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Although I don't agree with quite a bit of this, one cannot deny your post is entertaining, especially your descriptions of some pianists in #7. And no one will accuse you of being namby pamby in expressing your opinions!
Rachmaninoff thought Hofmann was the greatest pianist. Argerich is only 81 although I will admit that, despite being older than me, she still plays much better than me. In terms of her performing repertoire I think she had a very small one.
I’m definitely shocked to see Hofmann so low on the list. And yes, not only Rachmaninoff hold him in high regard, but so did Rubinstein. I’d be interested to see what the factors were that resulted in such a low rating for him, with pianists ranked above him who would rarely, if ever, be mentioned in the same breath as him previously. Older lists from piano literature/films/documentaries (1990s-backward) tend to have Hofmann and Rubinstein lording over the piano world as dual kings, with Horowitz as their mad genius younger brother who rejects the formality of the court & travels the world on storm clouds and/or sun beams, at his whim. And everyone else comes after those three. Shocking to see Hofmann booted from his throne on this list.
I’ll agree that Argerich’s repertoire was small in number of pieces, but I’ve always considered it “wide” in terms of the variety of styles & eras included in her repertoire. That said, she’s definitely a specialist pianist more than a broad repertoire pianist.
I also think she’s one of the few pianists who has maintained her technique well into older age. Many concert pianists retire the big pieces by 50 or 60 years old. Just two years ago, at 79, she stormed through the Prokofiev Third with a reading at 79 that equalled that of the much younger Yuja Wang.
I do agree though a lower rating may be deserved due to the smaller quantity of her repertoire, and the fact that she is rather en vogue, disappears for years at a time, performs very rarely, and can cancels very often has prevented her from being as well-regarded as she could be.
Originally Posted by Bart K
I know it's all subjective but just saying X should be higher is really meaningless. If X is to be higher, then someone else should be lower on the list. Something's gotta give. This is a general issue that occurs frequently with such rankings. "Oh, X should be higher, and Y should be higher and Z too..." and you end up with 10 names that "should be higher" but then "Oh no, X is only #10. That feels wrong". Well yes, if you take into account all the other legendary names some of them might end up lower than what you intuitively feel should be the case. The only way to resolve the issue is to go one by one and determine the relative ranks of each and then accept the final ranking.
So, if you want to make the above changes who would you cross out from the list and who should be dropped lower?
Well, at the time I wasn’t prepared to rearrange the list, just give my general thoughts. But since you asked: I think Arrau should be top five at the very least. And Argerich should be higher than 9, but maybe not Top 5.
My Top 20, based on the pianists in their list, with two additions that I think they ignored, and two removals who I don’t think would be Top 20:
1. Vladimir Horowitz 2. Arthur Rubinstein 3. Josef Hofmann 4. Sergei Rachmaninoff 5. Claudio Arrau 6. Sviatoslav Richter 7. Martha Argerich 8. Artur Schnabel 9. Glenn Gould 10. Andre Watts 11. Alfred Corot 12. Nikolai Lugansky 13. Emil Gilels 14. Murray Perahia 15 Ignaz Friedman 16. Wilhelm Kempff 17. Walter Gieseking 18 Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli 19. Radu Lupu 20. Vladimir Ashkenazy
The Soviet govt would not allow Berman to leave the USSR for many years, so his influence in the west was more limited.
So many of Gould's interpretations were so eccentric that I have no basis for considering him for inclusion on a top 20 list.
Josef Lhévinne also seems like a candidate. But I don't see how Debussy can be left off if influence is the metric and given that we have recordings (if that is the criterion for eligibility).
Most of the recordings made in the 30s and before and also in the 40s are so low in quality that it is impossible to properly evaluate the pianist capabilities. With a tempo that may be affected, poor harmonics, saturation in the forte and sometimes less, poor rendition of dynamic levels in the different voices,.... it is impossible to judge the finesse of the playing. At best one can appreciate some phrasing but it is unrealistic to draw major conclusions compared with more modern recording past the mid 50s.
And for those recordings that are good, the playing is sometimes so "unusual" compared with our modern expectations, that if we listened to those objectively, not knowing who is playing and in a blind test, we would rate them very low (which does not mean they are poor). Some have historic idiosyncrasies, accelerating or slowing down sections which we would not accept from a modern pianist.
