“Who are pianists that you think more people should know about?”
“Who are pianists that you think more people should know about?”
Optional: Post a video of their playing so that we can hear!
154 replies
-
I wonder if Keith Jarrett misses the radar of some "classical" pianists because he is primarily a jazz pianist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6tIzxmPCQE
-
There are of course many phenomenal pianists, but I like to name Maestro Dang Thai Son
-
Helene grimaud and grigory sokolov
-
I invite anyone reading this to fall down the Tom Brier rabbit hole. Unfortunately Tom suffered brain damage as the result of a car accident and can no longer do this.
-
If I were to name my personal all-time favorite among the great pianists of the 20th century, it would have to be Wilhelm Kempff – a Prussian prodigy who entered the Berlin conservatory (Hochschule für Musik) at the age of 9 and is said to have been able around that time to not only play from memory all preludes and fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier but also to be able to transpose any of them into any key. Fifty years ago, it wouldn’t have occurred to anyone to count him among those whom “more people should know about”; today, many musicians need to be reminded of him. Kempff’s playing is never harsh, thoughtless, superficial, or showy; there is a wondrous sensitivity, mindfulness, and care to his musicianship. A double album with six famous Beethoven sonatas was one of the first LPs my parents ever gave me as a present. He has recorded the entire cycle of 32 thrice over the course of his life, but as amazing as he is as an interpreter of Beethoven and Schubert, I think it is his Schumann recordings which are, in many ways, unsurpassed. He must have had a very personal, almost intimate relationship with that composer (he once wrote that when he was a teenager, a childhood friend drowned while taking a swim; Kempff went home, found Schumann’s “Blumenstück” and was deeply moved as he was playing it to himself). There has never been anyone who can bring out the thousand secret colors and shadings of Schumann’s fanciful, mysterious German romanticism the way Kempff could do it.
-
The absolutely amazing pianist Radu Lupu.
-
Tatiana Nikolayeva and Ewa Pobłocka esp for their Bach
-
I didn’t know much about Vladimir Sofronitzky, but glad I came across his recordings of Scriabin. I don’t always agree with his rhythmic choices but his sound is totally his own.
For some reason to TB won’t recognise this YT link to one of his last concerts given in Moscow in 1960 (assuming the info online is correct!):
-
Yulianna Avdeeva is my favourite pianist. Everything she plays is superb and her Bach project got me through lockdown. https://youtu.be/TIa5MlCTITQ