Sam Pawlett wrote:

>>Generally, I think he is a fine pianist, but much too reserved for my
>>tastes. This makes his performances, by and large, mediocre.  Don't even
>>get me started on such icons as Schnabel or Gould.
>
>I would really like to hear your criticisims of Gould and Schnabel and
>other sacred cows.

Oh, jeez.  Well, I guess I shoulda known better.

First, I should say that my enjoyment of classical music is not, in
general, strongly performer-driven.  Over the years, I've noticed that
there are some performances that are widely praised, but leave me cold,
and vice versa.  In trying to understand this, I've come to a tentative
conclusion that, for me, the performer just isn't of paramount importance.
This isn't to say the performer is unimportant.  Far from it.  The
performer is the conduit through which the composer speaks to me.  Which
means that, as a mediator, I neither want the performer to disappear nor
become mechanical, nor do I want the performer to be spotlighted.  I'm
there for the "music", and a balance between the extremes makes me happy.
I think this is true for most people to some degree.  However, I tend to
appreciate a performer who is more on the reserved side, and who projects
his/her ego more subtly into the performance.  Perhaps not as subdued as
Lipatti, but certainly more so than Gould, Schnabel, or many of the "old
school" pianists who carried forward the tradition of romantic virtuosos
such as Franz Liszt and Anton Rubinstein into the 20th century, for example.

For me, Schnabel's performances are also marred by metric imprecision.
Way back in my high school and college playing days, I realized that I'm
especially sensitive to rhythmic idiosyncrasies, much more so than most
musicians I've known.  I'm not talking about portamento or other devices
used to control the flow of the musical line.  I'm referring to not hitting
the beat precisely within the context of the interpretation, where ever
that beat may be.  For better or worse, I can hear these imprecisions all
the time in his playing, and it detracts from Schnabel's performances.

Gould's interpretations are something of an enigma to me.  On the one
hand, he often comes across as mechanical and rigid, no doubt due to his
continual reworking in the studio.  On the other, he projected his ego
into performances to such a degree that I often feel that the composer,
and even to some extent the music, is subsumed.  Gould's interpretation
is always "in the moment", and as such I rarely hear evidence that he has
a grand vision (if you will) of the work he's performing.  The "long line"
is nowhere to be found - at least I usually can't find it.  It's almost
like an action movie: the plot is absent, but you're still on the edge
of your seat waiting for the next surprise.  This can be fun, and there's
absolutely nothing wrong with fun, but ultimately I find it unsatisfying.
Take the Goldbergs, for example.  I greatly admire his advocacy of Bach
before it was fashionable (even though I rarely find Bach on a piano worth
the time), but in his playing of the variations I hear a man who just can't
wait to be done with it.  Here we go, as fast as we can, and, bam, we're
done, wasn't that impressive?  This has a superficial excitement, but
ultimately there's no there there.

>What are your favorite pianists and the recorded works by them?

One of the reasons I generally don't participate in discussions of
"who's best" is that I simply don't have a favorite pianist (or conductor,
orchestra, etc.).  I certainly admire a number of artists, though a
comprehensive list would just be too long to be meaningful.  In Beethoven,
I admire Gilels, Brendel, Arrau, Goode, Kovacevich, and several others.
In Chopin I like Pollini, Ax, Perahia, Lortie, Rubinstein, Moravec, and
Wasowski.  In Liszt I like Dichter, Bolet, Rose, Browning, Kocsis, and
Barenboim.  In Rachmaninoff, Weissenberg, Biret, Simon, Wild, and of course
Rachy himself.  These aren't exhaustive lists.  I also have great respect
for several pianists who like to explore the byways (just as I do), such as
Howard Shelley, Leslie Howard, Daniel Blumenthal, John Ogden, and probably
another dozen or so whose names that don't come to mind right now.  Among
more recent icons:  I haven't found a solo performance by Richter that
left me anything but bored (his WTC is deathly dull), but he was a gifted
chamber musician and soloist in concertos.  I feel similarly about
Argerich.  Her concertos are often exciting, but, without the moderation
of an orchestra, I find her solo performances much less interesting.

How's that for equivocation?

Perhaps some will see this attitude as being undiscriminating.  But I've
never been dogmatic about how a given piece should be played.  A look
through Classical Net will reveal that I actually recommend a few
recordings that I don't personally care for.  However, I know that these
performances do speak to a large enough cross-section of music lovers it
would be foolish to exclude them (such as Gould's Goldbergs, for example).

Last night, while on my nightly hour-long dog walk which I use for thinking
deep thoughts when I'm not trying to keep the girls out of trouble, I
realized this may have a lot to do with how I came to classical music a
couple of decades ago.  When I started, I simply bought recordings for the
repertoire I wanted, systematically exploring a wide variety of composers
and works, and felt around for performers who spoke to me, relying largely
on trial and error.  For the first 10+ years, I almost completely eschewed
review magazines and critics.  I couldn't stand Gramophone, it seemed to me
to be one long inside joke (and still does to some extent), and Fanfare and
ARG were only a little better.  This meant that I was little influenced by
"consensus" opinions on who was best (to this day I generally use these
publications as sources of information about new releases and hard-to-find
facts about obscure composers) and never fell into any of the various
cults of personalities that seem to surround some performers.  And don't
get me wrong, though I have a few small axes (hatchets?) to grind, I have
nothing against reviewers in general.  In fact, some of the reviewers I
respect most are on this list.

I want to emphasize something I wrote in an earlier post.  I literally
despise absolute judgements and universal proclamations about quality in
music.  This is just all too subjective.  My opinions my be of utmost
importance to me, but I realize they may be valueless to others, and this
doesn't bother me in the least.  Our individual responses to music are as
unique as our fingerprints.  Our perceptions of this, the most abstract of
art, are so personal I'm often amazed that we can talk about it at all.
For me, it's humbling as it is exhilarating.  That's why I came to the
conclusion about five years ago that I have no future whatsoever as a
critic or reviewer.  I'm too caught up in the subjectivity of it all.
And lovin' it.

Dave
[log in to unmask]
http://www.classical.net/