I believe there is nearly no historical recording that hasnt been equalled or bettered by a more recent recording. Both artistically and sonically and very often of time artistically because of the sound.
So I would definitely put aside all historic pianists. Most of the time their ranking is not based on factual recording but on written or oral statements by X and Y. There are plenty of pianists who have been said to be the "best" pianist of their time, so that is interesting but thats an indirect element. On those basis we could postulate that Liszt was the greatest pianist ever (which some people believe). We idealize those pianists as a romantic nostalgic view of the past, but factually modern pianists are just as talented as older ones.
So I would leave most historic recording to history where they belong. They are interesting documents for historic purposes. Just like the first silent movies are interesting documents but I wouldnt trade them against a more recent one.
In addition, in a blind test, most of us on this forum, though pianists wouldnt recognize one pianist from another ( I bet the person writing the article wouldnt even have a clue). In an interesting quizz, proposed by our friend Rubens, though many people safely did not participate, no one recognized properly the recording made by Horowitz and confused him with Pollini or Arrau, 2 pianists with a completely different style. So if we cant recognize when Horowitz is playing, how can we rank him ?
The Soviet govt would not allow Berman to leave the USSR for many years, so his influence in the west was more limited.
So many of Gould's interpretations were so eccentric that I have no basis for considering him for inclusion on a top 20 list.
Josef Lhévinne also seems like a candidate. But I don't see how Debussy can be left off if influence is the metric and given that we have recordings (if that is the criterion for eligibility).
I think the issue with Debussy is that the only real “recordings” of his by which to judge his playing are piano roll recordings, which aren’t really the best indicator of any pianist’s playing. Although the ones he recorded on were fairly state of the art, and are seemingly very accurate, a margin of error still needs to be applied when listening because of the issues inherent to piano rolls of that day.
Beyond that, and most importantly, the main issue is that all his piano roll recordings feature him playing his own compositions (correct me if I’m wrong here). And while they are beautiful pieces, they’re all very much in his personal style, so we have no indication of how he’d handle the works of other great composers; the ability to interpret various styles is an important facet of great pianism. Moreover, none of the works he recorded are particularly virtuosic works, so we have no indication of the extent of his technique; while the music always comes first, virtuosity is an important part of a well-rounded great pianist’s arsenal.
Worse yet, the only actual recordings, wherein a mic is picking up is his playing, is where he is playing accompaniment, again on his own works, for the soprano Mary Garden. Her voice tends overwhelms his playing making it hard to determine much from them.
Lhevinne would be a great candidate for addition, except, again, very few good recordings of his exist.
Originally Posted by Sidokar
Most of the recordings made in the 30s and before and also in the 40s are so low in quality that it is impossible to properly evaluate the pianist capabilities. With a tempo that may be affected, poor harmonics, saturation in the forte and sometimes less, poor rendition of dynamic levels in the different voices,.... it is impossible to judge the finesse of the playing. At best one can appreciate some phrasing but it is unrealistic to draw major conclusions compared with more modern recording past the mid 50s.
And for those recordings that are good, the playing is sometimes so "unusual" compared with our modern expectations, that if we listened to those objectively, not knowing who is playing and in a blind test, we would rate them very low (which does not mean they are poor). Some have historic idiosyncrasies, accelerating or slowing down sections which we would not accept from a modern pianist.
I believe there is nearly no historical recording that hasnt been equalled or bettered by a more recent recording. Both artistically and sonically and very often of time artistically because of the sound.
So I would definitely put aside all historic pianists. Most of the time their ranking is not based on factual recording but on written or oral statements by X and Y. There are plenty of pianists who have been said to be the "best" pianist of their time, so that is interesting but thats an indirect element. On those basis we could postulate that Liszt was the greatest pianist ever (which some people believe). We idealize those pianists as a romantic nostalgic view of the past, but factually modern pianists are just as talented as older ones.
So I would leave most historic recording to history where they belong. They are interesting documents for historic purposes. Just like the first silent movies are interesting documents but I wouldnt trade them against a more recent one.
In addition, in a blind test, most of us on this forum, though pianists wouldnt recognize one pianist from another ( I bet the person writing the article wouldnt even have a clue). In an interesting quizz, proposed by our friend Rubens, though many people safely did not participate, no one recognized properly the recording made by Horowitz and confused him with Pollini or Arrau, 2 pianists with a completely different style. So if we cant recognize when Horowitz is playing, how can we rank him ?
- I’d challenge that there are no great recordings from the 40s. Off the top of my head, Rachmaninoff’s recordings of his own concerti are pretty good. They were really state of the art for their time, and while they are nowhere near of the quality of modern recordings, they still give some excellent & clear indications of Rachmaninoff’s playing. Horowitz has a few “ok” quality recordings from the 40s. Hofmann as well. That said, I agree that some others aren’t as good.
- Hmm. I’m not sure I agree that there is no “historical recording that hasn’t been equalled or better by a more recent recording.” Perhaps sonically, yes, but I still think there are a few great recordings that still stand as benchmarks in performance and interpretation.
- Liszt WAS the greatest pianist of all time. No slander of the Abbe Liszt will be tolerated! ( )
- To be fair, Rubens cheated with the Horowitz recording by adding some reverb/adjustments. Otherwise, the Great Maestro old have been recognized immediately.
- That said, I think once we know who the pianist is, we can then rank them based on the recording. And Horowitz has some great recordings after the 50s as well that still place him in the pantheon.
In addition, in a blind test, most of us on this forum, though pianists wouldnt recognize one pianist from another ( I bet the person writing the article wouldnt even have a clue). In an interesting quizz, proposed by our friend Rubens, though many people safely did not participate, no one recognized properly the recording made by Horowitz and confused him with Pollini or Arrau, 2 pianists with a completely different style. So if we cant recognize when Horowitz is playing, how can we rank him ?
The ranking list in the article is not the opinion of one person. It was an amalgam of information submitted by a very large number of very high level professional pianists. Although I agree that many people would have a hard time recognizing even the most famous pianists from recordings, I wouldn't use Rubens' quiz as an example of that. He said he purposely chose examples from the pianists on his list that were atypical of their playing.
Still hoping someone can find the list of the pianists who were polled to create this ranking list. I'm at this point assuming the list is not just a repeat of an older one that appeared in Classical Music Magazine some time ago because the article is dated June 2022.
Can anyone located this list? I remember when they previously had an article like the one I posted, they did give the long list of impressive pianists who were polled about their views of the greatest pianists. I've checked the article a few times and don't see any link to the list of polled pianists, but maybe I missed it.
I also read that the 100 pianists polled only got three votes each. I am certainly not an expert on polling methods or statistics, but I think the pianists should have gotten a lot more than three votes each to make the final tabulation more reasonable.
…..However, despite the idiosyncrasies and the image he then built around them, one can not deny that his Bach was so stunning, brilliant, & groundbreaking, that he almost single-handedly brought Bach back to the center of the repertoire at a time when Bach was considered outdated. Even if everything else Gould did was not up to the standard, his Bach was so meteoric he was able to build an entire career around it, so I’d say that’s worth something….
+1 (and this is not just ‘worth something’, but rather a whole lot).
And if I might be allowed an observation on your little “greatest” list:
Whether Martha is fourth or tenth, and Horowitz first or second has very little significance to me; because the metrics used to arrive at this are at the very least subjective, and at worst arbitrary (“because I say so”).
Some of the pianists on the “greatest” list play(ed) faster/slower; whilst others played louder/softer, approached the repertoire romantically (or less so), stuck to the score/added a little rubato here and there, phrased slightly differently, etc.. but it cannot be said that, other than these “technical” variations in their playing, (Horow louder than Martha), any of them did for the composers they played what Glenn did for Bach; ‘bring him back from the dead’ (as Taushi puts it).
It is originality that I see lacking in all those pianists on the list, and they’re all basically saying the same thing, only some say it louder than others.
Therefore, I’ve determined that it should be Glenn (#1) ‘and then there’s everyone else’ (please feel free to disagree with my unorthodox metric, for I disagree with your generic metric).
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Please tell me how Horow’s Rach differs from Yuja’s Rack?
Spare me the romantic details; I want concrete facts, and I’d also appreciate it if the comparisons do not veer into any arbitrary territory (“how dare you compare Horow to Yuja?!” because I hate that).
Once again, two completely different pianists from different generations, but other than subtle variations in their technical approach, I ask, are they really saying anything different about Rach; never mind, bringing him back to life (just like Glenn did with Bach)?
