recordings in the Praga set are not very well recorded - and audience 'participation' can be distracting. For a world renowned pianist in the modern era, he really was not well served in recordings.


I think one of the problems with Richter is that he himself did not like the recording process. He tended to prefer giving concerts and if somebody wanted to put a microphone there that was okay. The other point is that by the time he came to the west he was already it into an early middle age. Although he made some stupendous recordings he was not well served by the recording process when he was at his peak.


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