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VOTE FOR BEST PIANISTS IN THE WORLD

I'm sure it's just because of my doing this thread, with a title that has the exact search term in it.

Plus of course because Piano World, to its credit, is a site that comes up very readily on searches!

What no LL or VL?

I guess he'll be first on the XXI century list, mostly comprised of mandarin...

Lang Lang's first recording was in the 21st century (2001, when he was 18), so he couldn't be in the list.

And Lisitsa's first YT recording was also this century, I believe.

I thought Claudio Arrau was ranked a little too high (maybe second ten), and Maurizio Pollini too high up. My biggest surprise was that Dinu Lipatti was missing. I think he should have been in the top ten. Short career, but fantastic pianist.

I like that Art is in there.

Lazar Berman should rate at the very least in the top 5. As it is, he doesn't even make the list? Did he fall out of favor?

This thread's title is misleadung because the original list is about how often a pianist is mentioned on the web. It's not a list(and there are of course many lists of various quality)of the best pianists. So all the arguing about who should or should not be on the list is not very relevant.

A British music magazine published a list maybe 5 years ago where the voting was done by around 100 of the top living pianists. Maybe someone can find it. It certainly makes more sense to discuss something like that list. Rachmaninov was #1 with Horowitz, Rubinstein, Richter, and Gilels in the top 10.

It was BBC Music Magazine in 2010 - top 20, voted for entirely by 100 leading pianists from Andsnes, Ashkenazy and Badura-Skoda via Kovacevich, Lang Lang and Ohlsson to Pletnev, Rosen and Wang. Each was asked to name their top three, and the results were then tallied:

Rachmaninov, Rubinstein, Horowitz, Richter, Cortot, Lipatti, Schnabel, Gilels, Argerich, Michelangeli, Zimerman, Friedman, Lupu, Fischer, Kempff, Perahia, Gould, Gieseking, Hoffmann, Arrau.

In that order.

If you say so.

Guys, we have enough of a quorum here to sideline this list. Let's make our own list, which after some to-and-fro-ing will be much more authoritative then the computer-generated list above.
We start from filling the list from above and then we quarrel. Here is my opening gambit: Hamelin.
(and let's not do only 20th century: all times).

Since the earliest records we have date from the 1890s, it would be rather hard to assess pianists from before then.

Yes, sort of. The list was nothing but a list of who came up when I googled that phrase.


Just a minor correction, sort of for the record (what record, I don't know).
It's not exactly that. I don't know exactly what it is; it's whatever is Google's algorithm for the order in which those images are shown. I think we can be pretty sure that if it were what you said, the membership and order wouldn't have kept changing a bit every time I re-googled it. I'd guess it's based on frequency of searches for each name, with strong weighting of most recent searches. I'd guess further that the results are quite close to what it would be for what you said.

You hadn't heard of Gavrilov? Or Moravec (who I haven't heard of)? Or both? Gavrilov won Tchaikovsky in 1974 and his early performances/recordings were hailed, correctly in my view, as some of the greatest of (then) modern times. He definitely belongs on the list, as, of course, does the divine Dick C.

Dick is more than divine: he's the greatest pianist ever - past, present or future.

According to the Goddness Book of World Records.

I agree, Mark. Why i am not in that shortlist is beyond me as well.

I'm a huge fan of Robert-Alexander Bohnke, similar to Lipatti--few recordings and "died" (by entering academia).

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Bohnke-Robert.htm

Perhaps we should start a thread of the greatest obscure pianists?

How obscure do you allow them to be? There may be a best ever pianist out there who has never played a concert, never made a recording, but otherwise the best anybody has never heard.

I'm shocked that I'm not on the list.