Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Who do you think is the best classical pianist?

Rachmaninov, Josef Lhevinne, Moritz Rosenthal, Ignaz Friedman. Firkusny and Gilels, Myra Hess and Annie Fischer of the next generation. Yara Bernette, Maria Tipo were also fine players.

I understand that Gabrilowitsch was no slouch!

Gilels for sure along with those others mentioned by Jeffrey B.!

Hamelin is the best !
Technically at least.

Note the space before my shouting mark

Your choices are hard to argue with, Jeffrey, but the mention of Maria Tipo in that company gave me pause.

She certainly comes from a very illustrious background with endorsements from big name pianists, and I would be surprised if you haven't met and heard her live.

I can't claim that honour, but a Clementi CD I listened to once (which duplicated much that Horowitz had recorded- she lives dangerously) seemed rather bland and under-characterized. Later on, a CD of Bach-Busoni was very tentative and disappointing. The music seemed to swallow her alive.

Why would Tipo record repertoire requiring the resources of a much more heroic pianist? Turn to Egon Petri (or Horowitz, Giles, etc...) and one instantly hears what is missing in Tipo's playing.

It must have been the Symphonic Etudes? Perhaps I am confusing her with another pianist. Say, Ingrid haebler was another very fine artist. Backaus and Cziffra too. This list is not too important to me, but it's nice to reflect. I also wish my teacher, Adele Marcus, had more recordings out there. The one with her playing will be released in 2008. I think it will be a nice surprise to many, since she taught many famous pianists from the mid-20th century, like Byron Janis (wonderful pianist), and others. Say--William kapell should have been in this list too.

Your mentioning of Rachmaninoff first makes me raise my hat to you sir.

I would eagerly await this Jeffrey.

And happy holidays. You have contributed so much of value on this forum. All very much appreciated.

Lazar Berman, performing Liszt, in his prime years, ca. 1975. I've never heard anyone else peform Liszt so effortlessly and with such cinsistant facility while utilizing a 120 decibel dynamic range between his ppppp and sFFFFFFFz.

And why oh why is this concerto not performed more often?

A mystery...

Let me add Ashkenazy to the mix. This guy recorded everything from Mozart to Prokofiev, and it was all very well received. Not exceptionally flashy, but his interpretations are just, well, really good. Listen to his Mozart concerti recordings. They certainly aren't "originalist," but they are terrific. His Beethoven is great, his Chopin is still widely regarded 35-40 years after it was recorded.

And the first too .. great piece.