Classical Music for Aficionados

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....

Listening to Buniatishvili's Schubert disc: Sonata D 960, Impromptus D 899 capped with the delicious Liszt Standchen transcription.

I am entranced by her playing.  Rermarkable lyricism and delicacy in the p and pp passages.

The piano sound is interesting too; don't know if it's the piano she's playing or the recording, or both.  Compared to the string of Hyperion recordIngs I've been listening to of late, it's softer, warmer, more rounded.  It suits her meditative style of playing, I think.

Has anyone else sampled this disc?

@twoleftears   I haven't sampled this disc yet but tomorrow I'll surely do so. I have very high hopes for the future of this pianist but like Trifonov she has masses of technique but they need time to grow into the stars they will be in the future. I also think she has an enormous pallet of colours to fall on as exhibited in Pictures at an Exhibition. When I look at the You Tube video of her playing this piece every time I catch a closeup of her face her eyes are tightly shut and a rapturous look on her face (Liszt would certainly approve)   I also like her rendering of Standchen but can I point you to another recording of it from Kissin who I think makes more of the virtuousity in it and therefor making the piece sing more and there are many footfalls in that piece so a transcendental technique is really needed in those Schubert/Liszt pieces.