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The weird thing is that technique has always been a vehicle of expression and bravura seemed to be a defining element of good technique until a belief of being "less showy, less technical, to be more *musical*".

If you look at the development of piano music in particular, technique has always been a defining factor in how expression is relayed - one can look at Liszt's works and say that his keyboard language is almost purely composed of only bravura technique.

The so called "golden age" pianists all had monster techniques. Gilels, Horowitz, Richter were all regarded as technical wizards. Going further back, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Lhevinne, Hofmann and all of the Liszt pupils had incredible technique which defined their musical expression. In Hofmann's book, he describes that technique is the most essential element in being able to develop musical expression.

I guess it almost seems like we're taking the reverse approach to music today. We study the score, to discover the musical essence, and then we bring our technique up to the prerequisite level. Whereas before, one might imagine that after developing an incredible technique, one of the great pianists would then apply their musicality that is enabled by their mastery of the keyboard.

Another small quote that I find funny which might also describe why all of those greats played so damn fast: Once Horowitz and Rachmaninoff were listening a record of Cortot playing the Chopin etudes. They started joking: "Oh, his playing is so musical, especially in the most difficult sections!". The joke being that being "musical" meant slowing down and trying to inject more "expression" because the fingers couldn't keep up with the technical demands.

By saying that technique should be in service to the music, I don't mean that more musicality equals playing slower or with less virtuosity or less bravura when it is called for-- but rather that the virtuosity and bravura should be for the purpose of expressing the musical concept rather than for showing off the technical capability of the pianist. Liszt himself condemned that type of playing (speed and virtuosity simply for its own sake and not for musical purposes).

I think the only thing that is different today is that musicality is almost completely absent.



They were probably talking about Cziffra.

Oh yes, that one. If anything permanently ruined Cortot for me, it is those two titans.

I realize Cortot is highly regarded in some circles (every note -and wrong note- fawned over with a cultish admiration), but I just don't get it all. Every couple years I check in again with a Cortot recording, but I remain unconvinced of his stature.

Talk about the emperor's clothes...

There is Horowitz's recording of the Wedding March. Do you believe that, from a mechanical perspective, Gavrylyuk exceeds Horowitz? In general, Horowitz plays with clearer articulation, although Gavrylyuk plays many of the single-note runs at a faster tempo than Horowitz does. Nevertheless, Horowitz may well have been capable of playing the runs as fast or faster than Gavrylyuk.

Horowitz might have chosen to only play as fast as is musically necessary. He might have felt that because the composition is a march, the tempo shouldn't be insanely fast and should remain consistent with the tempo of a march. Horowitz did complain about how bands frequently play Stars and Stripes Forever way too fast. He said that it should be played at a pace where you can march to it. Perhaps he had a similar view about the Wedding March.

Toward the end of the piece, Horowitz plays the octaves much faster and more easily than Gavrylyuk than does. Furthermore, from a musical perspective, Horowitz greatly surpasses Gavrylyuk. So I'm not convinced that Gavrylyuk can equal Horowitz, even from a purely technical perspective.


Horowitz and Rachmaninov may have been the only people who had chosen to record Rach 3, but I'm sure that Josef Lhevinne also could have played it. I also wonder about Rubinstein and Arrau. Although they weren't virtuosi on the level of Horowitz, Rubinstein or Arrau might've been able to give an adequate performance of Rach 3.

In Harold Schonberg's book The Great Pianists, which was published in 1987, Schonberg said that some people are under the impression that current pianists have better technique than pianists from the early part of the twentieth century, but nothing could be further from the truth. Schonberg pointed out that pianists such as Hofmann, Rachmaninov, Lhevinne, and Moiseiwitsch possessed technical ability that is now practically nonexistent. The same might hold true for today. There are certainly a lot of technically advanced pianists, but would their technique be able to rival that of Hofmann, Rachmaninov, and Lhevinne?

(BTW, just a detail about the Harold Schonberg book:
1987 was the updated edition. The original was 1963.)


Great breakdown/comparison there by LaReginadellaNotte.
I love it.

Nobody should doubt that Horowitz could have played the runs "faster" if he'd felt like it. For all his technical wizardry, to me he never gave the slightest impression that he thought playing the piano was any kind of race. What Horowitz was about wasn't speed, but range of expression and effects.

I don't know much about Cortot, but I will admit the insight he brings while playing this piece by Schumann is astonishing:

No doubt Lhevinne would have played it magnificently (but did he ever?) and I still would love to have heard his NYC debut with Rubinstein 5. As I have posted before, if anyone could bring off that bombastic slug-fest (the coda of the first movement alone), it would be Lhevinne.

There are two Gieseking recordings of Rachmaninov 3: 1938 with Barbirolli and 1940 (live) with Mengelberg. I've only heard the latter (thanks to wiki for news of the former), and whilst Gieseking takes the 'big' cadenza, I don't think the recording is particularly competitive compared to the usual suspects today.

