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Okay, this makes your point more clear.

While we all know, based on your concert performances and PW recordings, that you play and understand music better than de Larrocha and Richter, there is no need to trash them.

Haha!

In case this is actually meant seriously, let me point out that, at ten years old, both of those pianists understood more about music and played better than you ever will even if you practice 10 hours/day for the next 100 years.

Mozart is like the swimsuit competition in a beauty pageant. There is no room to hide your imperfections!

This doesn't refute anything I said. You're going to have to come up with some better argumentation.

If you say so.

Are you speaking from experience?

Just curious, JoelW. Where did you study piano and are you a professional performer?

That's irrelevant.

He's a teenage or slightly older person who from his posts I don't think has studied for some time. His posted performance consists of an average student performance of one of the easier Debussy Preludes.

Joel, maybe you can give some positive input for a change. For example, what is your favourite/perfect Mozart performance?

For me, Mozart is at his best in the combination violin+piano, the main instruments he played himself

The violin excels at playing the melody, with perfect phrasing possibilities.

Some examples (just a few quick picks from youtube)



here is one with period instruments

I consider this a relevant question, considering you find it possible to diss a performance by Larrocha. You seem to come from a place of much experience and technical expertise. I listened to your recordings here on Piano World and it seems your do not come from a place that would be on the same level as Larrocha. Stop hiding behind your curt responses. They are ridiculous. Spend more time at the piano and less on the Internet. Oh and you should consider spending less time being critical of professional performances until you reach that level yourself. It's just silly on your part.

Doritos, Sonata Facile can be seen as a study in scale runs, turns, left hand control and arpeggios. It's not hard, if practiced and brought to speed. I have only played with it and that was many years ago. No, I'm not a beginner, but returned to the piano recently after a 12 years absence. After my son's death 12 years ago, I found it too painful to make and enjoy beautiful music. He and I were very closely connected, not only as mother and child, but through music also.

My honored first teacher, a lady in her 70's who had taught at the Bucharest national conservatory of music in her professional career, and who had me as her first ever beginner gave this quote to me in the form:

"Mozart sonatas are too easy for children and too difficult for grown ups."

When she took up the first Mozart sonata with me I was no longer a child but not yet a grown up. What she wanted to convey was that the real difficulty with Mozart is an emotional one. Once you appreciate, as a grown up, the emotional dimension of his music the difficulty of expressing it changes dramatically.

PS. My favorite remains KV 310, and I am convinced I will struggle with its emotions until my technical abilities will have left me completely.

Those recordings do not represent me. At all.

Perhaps I was a little crass in my initial post, but is it really such a big deal? Is everyone so offended that I find most pianists mediocre? I even provided my reasoning. If you don't like it, prove me wrong. Don't just tell me I'm not good enough to judge, which is a fallacy anyway.

A little crass?

You definitely don't have the musical knowledge to pass judgement on the likes of de Larrocha and Richter, two pianists almost universally condsidered among the greatest of the 20th century. I assure you there are a lot more members who thought your post was incredibly arrogant but just didn't bother replying. How would you even know what goes on during conservatory teaching? You certainly haven't gone to one yourself.

I take offense that you think at your level of experience you can judge others whose level is way above yours and most people's. I would wonder what other top level performers you think give mediocre performances. Considering your age, I don't believe you have adequate life experiences to be as critical as you are. And, sorry, but those performances were done by you so they do represent you and your ability. Go practice.

You're trying to defeat my argument with the very thing I'm arguing against.

I have no delusions in think I am the best pianist in the world, but I can tell when a pianist understands the music and when they don't. No amount of education will ever make someone understand something if they don't already have an innate understanding of it.