# Favorite Golden Age Pianist?



## JohannesBrahms

I thought this would be fun. I most likely forgot one that someone else will remember, so don't get upset. It was not intentional.


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## Ravndal

You forgot a lot pf people, but OK, Il play.

Alfred Cortot


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## ptr

Just dudes man?, where's da wimmin? Were lotsa golden age wimmin pianists you know!

When did the "Golden Age" end? Pre stereo? or did it die with Shura Cherkassky?

In the absence of Feruccio Busoni, Stefan Askenase, Egon Petri and some woman names, I vote Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff, no one was more gilded! 

/ptr


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## JohannesBrahms

Ravndal said:


> You forgot a lot pf people, but OK, Il play.
> 
> Alfred Cortot


If you don't mind my asking, who did I forget? I'm sorry, I just have a lot of trouble remembering pianists I don't listen to as much.


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## moody

When was the golden age of pianists ?


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## Guest

Yeah, I think it would be good to define what you consider the Golden Age of the Piano.


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## Ravndal

JohannesBrahms said:


> If you don't mind my asking, who did I forget? I'm sorry, I just have a lot of trouble remembering pianists I don't listen to as much.


I'm also wondering when this golden age of pianists was?
Horowitz, Cziffra, Gould should be there if you are thinking of dead pianists.


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## moody

I think that the golden age and the introduction of pianism as we know it was through the pupils of Liszt :
Eugene d'Albert,Arthur de Greef,Rafael Joseffy,Frederic Lamond,Moritz Rosenthal,Isaac Albeniz,Bernhard Stavenhagen,Emil von Sauer.
and Leshetitsky.
Mark Hambourg,Ossip Gabrilowitsch,Ignaz Fiedmann,Benno Moiseiwitsch,Alexander Brailowsky,Elly Ney,Mieczyslaw Horszowski,Artur Schnabel.

Recorda exist of these pianists and when they don't piano rolls do,but care must be taken that the machinery has been properly adjusted with piano rolls.


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## Guest

My problem is that, on my finite budget, I don't have the luxury of hunting down rare recordings, let alone piano rolls, where the sound is going to play a significant role in my appreciation of the skill of the performer, so I choose to spend my money on more recent recordings. Of the poll list, I have only heard recordings by Rachmaninoff, Schnabel, and Backhaus. I wouldn't hazard a guess on who was the best, as clearly I haven't sampled enough of them, but given how happy I am with my more modern recordings (50's and onwards), I am not very likely to really hunt them down.


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## moody

DrMike said:


> My problem is that, on my finite budget, I don't have the luxury of hunting down rare recordings, let alone piano rolls, where the sound is going to play a significant role in my appreciation of the skill of the performer, so I choose to spend my money on more recent recordings. Of the poll list, I have only heard recordings by Rachmaninoff, Schnabel, and Backhaus. I wouldn't hazard a guess on who was the best, as clearly I haven't sampled enough of them, but given how happy I am with my more modern recordings (50's and onwards), I am not very likely to really hunt them down.


That's OK it will come later---many piano rolls have been recorded incidentally.


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## JohannesBrahms

I consider the golden age of piano to consist of the pianists born between 1860 and 1900 and died before 1960, give or take a few years. So I don't consider all dead pianists(Horowitz,Cziffra) to be in the golden age. I realize I left out quite a few, but there is no way I could list them all.

By the way, I had trouble choosing between Rachmaninoff and Lhevinne, but I decided on Lhevinne.


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## Ravndal

Lhevinne was a better teacher than pianist though.


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## JohannesBrahms

Ravndal said:


> Lhevinne was a better teacher than pianist though.


I'm afraid I don't agree. Personally I think he was one of the greatest pianists of all time, only equaled by Rachmaninoff, Hofmann, and Moiseiwitsch.


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## ptr

ptr said:


> In the absence of Feruccio Busoni, Stefan Askenase, Egon Petri and some woman names..


I just noticed his inclusion, must have been square eyed this morning... 

/ptr


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## Ravndal

JohannesBrahms said:


> I'm afraid I don't agree. Personally I think he was one of the greatest pianists of all time, only equaled by Rachmaninoff, Hofmann, and Moiseiwitsch.


Yes, he was a great pianist, but he formed future pianist students. He wrote a very famous book with his teaching skills that has made an big impact. My teacher gave me that book last Christmas, and i have cherished it almost religiously.


