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What was the "best" concert you ever attended? Either with piano and/or not. Use "best" however you want to mean it, e.g. most moving, greatest performance, best program, etc. If you can't just pick one them feel free to name a few.

Of course, I should answer my own question but right now I can't decide or think of one of the several hundred I've attended that sticks out as the best. I've heard most of the great pianists play having attended the Great Pianists series at Carnegie Hall for many years and also the Mannes IKIF for around 15 years.

Van Cliburn playing the Grieg Concerto outdoors in Milwaukee, summer '72 or '73, with the Milwaukee Symphony.

Lots of close ties for 2nd -- actually I could say these were all also 1st:

Several Horowitz recitals
A couple of Rubinstein recitals
Jaime Laredo and forgive me for not remembering who was the violinist in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364, probably with the NY Philharmonic.

Memorable ones:

- Cyprien Katsaris playing his transcription of the Bach D- tocatta and fugue (565), in a small hall upstairs from the Yamaha showroom. Very hot in there, but the playing was superb, it was almost unbelievable to see his speed.

- A Kissin concert from about 10 years ago in Carnegie, where he played encore after encore until past midnight. The crowd thinned until it was just a handful of fanbois who had all moved to the front of the orchestra section.

A few: La Bohème in Paris with Rolando Villazon, Chopin-recital by Nelson Freire in the Concertgebouw, Liszt sonata and Gaspard de la nuit by Nikita Magaloff in Arnhem (look that up!), Pogorelich Chopin recital in, yes, Arnhem, Aldo Ciccolini recital in Villa d'Este (look that up), Mahler 8 in Rotterdam with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Mahler 9 in the Concertgebouw with Bernard Haitink, Der Ring des Nibelungen in Amsterdam under Hartmut Haenchen (in 4 days, as it was ment to be performed), Turandot ( Bertolucci) in Verona, Rosenkavalier in Munich

I guess one of the most moving because of the then unknown outcome, was Murray Perahia's return recital in Carnegie Hall April, 1994; this after a three-year hiatus after Perahia suffered and injury to his right hand. I don't remember the Beethoven Sonata, A major, Op. 2, but the Chopin stood out memorably, particularly the "Berceuse."

In the days when I thought that Sutherland could do no wrong (scooping and dubious diction notwithstanding) seeing her
1) at the Met in "Traviata" with costumes by Cecil Beaton, or
2) in the Met's end-of-season Verdi Festival (197?) seeing her with Pavarotti and Milnes in "Rigoletto," or
3) in Vancouver in 1966 in "Lucia di Lammermoor"

Or, as a star-struck youth being alone for a few moments with Rubinstein in the Green Room of Victoria's Royal Theatre after a performance I have long since forgotten

Or, in Paris in '72 or '73 hearing an unknown woman perform both Opp. of the Chopin Etudes with great finesse. I still wonder who she was?

Regards,

Appropriately for the Bernstein centenary this year (where, it seems, the celebrations in the UK are far more extensive than in the US), the most amazing classical orchestral concert I've ever attended was in the BBC Proms in 1987 when Lenny conducted the Wiener Philharmoniker in Mahler's 5th (- such was its impact on everyone who heard it that it was 'recreated' in the Proms this year). The Royal Albert Hall was packed to the rafters, there was no space to sit in the arena (where I was 'promming' standing - luckily, I was still young then ) and it was very warm, but nobody cared. Bernstein and the VPO were like a love affair.......

The Mahler was OTT (as always from Lenny) and totally gripping from start to finish. Nobody dared to breathe in the Adagietto (where his rubato was quite extreme) and the joyous finale brought the house down, such that we were still applauding even after the whole orchestra had left the stage, and Lenny had to return by himself to tell us it was time to go home......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EJn43FEmjo

Oh, and I forgot to mention the very Viennese performance of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto that started the concert, with the VPO's principal clarinettist Peter Schmidl. You just don't hear playing of such sweetness these days.......

And there was a wonderful Die Zauberflöte with the superb Sumi Jo as the Queen of the Night in the Royal Opera House, a Christmas present to myself and my girlfriend (at the time ).

As for solo piano, a couple of memorable Mikhail Pletnev recitals stayed in my mind - one of which included the Liszt B minor Sonata (despatched with total accuracy) which he depicted as a Gothic masterpiece. I still don't know how he played those octaves near the end with such speed, power, clarity and accuracy. The other concert included Mussorgsky's Pictures, which again was completely fearless and individual in its conception....and the encore was Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No.1. Who else plays that as an encore?

And not least, the concluding recital in Maurizio Pollini's Beethoven sonata cycle in London some years ago, of the last three sonatas. His Op.111 gave us a glimpse of heaven with his perfectly even chains of trills and tone.......

In 2013 I went downtown to see Harry Connick Jr. for the second time (the first was in 2009). It was a truly great show. 2nd row. I remember there were lots of blue lights in the stage which reflected off his Steinway high gloss finish quite nicely. His band of 25 years was as good as ever. Me and the bass player made eye contact several times throughout the show. He could tell I was a musician from the look on my face. There was also a string section for the ballads and other numbers with fast string runs and junk. There was some trombone player whose name I can't think of but I remember he wasn't too audible, but he was great. On top of being a great musician, HCJ is a fantastic performer. He's knows how to play a crowd and is hilarious on stage. There was one spot in the show where he got one of the audience members to check out a non-seriousness leg injury on the stage. Everyone was cracking up it was a hoot. Before the show someone appeared to choke on some candied almonds but it became apparent that they were only coughing due to some cinnamon. It was a much better show than when I went to see Ron White in concert at the same venue. Lang Lang performed 4 Mozart sonatas and then all 4 Chopin ballades back to back. I didn't think it was the best idea for a program. The ear can only hear so many notes in an evening. This was a different show, but it was in the same year I think.

