Classical Music for Aficionados

People tend to drag their feet when penalty is death .

jcazador, Great list!, I saw 7 of them alive , Arrau moved me the most, but that’s just me .
The one that seems to be missing IMO is Murray Perahia .
He and Hewitt are my go-to’s on Bach .

schubert
lucky you, seeing all those great pianists live
the only one i ever saw was ashkenazy, in a local high school auditorium, back in the days when it was difficult for him to leave USSR
I do appreciate Murray Perahia, especially his Mozart sonatas
and I share your love for Arrau, the consummate master, the total package of dignity, precision and passion held just under the surface - and the inspiration for Argerich as well

twoleftears
i will have to give Staier a listen, thanks

as for Bach, I happen to be listening to Richter playing Well Tempered Clavier at this moment
another favorite for Bach is Maria Yudina, and I will repeat a story about her that may not be true
once she played a radio concert that Stalin heard, it was a live broadcast, not recorded, and Stalin thought it was a recording and liked it so much, he ordered the recording delivered to him immediately
so the KGB went out and got Yudina and took her to a  studio and made a recording of her previous recital for Stalin.
She hated stalin, whenever she received a medal, she gave it to the families of people Stalin/KGB had killed

@jcazador,
Nice post. I hope it is true.

To All,
I subscribe to Spotify and despite its' lack of high fidelity streaming, it has one of the most complete and easily accessible catalogs (unlike Tidal).
I only mention this as I have discovered a huge cache of recordings of the early/mid romantic period from Naxos (mostly). I only thought Hummel was famous for his Trumpet Concerto, but now find he composed a lot of great music-including piano concertos.
The nice thing about Spotify catalog is that it has 'Related Artists'.
Click on that and you get similar composers-Ries, Witt, Flotow, Wilms, etc.
I never heard of these composers before, and I feel I have discovered another facet of classical music.
Sorry if I am saying something you all know, but listening to composers who were famous in their time, yet now almost forgotten, is very exciting.
B

Jcaazodor ,

What a lovely description of Arrau ! As well done as can be done .

He played an all Brahms program one time I saw him .
I swear, and not as a figure of speech , one could feel Brahms in the hall .

If you haven’t already try Perahia's Bach "French Suites" .