# Walter Giesking



## Lukecash12

For one, he gave us what I would forward as the most impeccable and expressive (I mean, just listen to him bring out the inner voices, and enjoy his sensitive intonation and the bravura that you see coming but doesn't fail to surprise and please you) performance of Debussy's Menuet from the Suite Bergamasque.






Not to mention that when you really get into listening to his work, you'll find that he had a pretty deep repertoire. He seems to me unequaled even by Sofronitsky, Feinberg, or Kastelsky when it comes to Scriabin's short pieces. And I dare people to realize that his playing of the fifth sonata is even better and more ambitious than Richter's famous performance of it in Prague.

Aside from being a definitive Bach player in his day, he played lots of impressionistic music and early 20th century avant garde like Mosolov, Scriabin, Roslavets, and Feinberg. Is there any truth to what I've heard, that he recorded some Ravel pieces as well?


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## BalloinMaschera

His playing was indeed sublime ; the only challenge I have with him- is that he was a biggoted Nazi.


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## Taneyev

So were Ney, Bohm and Karajan. And Furtwangler wasn't a nazi, but didn't had problems to work, play and be with them


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## itywltmt

Back to the music...

Gieseking recorded (I believe) a seminal set of the complete piano music of Mozart. Many of the selections from this set can be found here:
http://public-domain-archive.com/classic/compositions.php?lang=eng&composer_no=17

(I will be featuring his performance of the first piano sonata in my weekly montage on Friday).

What I will say is that Gieseking is the standard bearer for an era - pianists of the german school that were dominant between 1930 and 1950, that paved the way for Brendel, Serkin and others. I think the later generatrion had far more powerful "pianists", but few had the detail-midedness and subtle, almost subdued approach of Gieseking.

It can also be said that along with Gieseking went the dominance of the "german schooled pianists", as Russians, otheer Western-trained pianists (and even South-Asian trained pianists!) seem to have overtaken themin the latter half of the 20th century.


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## Praeludium

Thanks for this thread. I like Wieseking for his playing as much as for his approach to the piano. Leimer (Gieseking's teacher) had a very original and intelligent approach of how to learn a piece, to solve technical problems, and to learn to listen to yourself while playing.


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## DABTSAR

people seem to go insane for his debussy, i like him but on the one record i have he sounds kinda dry or mechanical sometimes


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