Been to so many great recitals Gilels, Berman, Wild, Pollini, Cherkassky and much more but undoubtedly the one that left it's greatest mark I can easily remember to this day 50 years later. I had about four months piano lessons and quit because I thought the teacher was going too slow and virtually taught myself and after a few years was ultimately playing Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Schumann and Liszt which I loved (and not the easy stuff either). I thought I was a real firebrand in my youth and then before ten my older brother brought me to Carnegie Hall for the first time and we had excellent seats by the piano and I could see the pianist's hands and it was Gyorgy Sandor playing Prokofiev's third piano concerto. It literally broke my spirit and crushed my ego because I knew then without a shadow of a doubt that pianistically I was nothing. I was out of my league and knew I could never achieve such mastery no matter how many hours I devoted either you were born with it or not and although I was good I realized that I would and could only be an amateur.

You were decades ahead of me in your perceptivity.
I didn't realize it till I'd done a few amateur competitions and was in my 50's.

I'm going to throw in a concert from just last Saturday. Lisa Batiashvili was playing Tchaikovsky's violin concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra. I've heard a lot of wonderful playing, but this was truly stunning. If you have an opportunity to hear her, don't miss it.

I've attended so many great ones, but overall, I'd have to say Ivo Pogorelich in 1990--his "Gaspard de la nuit" was even more jaw-dropping than his recording!

I saw Pogorelich play Gaspard around that time at Carnegie Hall and it certainly was impressive. I also saw Lazar Berman at CH play all of Liszt's Transcendental Etudes virtually identically to his early Melodia disk as if child's play.

My most memorable concert experience was hearing Andras Schiff many years ago in Costa Mesa. The venue was very small, it was open seating and I got there very early and secured a front row seat less than 10 feet away from the piano. It was like listening in your own living room. Schiff was in superb form and played the complete Goldbergs, repeats and all. No encore. Amazing aural and visual experience.

For me it would be Mahler 2 in Mechanic's Hall, Worcester, MA performed by the Boston Philharmonic under Ben Zander. How they packed everybody onto that stage still astounds me and the organ was appropriate for the piece (i.e. not electronic). The end was loud , a big orchestra and chorus in a relatively small venue was overpowering, but just what that piece needs. More recently I saw the same piece performed in a multi-use local venue (seats a couple of thousand) and it just wasn't the same.

I was at both of those as well. For the Kissin, I remember about 10 encores - and most notably that he would not just come out and play encore after encore, but would wait 10-15 minutes between them, taking bow after bow and returning backstage. (Much to the frustration of the ushers - I think he broke some union rules that night by making them work over time wink

However my most memorable (Best?) concert ever was also a Kissin recital from about 8 years prior to that - Feb 9, 1999. An all Chopin recital in Los Angeles. He played the 24 Preludes, Barcarolle, 2nd sonata and a number of encores. I was so young at the time that I'm not sure it was the details of his actual artistry that transfixed me, but the sheer excitement of the occasion and thrill of the virtuosity. I had just become acquainted with Chopin's music at the time, and to hear it played in such a way led to an obsession that continues to this day.

Other top contenders - Argerich playing the Schumann Concerto, solo recitals by Ingrid Fliter, Danill Trifonov, Hoang Pham, and the Katsairs concert you mentioned. (I recall seeing Katsaris twice in Yamaha - one featured lots of Chopin in a rather informal salon style, and the other which you mentioned, contained lots of transcriptions)

I'd have to say getting to watch Olga Kern this summer at PianoTexas... sitting right behind her onstage, and getting to see/hear it from her point of view. A bunch of us amateurs got the chance to sit there. We were maybe six feet away. My husband sat with us, too; it was truly was the best Father's Day gift he's ever gotten.

There have been many great recitals I've attended, but watching Lazar Berman play all of Chopin's Polonaises and Rachmaninoff's Moments Musicaux Opy 16 in 1999 was a truly unforgettable, overwhelming musical experience. Not least because of the incredible all enveloping sonority he brought to the hall, which brought a deep sense of emotional gravitas to his interpretations.
Other memorable recitals I recall include Frederic Chiu playing Prokofiev and Ravel (incredible atheleticism and precision in his playing), Igor Zhukov playing Chopin's Sonata no.3 and some Scriabin, Arthur Pizzaro playing Rachmaninoff's Sonata no. 2 (1998) and Chopin's complete Etudes (2000). Valery Kuleshov was also fantastic in Pletnev's transcription of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty.

The two best I saw were Luciano Pavarotti in Salt Lake City in 1986 and again in Taipei, Taiwan in 1990. He was in glorious voice in Salt Lake, and very good voice in Taiwan. I will never forget these two concerts.

Andras Schiff playing the Diabelli Variations at the NCH in Dublin a few years ago. Sokolov playing Haydn and Schubert at the Bozar in Brussels earlier this year.

Perhaps Zoltan Szekely playing his Bartok Concerto with the San Francisco State orchestra.

The best on recently has been the Alexander Quartet playing the Shostakovich Quintet with Gwendolyn Mok.