Over the past year, I’ve discovered another “classical” pianist, who does excellent “interpretive” work, as he prided himself on being a jazz pianist who played classical music: Samson Francois. Some of his Chopin interpretations are unparalleled, but he is definitely unconventional. I think he prided himself over never playing the same piece the same way twice, which should appeal to some of those who think that classical music has become too formulaic.
Great classical pianists
Alexandra Dovgan is the pianist of her generation.
In the last century there was Richter. Today Trifonov. Now a new phenom. What is it in the Russian water that produces such giants of the keyboard?
We enjoy all great pianists. Rubinstein, Pollini, Argerich, Backhaus, Kempf, Michelangeli, Schnabel, Pogorelic, Gilels. Please add your favorite to this embarrassment of pianistic riches. But there is primus inter pares.
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My three favorite are : Ivan Moravec, Vladimir Sofrontisky, and the greatest of all even in his ruined old age , Ervin Nyiregyházi... Why ? Because music is not about sound and playing perfection but about meanings and expressive emotions first and last ... We listen to meanings and not only that in fact we felt meaning and react to it ...... The Russian school is unrivalled by the great number of top pianists produced ... The best test for a pianist is the impossible task to play Scriabin with expression or Liszt with rythm and colors control ... I forgot many not so well recognized non Russian genius as for example Yves Nat in Beethoven or Michael Ponti in Scriabin ( in spite of a horrible recording sound ) and many others ... Or John Ogdon expressive interpretation of Busoni or Sorabji in the clavicem balisticum ... And the goddess of piano is Maria Yudina, a so strong woman that she said no to Stalin money, at the risk of loosing his life , and Stalin died listening his playing always turning at the side of his deathbed ,a recording of Mozart made in the night at high speed after an unrecorded concert few years before his death and after the monster which was calmed by his playing asked for the recording which was never made and was replayed with Yudina awaken to did it for him in the night again ... Yudina feared only God and refused Stalin money and said to his face that she will pray for his sins in a telephone call from the monster so feared Shostakovitch could not sleep ... Now imagine this woman so poor not owning a piano most of his life and playing, Russians know what a pianist saint is , she was one ... Now german piano school is extraordinary too ... listen to this miraculous version : Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto - Gieseking/Karl Böhm (1939)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAfCW2-3NxA
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There is too many great not well known piano interpretation miracles ... Antonio Barbosa playing effortlessly the impossible Mazurkas of Chopin which ask for a complex rythm mastery ...Because of this complex rythm oscillation of this peculiar polish dance, Chopin takes all his short life to write them all ...It is my favorite Chopin works ...Almost no pianist perform them as Barbosa effortlessly did ... Brazilian knows something about rythms....Nobody beat him in the mazurkas... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYdYwk3Vjqg&list=PLQopr5raEipfPQXYanmfhTpHhPp9abuNZ Or Thierry de Brunhoff rivaling Moravec perfect Nocturnes interpretation in his own warmer intimate way : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8djkKNN4f90&t=803s Preludes : |
Some giants of the piano taught and plays concerts more than they were recorded... One of the greatest pianist of the last century is certainly Heinrich Neuhaus ... This documentary explain why : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izCfrtFuYAc&t=53s here he play Chopin concerto no 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf_73gQr6OQ Here the master of Lupu, Gilels and Richter and of many other great pianists play Brahms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTrQUJ4okM4 Here the master in Rachmaninoff : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so0UgBBR2VQ He perfectly master not only tone colors and rythm but the expression power at a height reach only by a few as Sofronitsky and Nyiregyházi...
Power of expression test is done when we compare any pianist interpretation of Liszt Mephisto waltzes for example ... Nyiregyházi here transcend anyone in powerful madness expression .... Richter cannot even compare to Nyiregyházi Richter - 0:00 Nyiregyházi - 3:40 Comparison of Sviatoslav Richter and Ervin Nyiregyházi playing the same passage from Liszt's 'Vallée d'Obermann'.
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