Classical Music for Aficionados

Thanks for this very interesting post....

Very useful.....

She is a student of Neuhaus, one of the Towers of the Russian School and not the shortest one at all....I will listen to her...For me the greatest school of piano but it is only my taste.... 😁

Yes, she studied with Neuhaus.
quote
(Virsaladze)
A bad pianist can either play a Steinway well or ruin it. It doesn't bother me to play any instrument, and not just because of that. But unfortunately the pianos provided at Moscow Conservatory are in the worst condition.  If you came, you'd understand. The pedals squeaked, they were out of tune, and the left pedal of the instrument in the classroom  where  Prof. Neuhaus taught was always creaking and squeaking.  Every piano they had was a real embarrassment. Even now  [laughs].
(Kobayashi) That kind of instrument was even in  Prof. Neuhaus' class?
(Virsaladze) Even in Prof. Prof.Neuhaus' lesson room.

One day someone make the observation that the piano with which he must play this evening is in a very bad shape, to whom Ervin Nyiregyházi replied, "it is me not the piano which will make sound"....

I always were amazed by this pianist and it is the same for Russian pianists.... Music is never only sound....

Just to pull your beard....

By the way i prefer good piano sound but....i prefer Neuhaus on a bad piano or Sofronitsky  to almost anyone...

Yes Mahgister, Sofronitksy certainly ruined me, after hearing his Schubert I'm having a hard time listening to anyone else..

For me the Russian school is the best example of a teaching that exemplify in his pupils and masters the 3 main factors i listen to in a pianist:


The first factor is the one linked to the hues and "NUANCES" in color , ONE NOTE says all....Moravec, the pianist’s pianists ( he is not Russian i know) is an emblematic master of this colors and pastel mastery of note where the timbre playing of the instrument fuse with the microdynamic timbre gesture of the body....This is the seeds of the pure beauty, ethereal and/or incarnated ....

The second factor manifest itself between TWO NOTES : by constrasting, balancing, polarizing,attenuating, etc it is the INTENSITY... The abyss where gods and magicians transform crowds and the world....The hungarian Nyiregyházi and Sofronitsky playing Scriabin are supremum examples...For me this factor is linked to the ethos and/or the pathos....

The third factor is the dynamical and rythmic, and motoric mastering with THREE NOTES and more ... Pure VIRTUOSITY....Too many examples here and not necessary to give one... But Hamelin and Earl Wild or Horowitz for example own enough of the first 2 factors to exemplify the third without any negative coming from it....Here it is between the living logos versus the logical formula or the mechanical and the rythmical....



Artistry, Demonic power, and virtuosity....

An artist must slowy feel his artistry first , more than he can practice it, but he can practice his virtuosity and invoke then  the circonstance when he feel it at his best....

The demonic power is linked to the miracle of the moment and cannot be practiced at all, it can only exploded....We may learn virtuosity, but nobody learn how to be a god and improvising and throwing  miracles on listeners....

Artist, gods or magicians we can also call them....


We can all argue about our evaluation on this 3 factors scale of any pianist....It is relative to our own internal alchemical balance and then perception.... Never mind this subjective fact, these 3 factors can be use to describe the piano playing for me....1-2-3 notes....

Mozart and Chopin are supremum artist, Listz and Scriabin more on the demonic side for example, and Beethoven more in equilibrium between these 2....

it is only my way to communicate how i listen to pianists....