Classical Music for Aficionados

Some people are saying this and that pianist produced the best tone, I have been to many many live concerts and believe me live is the only way you can judge a pianist. The pianist who is number one for me was Claudio Arrau whose tone could be a soft whisper or an earth shattering roar but never once with a rough tone. He was like the old pianists like Rachmaninov or Hoffman who were quiet at the piano not for them the histrionics of hand waving and tragic faces , even Horowitz hardly betrayed his playing and not portraying todays penchant for playing with evermore hand and arm waving. I now hate watching the Leeds or other pianoforte competitions as each successive pianist is more flamboyant than the last. I managed in the late sixties to get down to London to hear Arrau play the last three piano sonatas by Beethoven. I have not to this day heard piano tone like it with a total economy at the keyboard producing such a regal tone that I was enchanted. When he got to the last sonata in C Minor he got to the bit where it is nothing but trills and I have to say that being a big gruff Scotsman I surprised myself to find floods of tears flowing down my cheeks and of people around me also. I never will forget that concert and that tone and it was in my head for weeks after . I find that most of Arrau’s records are just a poor imitation of the great man, and after all this is the man that Rachmaninov and Horowitz used to go backstage and congratulate him on his interpretations and tone. Horowitz also whispered to him once that he Horowitz was glad he didn’t play any Beethoven.

I wish that I had gotten to hear Arrau live.

Between live performance concert in big hall and listening recorded concert there is a difference always a changing one with no absolute superiority of one over the other in all case, for me...

It is true that a lived performance will always own a potential superiority for sure in principle because the musician spirit and body is in the room... A very small room concert is then the ONLY ideal way...Or playing ourself with this musician for sure.... 😊

But for a big hall concert it depend on many factors at play, location of the listener, crowds noise, acoustic properties of the room...

Glenn Gould prefered studio recording... I dont say he was right , i say he was not wrong either...

But for sure we can judge to a relative high degree a great pianist playing even from a bad recording...

We cannot assess the level of an artist only if we were "there" so to speak...

Our taste each one of us differ so much that for example i put here few months ago one of the greateast pianist perhaps i ever listened to and some criticized my choice saying they even cannot pick a reason why i admire him... 😊

Another example: i own albums of a tanbur Iranian musician, very badly recorded , which are among the most powerful musical performance i ever listened to, Yehudi Menuhin wrote and tought the same about him and to be frank i listen to this musician after reading Menuhin impressions... But for most people it will be only an horrendous recording and a not tamed music at all (persian origin) ... I know i test it with many music lovers, and they cannot understand why i loved it so much...

Any music must be learned so to speak and must be approached like we tame a wild unknown beast....

And at the end music is not only sound and is not even any more related to the musician body and spirit , it is a personal spiritual event that transcend even the musician personality and precise moment of the event...

Then there is one mountain peak yes, but many roads to musical illumination like in religious matter i think.... 😁😊😊😊😊😊😊

By the way, what i appeciate the more here, is the diversities of experiences and opinions, this is these diversities which is the door to new discoveries for me...

Like said frogman one day here, to tamper my always  too great enthusiasm 😁 , there is no objective  best of the best...

I will not dare to contradict him, because he is right for sure, especially  if we take into account all opinions in the world...But for me there is, like for each one of you, the best of the best... It is normal and a testimony to our own different spirit journey...

Some  musical event is like a first love, we cannot renounce it for the rest of our life...

Must be wonderful to be God himself  !

Must be wonderful to be God himself !

A god not God...

It will be a theological mistake and a pure misplaced idolatry otherwise...

We all have our own admirations...

A thread like this one is interesting...

Supposed you claim that the best Schubert interpreter is Radu Lupu...

Supposed i never pounder Lupu in Schubert, or for some reason i never listen to him my attention directed at some aspect of his Schubert playing...

I will listen to him anew with new ears, thanks to you...

And i will perhaps discover something that has passed over me before because of my distraction ...And i will thank you without sarcasm for that ... I try to evite sarcasm about other people impression in spiritual matter...And music is a spiritual matter for me...

This is the reason why this thread is interesting...

When you say that some pianist is the "best" there is for some composer interpretation, it is not a theological truth, but a way to enlightened me...It is the way i read you...

It is the way i take it...

Take my enthusiasm for the same as yours... 😊

A way to partake music and surprise ourself about others differences and perspective...

Superlative adjectives here are only a way to express our own amazement...Not objective truth...

Yes for me E. N. is a god especially in Liszt Obermann ....

Like Sofronitsky is a god in Scriabin...

Sometimes i cannot choose between great artists, i renounce to claim that some musician is better than an another one ...

For example i am unable to pick between Feltsman or Schiff, my two favorites pianist in Bach Klavier... I dont doubt there is even other great one here to place beside them...

But miraculous events exist too....Even in music...

And sometimes like Marian Anderson singing "ave maria" of Shubert my heart is vanquished and it is, if not a goddess, an angel without rival here FOR ME...

I hope to have been clear about "my entusiasm" which is not a rational claim about a rational argument to be winned or lost...

Only a poetical way to focus others attention on some aspect of listening and convey my experience...

Then i thank you for the occasion given to me here by you  to clear this point about admirations...

My best and deepest respect to you ....