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/