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Well we can do that, and many, many thanks for your contributions!

If I remain politely skeptical that Clara was merely brilliant without being particularly striking as a musician, look at the Liszt pianists which I would have given anything to have heard in their prime: Tausig, d'Albert, Rosenthal, Sauer, Joseffy, de Greef, Friedheim, Stavenhagen, Siloti. Was Clara a greater pianist than those?

Perhaps I'll count out von Bülow, but then we could go on to the Leschetitzky group. Such riches!

I think S-S might respond that he was more old-fashioned, instead of more modern.

Some time ago there was a link in a thread here to an interesting essay by him in which he seemed to be identifying his pianistic style with something quite a lot older than the present day (that is, at the time he wrote it, which, IIRC, was shortly after the turn of the century). It was a way of playing that he had learned when young, and that he thought that kind of playing had pretty much disappeared in the late 1800's - early 20th century, much to his chagrin.

It is intriguing that someone whose life overlapped Chopin's by more than a decade also lived long enough to hear Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring"!! And the piano itself was still undergoing a lot of development when he was a kid.

They were made in the twilight of his career, but some really fantastic recordings were made by Emil Von Sauer.

I've heard his recordings of the Liszt concertos, and they seemed rather tame and underpowered. Do you have other recommendations?

Schumann concerto, it's gorgeous.

Would also highly recommend investigating the scores he edited; they're quite fascinating.

Speaking of editions! Apparently Lamond made a Beethoven sonatas edition? I hear it is interesting in the sense that many early 20th century editions are - highly edited, etc.
And YES regarding von Sauer - very poetic playing in the Schumann concerto.

I went to a performance at one of the Smithsonian museums last night where the pianist described himself in the program as "A pupil of a pupil of a pupil of Liszt." It was clearly meant in fun.

The lovely thing is we're all basically descended from the Lisztian tree.

While that is undoubtedly true, does it have any significance?

Regards,

Great significance to me, at least personally.

Certainly. Makes you wonder how the world of the piano would look without that Lisztian tree, had the man never devoted himself to teaching. Comparing with Chopin in this sense, it's rather difficult to say how much of his teachings that actually carried through his pupils and to their various pupils. Raol Koczalski was taught by Mikuli but it seems he didn't think much of him as a pianist. Rosenthal did study with Mikuli as well - however, while Mikuli taught him legato and touch, he eventually was to be taught by Rafael Joseffy, Liszt and others who had a different approach to piano. Liszt also commented on that Chopin was fairly unfortunate with students - fairly few of them were truly of extraordinary talent. Meanwhile, Liszt coached hundreds and hundreds of pianists...


I've discovered Frederic Lamond's Beethoven playing more and more lately. It is said that he was very famed for his Beethoven recordings in the early 20th century, until Schnabel came along and recorded all the sonatas. He has a remarkably flexible approach to tempo and character, and many here will find a lot of it disagreeable, for sure: