Classical music thread welcoming your suggestions and why...

Pollini is a great pianist...

But he never put me in ectasy...

Ivan Moravec for example, i listened to ALL his albums

Moravec is really for me over most pianists...i put him over Horowitz...

Why ?

Because he is not a virtuoso on the level of Horowitz at all...

But like Rubinstein, his playing is nuanced and in control of "hues" and so fluid , Horowitz beside that can sound too "perfect" to be as subtle in the expression and colors as Moravec is especially in spontaneous and natural melodical expression ...

For example; the cathedral under the sea of Debussy...try it... it was an amazing day the day i listened Moravec playing it... i was in ectasy why ? because for the first time ever, this piece i was not in love with speak to me, and i was able to SEE REALLY the cathedral under the sea... Why ? Total control of the hues of colors by Moravec... Unbelievable... it is not often being not a cenesthete that i can SEE musical object as REAL OBJECT in front of me... this holgraphic seeing is impossible for the listener if the pianist is not an absolute master of nuances and color over dynamic virtusity or even over perfection... Expression is NEVER perfection or perfect playing.. . Expression is OVER perfect playing because it know how to stay imperfect in a perfect way... Difficult to explain but easy to spot...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phq8soeZLLA

My three other favorite pianists, are Sofronitsky, Neuhaus, and Ervin Nyiregyhazi... But there is many others... Especially In the russian school... But some are unknown genius as Antonio Guedes Barbosa in my favorite Chopin work the Mazurkas...

The mazurkas being a dance of some kind of "limping " rythm, most pianist miss the limping they erase it sometimes because it is impossible to play a rythm if you dont feel it in you first ...Barbosa being brazilian dont miss it, and his playing is made of a fluid noble gesture and at the same time humble simplicity, it is very hard for me to listen other version... For example the great Yakov Flier did the mazurkas , but even him is under Barbosa heights for me so great it is and he is...

Russian dont limp- dancing as polish does it seems, and brazilian dance well any dance... 😊

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdFkWm-D5Sk

When i said in the post above : «Music is not two dimensional at all for sure...

But musical time is two dimensional... vertical pulsative dimension and metronomical horizontal dimension... Physical time had only one direction : from past to future...» Musical time then own two directions instead of one...

I forgot a very important precision to be rightfully understood...

In the metronomical horizontal dimension as in the vertical pulsative dimension, the two dimension and directions of musical time , THERE IS NO PAST and THERE IS NO FUTURE as in the physical time dimension...And no pure direction from a known past to an unknown future ...

in the two musical dimensions the "measurable" horizontal one and the non measurable pulsative one, only the present moment exist the now but not as a point as in the physical time dimension but as a sphere... In music a past note or a future note is always here or is BEHIND or forward not a past or future event but as participant in the eternal now which is a pulsative spiraling movement toward inward or outward never lost in the past or not there at all as a mere  future... The now moment is like a tree which is at the same times root, and canopy and seeds ...The now momwent is not an abstraction because it is music felt...In a way in musical time dual dimensions, the past and the future are known together , but only the now moment is FELT...

Then the two directions of musical time dont exist in physical time, when they are reduced to it though  , it is as a ghost, or as a spectral reduction of the eternal now  to metronomical time which is at the same time the grave  of music and the door of the awaiting musical resurrection...

Thanks for your post...

I cannot contradict you about Pollini... The search for perfection, when i feel it , kill for me the spontaneous playing imprevisible creation...

Pardon the thread drift, but say what you will about pianist Maurizio Pollini possessing more finger speed than soul, more often than not he’s my go-to guy when I want to hear some Chopin. Out and out exhilarating. I might have mentioned it in another thread, way back when, but I saw him perform live, once upon a time in L.A. Hair flying, reach-out-and-mow-down-the-stars virtuosity.

  I have been out of town for my mothers funeral so I haven't had a chance to keep up here.  I agree that Pollini and Moravec are two very different Debussy players.  Moravec has that warm buttery tone while Pollini has such fine etching and leonine strength.  The music however, can survive both approaches.  I prefer M.P. here, but for years the only recordings that I knew of the Debussy Preludes were those of Michelangelo, who was M.P. teacher.  Pollini very different Art does lead to equally exquisite poetry. 

   Barenboim has stated throughout his career that he wants to emulate Furtwangler.  He was the chief conductor here in Chicago for many years so I am very familiar with his work.  A recording that he made of Beethovens Third Piano Concerto, when he was a teenager and before discovering his Furtwangler Passion, was one of my earliest acquired ops.  Lets just say that D.B. has phenomenal natural musical instincts, but in attempting to superimpose the style of W.F., he frequently misfires.  He just doesn't seem to have that innate ability to convey his vision to others unless he slows things down to near stasis, but without the inner light that a Furt or Cell had, it just sounds slow and bloated

I wish you the best in these time of personal trials...

My sympathy for your mother lost...

I dont think that someone can imitate or be inspired by someone genius hoping to emulate him,... Each genius is unique...It is why Pollini is unique, liking him or not...

D.B. whom you know way better than me is for me as you described him...I cannot speak about him...

I dont believe that there is ONE METER to compare all musicians... We must learn to listen, at least me, to understand more with each passing years... At the end all geniuses are recognized by us , even those we dont like as much as others... because we  have learned even if we keep our biases and preferences...