Also I would like to mention that George Thalben-Ball -best known to British church musicians as organist for almost 60 years at London's the Temple Church- was the first English-trained pianist to play Rachmaninov 3... in 1915 at the age of 19!

Edit: listening to the Horowitz Wedding March posted above, I can only say mea culpa. Stupendous. (Too long since I last heard it.)

Alfred Cortot was an exceptional musician, have a listen at this famous recording (made in 1919):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJot3tfsUBM

And don't forget Clara Haskil, Samson François and Dinu Lipatti were his students, among many others.

I also agree Gavrylyuk was not as good as Horowitz in the video. Technique is there to support music not the other way round. Music is not an Olympics of finger sprint where we award prizes for the fastest scales, fastest octaves and fastest thirds...

Thank you. Gosh, it would seem I'm not the only idiot that doesn't know what he's talking about... go figure.

I honestly like Michelangeli's technique more than Horowitz's, or Richter's, or maybe even Rachmaninoff's. But yeah, I think there are many many more pianists with insane technique these days than there used to be.

Of course, that's only speaking about technique.

In what aspects of technique do you feel that Michelangeli surpassed Horowitz and Rachmaninov? Michelangeli is certainly one of the most precise pianists that I've ever heard.


I don't think that anyone denies that there are many current pianists with great technique. My question is whether any of those pianists could compete with the greatest technical giants of the early twentieth century. As Schonberg pointed out, pianists such as Lhévinne, Hofmann, Rachmaninov, and Horowitz were at a very high level of mechanical ability. He also claimed, in 1987, that it is incorrect to believe that modern pianists are technically superior to those people. Are there any living pianists who could match the manual dexterity of Horowitz, Lhévinne, Rachmaninov, or Hofmann?

Uh, is this a serious question? Hamelin? Argerich?

Hamelin is a potential candidate, but I don't know about Argerich. While she obviously has extraordinary technique, I doubt that she could play the "Double Thirds" Etude as fluently as Lhévinne played it.

Granted, it can sometimes be difficult to ascertain which pianist has the best technique. A pianist may excel at certain technical aspects, but not at others. Hofmann could play runs better than Rachmaninov could, but Rachmaninov could play chords and octaves better than Hofmann could.

One person's opinion does not make something true. It's possible he was correct, but you have to realize that Schonberg was a fanatic about "golden age" pianists in every aspect of their playing and somewhat prejudiced IMO about pianists not from that time.

I think there are at least 20 pianists with such perfect overall technique that trying to say which one is the "best" is not worth discussing. And as you say, there are numerous aspects of technique and no one is best in all of them.

David Dubal gave an interesting lecture quite a while ago where he discussed many different aspects of technique and played recordings by a few examples of the pianists he thought were the best in each category. Even in a single category of technique I think one could name many pianists ted for the "best".

That sounds like a very interesting lecture. Is it available on video? Just out of curiosity, which piansts did Dubal consider the best in certain categories? I have some guesses as to who would have been included. For runs and repeated notes, Hofmann was unsurpassed. The top octave players probably included Horowitz, Rachmaninov, Lhévinne, Hamelin, and Argerich. For double note technique, Friedman, Lhévinne, and Hofmann were probably included.

As to comparing different technicians, it's true that we may never obtain a definite answer regarding who is the best, but I still think that it's interesting to discuss the topic. I enjoy intellectual exercises, especially ones that involve comparing and contrasting great musicians. For example, we may conclude that the pianist who excels in the greatest number of technical challenges is probably the top technician overall. Lhévinne was outstanding at both octaves and double notes. Argerich has excellent octaves, but her runs have never been as clearly articulated as those of Pollini, Horowitz, or Hofmann, and I have never heard her play double notes of the Lhévinne order. For those reasons, I think that Lhévinne was overall a better technician than Argerich was.

piano-technique can be based on muscle-memory, founded on hours of mechanical repetition until the phrases sound 'perfect' and beyond criticism

it can also be based on artistic thought, where the technique is under the pianist's complete control

Chopin could improvise for hours. This to me means he had a very strong technique, in the sense that he played what he envisioned...

can the musical artists of today improvise like the old masters?

Jazz Pianists are constantly improvising and interacting on-the-fly. I believe that it is this mental connection with the music that gives Jazz pianists the kind of technique that Chopin or Liszt used to have

in fact, before 1860 or so, to be considered a great pianist one had to play his own compositions

'muscle memory' technique has more of an athletic approach. The pianists who practice endless repetition may play correctly but I would not call their technique good because it has been tainted by the physical aspect of playing

music is created in the mind, not in the fingers

All the great pianists of every age have this kind of technique. It is not something negative.

Muscle memory isn't under a pianist's control?

Anyone can improvise for hours. While we can assume Chopin's improvisations were very great and at at high technical level this doesn't mean his improvisations were at the technical level of his compositions.

All the great pianists have very good or great muscle memory technique in addition to their great musical understanding. All of them practiced endless repetition. As Alexander Braginsky has said playing the piano is half athletic and half mind(of course, he didn't mean exactly half and half...he just meant there is an important athletic part)