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I think you would find After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance to be right up your alley. It's very readable and should be fascinating to anyone interested in this stuff.

Mark, I am beginning to think we are on parallel thought patterns! I am still listening and learning from de Pachman's interpretations. I think there is value in what he is telling us about Chopin's playing. You may be right about it's being a little contrive, although there are some aspects that reveal things like what may have been Chopin's performance of rubato, for example. I like hearing the way he plays the treble and bass clefs in this respect. Very off the beat for rubato.

I see it much the same way, but that's part of what I think is sort of an exaggeration or caricature of what Chopin might have done -- a good exaggeration or caricature so I think it succeeds in giving us an idea of what Chopin did. But to me Pachmann's playing is so devoid of coherence and depth that I have trouble seeing it as more than that. It feels like someone tossing out unheartfelt tidbits of something he heard someone else do -- and doing a very good job of it, up to a point -- not unlike when so many people have tried to ape Horowitz, doing this or that mannerism or dynamic that we recognize as you-know-who. And at least Pachmann does (I think) give us the basic idea. Sometimes it's through caricatures that we can come to know the original pretty well. I saw comic impressions of James Cagney many times before I saw anything with him in it. By the time I actually saw him, it was like, sure, that's him all right.

True.

After my opinion it is three superb pianists which there are recording's existing while they play. After my opinion Vladimir Horowitz , he's a true master and i would probaly say he would play like one of the masters. Sergei Rachmaninov a true hero behind the piano , a great musician. And at last the stunning performances recorded of Edvard Grieg himself playing , and he's a true master!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf-ZZo9WMYQ

Grieg , i love you're interpretation.

most of today's pianists are, well, pianists, opposed to the above mentioned masters, who were composers, quite a different kind of artist, and they knew how to play the piano, because they invented the craft so to speak, hardly any comparison to the reproductive art of today's classical musicianship, which by no means diminishes the interest of being a good pianist/artist, but the link composing/pianism has been somewhat faded during the past, say, century...

There are many pianists today who also compose (classical). It is difficult to be heard today, in any serious context, anyway. There are performances on Youtube, but that's a far cry from being picked up by a major recording company.

hard to say. I would say performers of yesterday had more practical time where as today's performers tend to be educated and perhaps because of it have a greater insight that allows them to play a variety of styles. Given the genre , I would say the masters of that genre would trump todays players but they probably excelled at that genre and only that genre.

Hi Rachfan,

This is a very interesting theme you started. Thank you for this.

So, once I made a research to find out how did the pianists in the beginning of the 20. century play. And it was totally different.

I can say that tempos were higher and the importance was not so much the note itself but the whole, the emotion and individuality. For me it was a huge insight. There was no such clarity and playing out of every single note. Also the note text was not the priority number one.

For example Liszt improvised and changed the pieces during performances and so did others. We can not say that they are better now or were then. The approach has changed cardinally.
Btw I used Chopin etudes for this research. The text was changed, the tempos were extremely high, they were almost like different pieces than written ones.

If you listen to Alfred Cortot the tempos are extremely high and it seems to be a huge mess and some kind of blurr of an emotion. I imagine that these times when interpret was still number one person and composer was number two person, the things looked even more so.

But what next? What is going to happen? There are so many perfect recordings of all kind of classical music. 12 year old boy playes the Chopin study nr 2 op 10 perfectly in tempo. 14 year old boy playes Rach 3? Where are we heading to? You can find hundreds of perfect performances of well known classical pieces.

I think the quality levels are at their extreme and individuality starts to count more and more.

What do you think.

Additionally: Just listened the Rach 2 performed by Ivo Pogorelich live in 2007. This is so strange but worth to listen to.

GL
Jaak

Very interesting Jaak -- so if you could buy only one recording of a Chopin etude, would it be the one from the early 20th century or from today?

Hi Rachfan,

First I hope such a situation would never happen
Probably this is the hardest answer I have been ever asked...

To get a perfect and "correct copy" of a chopin etude also musically, it does not tease..

To get something that is totally different, almost so different that it is not Chopin any more... If I would never be able to listen to other interpretations any more, it would be too frightening. So if there would never be a chance to listen to original text of Chopin any more and only something like this, I would not appreciate this as well.

So what is left here?
A beautiful and unique performance that has the author text in the first place but is still strongly individual and touching. Probably something like this. A performance that makes me feel that Chopin could have played this way. We do not know how he played but often people have a vision of how his music should sound the right way. Also after a piece is written, it starts to live its own life and starts to change I think.

So if only one study forever - then a very good performance of today. I am still a person of this era

But I can say that at the moment I do not feel that I can fall into the situation that you described and it is even more interesting to explore different individual interpretations.

Thank you for asking.

What do you think Rachfan?

Jaak

I think that I expect that I would find the playing style of the old masters so different than today that I would prefer today's artists - except if it was Chopin playing Chopin -- there would be no one i"d rather listen to than that.
As you say, we are from this age and influenced by today's interpretation.

But not necessarily all of us!
I've always felt more of an affinity for what the old-old timers did -- I mean like at least 90-100 years ago. And I'd guess that I'm not alone here in that.