Yes -- including because in something like that (i.e. each voter having such a low limit), I'd expect there would be a lot of stuff like not using any of your 3 votes on certain pianists because you figure "of course he will make it so I won't waste a vote on him....."
BTW, anyone else remember the opening scene of "Putney Swope"....
- I’d challenge that there are no great recordings from the 40s. Off the top of my head, Rachmaninoff’s recordings of his own concerti are pretty good. They were really state of the art for their time, and while they are nowhere near of the quality of modern recordings, they still give some excellent & clear indications of Rachmaninoff’s playing. Horowitz has a few “ok” quality recordings from the 40s. Hofmann as well. That said, I agree that some others aren’t as good.
I have some time free so for the sake of argumentation and fun, I'll respond. I agree with you that some recordings are acceptable (I did not say all but most), but still a lot of details are missing even in the best of them. After all we are comparing top pianists of the century, we cant just put aside elements as important as dynamic details, finesse of touch, ...
I listened to the Rach Concerto 2 of 1940 (he died in 1943 so that must be one of his last) by Rach. The piano is good enough to be able to judge some phrasing, tempo, some dynamic level, but other than that a lot is missing. Worse the orchestra which contributes a lot to the overall impression is compressed and has barely any tonal color. I just wonder on which basis one can say that the pianist in this recording is the greatest that ever recorded ?
As far as statements about pianists made during their lives, I think i have heard that Rach was the greatest, but also someone said Hofman that the best in the world and that ever existed, and I guess others have said that of Horowitz and Arrau. Yet all of these pianists were active in the same time. It is not very reliable as a basis to make rankings.
Many recordings are introducing what seems to be deviations of various sorts, so it is impossible to say if the pianist actually really played like that and it was an artistic choice or is the recording process distorted the result. Just that in itself is an issue to evaluate a performance.
As an example here is Horowitz playing the cadenza of Rach 3. This is 1943. You will notice the tempo changes, the hard sound very percussive, the lack of harmonics. The same Horowitz in 1951, 8 years later only. The cadenza is completely different. No rush, perfectly normal regular tempo. I doubt Horowitz changed completely his way of playing in just 8 years (and there are other better recordings of pieces which show that his playing did not change much in that period). So this particular 1943 recording is introducing distortions which did not exist in reality and our perception of his playing is false.
Now I am not saying that Rach wasnt a great pianist. I am simply saying that it makes little sense, other than by nostalgic reason, to try to rank pianists for which we dont have enough of proper and reliable recordings to determine the real nature of their playing. Sometimes even modern concert recordings stink !
Horowitz and Arrau is different, since they recorded well into the 80s. Arrau recordings are of extremely high quality.
Originally Posted by Taushi
- Hmm. I’m not sure I agree that there is no “historical recording that hasn’t been equalled or bettered by a more recent recording.” Perhaps sonically, yes, but I still think there are a few great recordings that still stand as benchmarks in performance and interpretation.
You may share an example of an interpretation which you believe remains the best ever recorded and has no equal in modern versions ?
Originally Posted by Taushi
- Liszt WAS the greatest pianist of all time. No slander of the Abbe Liszt will be tolerated! ( )
- To be fair, Rubens cheated with the Horowitz recording by adding some reverb/adjustments. Otherwise, the Great Maestro old have been recognized immediately.
Ha, Ha, yes he did. But taking it the other way around, no one recognized Lupu nor Pollini. And he just added some reverb, it does not change the style really.
Originally Posted by Taushi
- That said, I think once we know who the pianist is, we can then rank them based on the recording. And Horowitz has some great recordings after the 50s as well that still place him in the pantheon.
Yes we can rank recordings, but the ranking is obviously unconsciously altered by knowing who the pianist is. The fact that someone for example thought that a piece played by Lupu was by Horowitz shows the stylistic differences are not that huge. And the one where he does play everybody thinks of other pianists. In fact if we were to rank recordings in a blind test, the ranking would be different than what we would do knowing who the pianist is.
In addition, in a blind test, most of us on this forum, though pianists wouldnt recognize one pianist from another ( I bet the person writing the article wouldnt even have a clue). In an interesting quizz, proposed by our friend Rubens, though many people safely did not participate, no one recognized properly the recording made by Horowitz and confused him with Pollini or Arrau, 2 pianists with a completely different style. So if we cant recognize when Horowitz is playing, how can we rank him ?
