Steve Schwartz wrote:

>I don't presume to speak for dedicated fans of Chopin, who may well
>miss the usual cheap thrills pianists often go for.  However, for a view
>of Chopin the classicist, the man who studied Bach, Nissman's quite
>persuasive.

What an overweening - and usually incorrect -- assessment of the taste
of "dedicated fans of Chopin".  Has he forgotten interpreters such as
Michelangeli, Solomon and a multitude of others?  The limitations of his
hearings is presumably typified by the pianists he quotes --- Argerich,
Rubinstein etc.  I would exclude a large part of the pre-war performances
of Rubinstein from this implied condemnation, but the post-war stuff is
too rarefied, presumably in reaction to being outclassed in the public
esteem by Horowitz.  To quote from the first version of his autobiography
"...she said 'Never mind Horowitz.  To you is always the Polonaise-Fantaisie'.
This struck me to the heart!".  (I do not have the book to hand, but
certainly something very like this occurred, and Rubinstein started to
revise his playing).

Incidentally if Steve Schwarz likes 'piano pounding' in the Revolutionary
Etude, I commend to his attention Friedmann who produces throuhout a
genuine snarl of anger and hatred without actually 'pounding'.  He also
plays the marked reduction of volume in some of the theme repeats, which
very many performers virtually ignore.  A very old, but to my mind still
unsurpassed performance.

Ernie Smart

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