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## Guest

JohannesBrahms said:


> I consider the golden age of piano to consist of the pianists born between 1860 and 1900 and died before 1960, give or take a few years. So I don't consider all dead pianists(Horowitz,Cziffra) to be in the golden age. I realize I left out quite a few, but there is no way I could list them all.
> 
> By the way, I had trouble choosing between Rachmaninoff and Lhevinne, but I decided on Lhevinne.


Not asking to be snarky - I am not a pianist. What makes this period the golden age? What was so special about this time that is lacking in those born after those dates, who died after 1960? On of the major things I see is that most would have done recordings prior to stereo recordings.


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## JohannesBrahms

Ravndal said:


> Yes, he was a great pianist, but he formed future pianist students. He wrote a very famous book with his teaching skills that has made an big impact. My teacher gave me that book last Christmas, and i have cherished it almost religiously.


I know the book you refer to, and I too cherish it. I didn't express my opinion very well earlier, but my point was that, yes, he was an amazing piano teacher. Probably one of the best who ever lived. But that doesn't mean he was any worse a pianist because of it.

An example is Liszt. He was considered the best pianist of his time, but he was also an amazing teacher. Another example is Anton Rubinstein. Rachmaninoff and Lhevinne, along with many others, considered him to be one of the best pianists ever. Yet he was an amazing teacher as well, producing Josef Hofmann.

Nowadays, Lhevinne is mainly remembered for being a good piano teacher, but his playing is still, in my humble opinion, at the highest possible level.


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## JohannesBrahms

DrMike said:


> Not asking to be snarky - I am not a pianist. What makes this period the golden age? What was so special about this time that is lacking in those born after those dates, who died after 1960? On of the major things I see is that most would have done recordings prior to stereo recordings.


I didn't come up with the idea of the golden age, but I have heard the term used in many places to describe the generation of pianists that I was talking about. I think it is because many think the history of piano performance seemed to peak around that time. The dates I used seemed to best fit the pianists as a whole. They are not always correct; Alfred Cortot died in 1962, I believe.

By the way, I think I'm going to start using the word snarky.


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## Ukko

JohannesBrahms said:


> [...]
> By the way, I think I'm going to start using the word snarky.


Beware. There are at least two connotations of that adjective. One of them relates to J. Swift's snark; another is an onomatopoeic rendition of an action involving snot.


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## JohannesBrahms

Hilltroll72 said:


> Beware. There are at least two connotations of that adjective. One of them relates to J. Swift's snark; another is an onomatopoeic rendition of an action involving snot.


Maybe I won't, then.


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## Air

My favorites from the list above are Cortot, Rachmaninoff, Schnabel, and Moiseiwitsch (he may not be a titan on the level of the three aforementioned pianists, but I adore his subtle, elegant style). I'm also a huge fan of Rosenthal and Feinberg. I do not like Paderewski or Busoni's playing at all, or what I've heard from them. The latter might be poorly served by the "recordings" we have of him (the piano roll transfers do not do justice to what he actually sounded like, I bet). I've heard a very limited amount by Lhevinne and thought highly of it. He has what, one or two total discs of recorded music? I think Backhaus is good - kind of middle of the pack - but he does not belong on the list with some of the names mentioned above.

What do you all think of Hofmann? For a man who is considered one of the great pianists in history, he doesn't get much love. It's surprising to see him garner no votes in a poll like this. I'm still undecided, but I do see glimpses of brilliance in his recordings. The problem with Hofmann (as with many "golden age" pianists) is that he didn't seem to take the recording process all that seriously, so while he may treat us to passages of brilliance in one moment, he often follows those up with minutes of lazy technique and decidedly lackluster effort. There's also way too little recorded by him for modern listeners to measure the full breadth of his musical abilities.

Listening to recordings from this era can be frustrating as much as it is fascinating. Sometimes it's easier to just plop in a hi-fi CD by a more recent pianist than strain your ears to hear one of the greats through sketchy remastering or static. But sometimes, it can be really worth it.


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## moody

Moiseiwitsch was most certainly a great pianist and his neglect is most strange.
I have already dealt with piano rolls and if properly adjusted are completely as the original artists played them, every nuance of touch and pedalling that the protagonist used..
Competions were run to see if people could tell when the "live" artist stopped and the piano roll took over.
It is interesting to note that Stephen Hough wrote of Hoffmann :"No one had ever played like this before and I think it's the main reason he was crowned king at a time of many princes".
Rachmaninoff,Friedman,Lhevinne and Godowsky considered him to be the greatest pianist of their generation.
His concerts recorded "live" from the 1930's represent him better than his studio efforts,shortly after these he became an alcoholic and went into steep decline.
As for it being easier to just "plop" an up to date CD into your machine,fine if you just want to listen to the tunes. But there's not much in the way of inspired pianism around these days---or anything inspired generally,we are in the age of mediocrity.


