Never seen a thread go downhill so quickly

It would almost be excusable if Richter and Horowitz were actually AHEAD of Lang Lang on the list...but to suggeset Lang Lang is greater than them.............................................

It's only his opinion, Heretic.

Maybe he hasn't heard Richter or Horowitz. Maybe he has, and he doesn't personally connect with their styles.

This is true, but would Lang Lang even be considered 20th century pianist??? More like 21st century..

Well, I'd say he's late 20th and early 21st.

I'm not sure I would consider him one of the "best" of the 20th century, but he might very well become one of the "best" of the 21st. Who knows? He's still very young (23? 24?)

Well his (in)famous "breakthrough" occurred in 1999 when he substituted for andre watts so I suppose that puts him in the last year of 20th century but he didn't accomplish anything in 20th century...


on a side note though..I just read something interesting about him. People have been marvelling lately at those child prodigies that played some single Chopin etude at 14 or whatnot. It says here Lang Lang performed all 24 Chopin Etudes at age 13!

Where is 'here'? (just out of curiosity, because I might read it if it's on the web)

I'd believe that. He's certainly got chops.

wikipedia

Well, I think if you like piano, you should heard of Richter or Horowitz. They were not in my list, that because I've got their CDs, but the quality of record is not very clear, so I might put them in 11 and 12. And Lang Lang might not belong to 20th, but he is really great in his age, I think we should judge by their skill or talent, not age. By the way, I am female.

I think he is great. Sonata can have her own opinion . Although I won't put him in my list, I can understand why people are putting him in the list. He is not THAT bad, come on...

I also understand why people dislike him, but he is so critisesed, he just doesn't deserve it. Keep in mind that he is still young and I think in the future he might ever grow up , no matter how many centuries it's going to take .

Why are people so harsh on a 23 (24?) year old who still has to develop his "true" musicality?

*scoffs* What threw me was that someone put Lang Lang above Victor Borge. That just shouldn't be allowed.

1-Hofmann
2-Rachmaninoff
3-Busoni
4-Horowitz
5-Godowsky
6-Richter
7-Rosenthal
8-Friedman
9-Serkin
10-Cortot
10-D'Albert
10-Paderewski

If you are ranking those who had the greatest influence on 20th century piano playing, I am very surprised that you do not mention Josef Hofmann. Artur Rubinstein, Horowitz and Gould were enormously influenced by Hofmann's playing - each heard him as a child. I am sure you read that Gould decided to become a concert pianist after coming home from Hofmann's last Toronto recital in 1938.

I gave strong consideration to Hofmann (and many others). As you say, he was revered by many great pianists, including Rachmaninoff and both Josef and Rosina Lhevinne, who were in turn influential as performers and teachers. As the teacher of Cherkassky, Hofmann can be said to have passed down a certain nineteenth-century style of piano playing with a degree of freedom, personal idiosyncrasy and beautiful sound production well into the late twentieth-century. But when I was making my list I tried to think of who made twentieth century piano playing in terms of both repertoire and style. If you go to almost any recital today I think you could trace at least some of the programming and interpretation to the influence of one of the top 8. (Moore and Pressler are there, obviously, for the status they have given to the role of collaborative pianists.) With Hofmann, I'm not so sure this is the case. Maybe if a salon piece by Moszkowski or Weber or some such is played as an encore, you could point to Hofmann, but equally Horowitz, Bolet and others could be named. I guess this is all pretty academic but it is interesting nonetheless. It shows that even when you try to use an objective criterion (these are by no means my 10 favourite pianists) it is impossible really to agree.