The ranking list in the article is not the opinion of one person. It was an amalgam of information submitted by a very large number of very high level professional pianists. Although I agree that many people would have a hard time recognizing even the most famous pianists from recordings, I wouldn't use Rubens' quiz as an example of that. He said he purposely chose examples from the pianists on his list that were atypical of their playing.
So do you believe that all these that submitted their ranking - it would be good to have the list of who - actually listened all the recordings of 100+ pianists and compared them thorougly and ranked them using a detailled evaluation sheet so that we know on which basis they did so ?
I think the answer is clearly no. This is just the result of a quick poll, people made rankings on whatever they believed and using some fuzzy criteria that no one can explain. I dont think we should take any of that too seriously.
For example it says of Rach "The tonal quality, too, is spellbinding. The opening bars of the G flat major Prelude (which you will hear on the set below) are among the simplest Rachmaninov wrote, yet you know at once you’re in the presence of something extraordinary.
How many other pianists could phrase the right-hand’s repeated chord-pattern with that kind of suppleness, or bring such fullness and focus to the left-hand melody?"
The tonal quality of that recording is not excellent and there are plenty of pianists that play it just as well (even better IMO in particualr because of the recording quality), Ashekenazy for example.
BTW Rubens did not choose recordings that are atypical of the pianists playing. He chose pieces played by pianists in a repertoire where they are less known but not unique for some. Horowitz played Beethoven (so he added a bit of reverb, it does not change the style), Pollini played Mozart (he recorded several pieces), Serkin played Chopin (the only pianist in the list that is stylistically easy to recognize)....
No Art Tatum? No Chick Corea or Thelonius Monk? I know it's a classical music magazine but the list says "greatest pianists", not "greatest classical pianists".
......Many recordings are introducing what seems to be deviations of various sorts, so it is impossible to say if the pianist actually really played like that and it was an artistic choice.... As an example here is Horowitz playing the cadenza of Rach 3. This is 1943. You will notice the tempo changes, the hard sound very percussive, the lack of harmonics. The same Horowitz in 1951, 8 years later only. The cadenza is completely different. No rush, perfectly normal regular tempo. I doubt Horowitz changed completely his way of playing in just 8 years..... So this particular 1943 recording is introducing distortions which did not exist in reality....
You're assuming things that I think are mistaken.
Someone's playing at any given moment isn't only about artistic choices. It's also about how the person "is" at that moment, and how he feels, with many different dimensions involved, including.....
I don't know.
But heck, just to make things up, as we all could -- What kinds of things might make people play something differently at different times?
-- differing energy -- how well he slept last night -- how his lunch was (even if he eats the same thing every day, as it is said Horowitz always or usually did) -- mood -- did he fight with anyone that day or not
....and yes, "artistic choices" too!
I think that not only could he have had different artistic choices 8 years apart; I think he could have had different artistic choices 8 minutes apart.
IMO there is no good reason to believe that the differences are due to technological distortion.
Lists like this boil down to preference anyways, and some people are better at certain rep than others, for example if we are only considering Beethoven, Cortot would be much lower on the list and I'm sure there is tons of other examples.
Also, it's a shame they don't put: Sofronitsky, Feinberg, Busoni, Neuhaus, and Pogorelich. I think atleast one of them on this list deserves a spot, I would take any of these guys over Zimmerman, Perharia, Kempff for sure, and then most of it boils down to preference.
And, one more thing: Gilels has no honor, and is extremely overrated as a pianist, he's pretty good, but, his lack of honor to me does not deserve him a spot on this list. Sadly, he is still better than the likes of Zimmerman...
Are you able to explain why you think Zimerman is undeserving to be on the list? I am curious because he seems to be almost universally highly regarded.
There is some recordings of his that I like, specifically a few of the 1978 Waltzes of Chopin, and I'm bipolar about his Gershwin preludes... If you have any recommendations let me know, I am always willing to change my mind, as my ears/tastes get better I am always changing my mind. Zimmerman, I don't listen to much since my ears have gotten better, but I remember recently I challenged my biases and still dislike him.
My issue is there is a pedantry, or a shallow perfectionism that exists in his playing to me, which is weird, because I love Michelangeli, so maybe it isn't perfectionism that is my issue, but it's Zimerman's particular strain of perfection.