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## JohannesBrahms

Air said:


> My favorites from the list above are Cortot, Rachmaninoff, Schnabel, and Moiseiwitsch (he may not be a titan on the level of the three aforementioned pianists, but I adore his subtle, elegant style). I'm also a huge fan of Rosenthal and Feinberg. I do not like Paderewski or Busoni's playing at all, or what I've heard from them. The latter might be poorly served by the "recordings" we have of him (the piano roll transfers do not do justice to what he actually sounded like, I bet). I've heard a very limited amount by Lhevinne and thought highly of it. He has what, one or two total discs of recorded music? I think Backhaus is good - kind of middle of the pack - but he does not belong on the list with some of the names mentioned above.
> 
> What do you all think of Hofmann? For a man who is considered one of the great pianists in history, he doesn't get much love. It's surprising to see him garner no votes in a poll like this. I'm still undecided, but I do see glimpses of brilliance in his recordings. The problem with Hofmann (as with many "golden age" pianists) is that he didn't seem to take the recording process all that seriously, so while he may treat us to passages of brilliance in one moment, he often follows those up with minutes of lazy technique and decidedly lackluster effort. There's also way too little recorded by him for modern listeners to measure the full breadth of his musical abilities.
> 
> Listening to recordings from this era can be frustrating as much as it is fascinating. Sometimes it's easier to just plop in a hi-fi CD by a more recent pianist than strain your ears to hear one of the greats through sketchy remastering or static. But sometimes, it can be really worth it.


First of all, about Moiseiwitsch, he is most certainly on the level of Rachmaninoff, Cortot, and Schnabel. Why he is almost never mentioned today I have no idea. I too love his style. If you have never heard his recording the Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, you should listen to it. Its on youtube.

About Hofmann, I enjoy his playing and he is one of my favorite pianists. I think the reason his recordings are somewhat sloppy are that he became a drunk towards the end of his life. Rachmaninoff said that he was still the greatest pianist alive _if_ he was sober. So the reason he made a lot of mistakes in the recordings could be he might have had a slight snoot full.

About Lhevinne, he was considered to have the same level of technique that Rachmaninoff and Hofmann had. He was always more concerned with the music, though, and I enjoy his interpretations immensely.

About Backhaus, I disagree about him not being on the same level as some of the other pianists you mentioned. I haven't listened to him much, but everything I have heard has been amazing. He is one of the few pianists I think have mastered Beethoven.


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## moody

JohannesBrahms said:


> First of all, about Moiseiwitsch, he is most certainly on the level of Rachmaninoff, Cortot, and Schnabel. Why he is almost never mentioned today I have no idea. I too love his style. If you have never heard his recording the Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, you should listen to it. Its on youtube.
> 
> About Hofmann, I enjoy his playing and he is one of my favorite pianists. I think the reason his recordings are somewhat sloppy are that he became a drunk towards the end of his life. Rachmaninoff said that he was still the greatest pianist alive _if_ he was sober. So the reason he made a lot of mistakes in the recordings could be he might have had a slight snoot full.
> 
> About Lhevinne, he was considered to have the same level of technique that Rachmaninoff and Hofmann had. He was always more concerned with the music, though, and I enjoy his interpretations immensely.
> 
> About Backhaus, I disagree about him not being on the same level as some of the other pianists you mentioned. I haven't listened to him much, but everything I have heard has been amazing. He is one of the few pianists I think have mastered Beethoven.


I just wonder if you managed to read my post---it is right above yours ???


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## JohannesBrahms

moody said:


> I just wonder if you managed to read my post---it is right above yours ???


No, sorry, I didn't really read it.


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## Ukko

JohannesBrahms said:


> No, sorry, I didn't really read it.


Hah. That would have saved you some typing. About Backhaus though... while he was still among us, his playing progressively developed what could have been described as a narrowing imagination. Actually, the criticism was usually less kind than that, in the area of stiff and methodical. The better recordings I have heard come from the war years.

Among the recordings I have heard, I would rather hear Edwin Fischer (who had a similar brand problem).


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