To put it a bit more concretely and to give a specific thing about his playing, maybe it is his phrasing and tone that I'm not that interested in. But, to put it even more simply, his playing just has always bored me. I remember first loving the Ballades by him because they were some of my first exposure to the piece, but, as soon as I heard other interpretations I never went back to him.
I value more individualistic and expressive playing, and whenever I listen to Zimmerman, I'm never wowed or inspired, I'm always like yeah thats perfect or that sounds about right... Here I will quote Horowitz "Perfection itself is imperfection" this is something I believe wholeheartedly.
Maybe as I get older I'll like him more, I definitely think he is an amazing pianist, but he is just not my tastes or style. I don't listen to living pianist that often, but, when I do I know what I am looking for.
For example this guy is my favorite living pianist as of now: prior to discovering him it was either Pletnev, Leschenko, Sokolov (despite his perfectionism, it seems always that it's in the spirit of the music), or Pogorelich.
Granting that all these things are subjective and so we shouldn't feel any need to argue with any of these, I can't resist on that. (because of the "definitely")
Taking them 1 by 1 (and ignoring that most of them were misspelled)....
Hofmann vs. Gilels: could absolutely argue either way. I would also say Hofmann, but not without thinking about it.
vs. Schnabel: totally apples and oranges. Many would say (and we reasonably could) that it's Schnabel, and by a lot.
vs. Argerich: I have trouble putting anyone above her.
vs. Zimerman: too soon to tell
vs. Lupu: see "Argerich"
vs. Fischer: see "Schnabel" (although less severely so)
I'm quitting there because I'm already boring myself.
Hoffman and Gilels I think are the only ones that are on the same level out of these, but like I said, I just cannot respect Gilels after hearing what he did to Neuhaus. It hurts my heart.
The one I'm curious about though is, why do you think Schnabel is a lot better? I do like his Beethoven, but, I think Richter is the king of Beethoven. But, I need to listen to A LOT LOT LOT more to give an opinion I am confident in. But, overall as a pianist, I think Hoffmann has to be better. The evidence I will use is: Schnabel struggled with tension/wrist/hand problems, he called it his career injury or something, Hoffmann I don't think ever struggled with technique ever.
Also, these are just my preferences, I do kind of believe that once you get to a certain point, it's really hard to distinguish who is better 'definitely', but to me I like Hoffmann way better than all of these. But, the pianist's playing I really want to emulate in my own playing is Anton Rubinstein's and Hoffman I believe is the closest we have on recording to that.
The one I'm curious about though is, why do you think Schnabel is a lot better? I do like his Beethoven, but, I think Richter is the king of Beethoven.
I didn't say I think so!
Many think Schnabel is not just the king of Beethoven but maybe even the God of Beethoven.
I don't particularly. Mainly what I thought about your comparison of him and Hofmann was, as I said, that it's apples and oranges. The arguments for them are on such different dimensions, different universes.
Since we’ve decided to attribute Kingdoms and heavenly domains willy-nilly (on the basis of thin air), then I say Richard Clayderman is the Dalai Lama of Beethoven!
In addition, in a blind test, most of us on this forum, though pianists wouldnt recognize one pianist from another ( I bet the person writing the article wouldnt even have a clue). In an interesting quizz, proposed by our friend Rubens, though many people safely did not participate, no one recognized properly the recording made by Horowitz and confused him with Pollini or Arrau, 2 pianists with a completely different style. So if we cant recognize when Horowitz is playing, how can we rank him ?
The ranking list in the article is not the opinion of one person. It was an amalgam of information submitted by a very large number of very high level professional pianists. Although I agree that many people would have a hard time recognizing even the most famous pianists from recordings, I wouldn't use Rubens' quiz as an example of that. He said he purposely chose examples from the pianists on his list that were atypical of their playing.
So do you believe that all these that submitted their ranking - it would be good to have the list of who - actually listened all the recordings of 100+ pianists and compared them thorougly and ranked them using a detailled evaluation sheet so that we know on which basis they did so ?
I think the answer is clearly no. This is just the result of a quick poll, people made rankings on whatever they believed and using some fuzzy criteria that no one can explain. I dont think we should take any of that too seriously.
For example it says of Rach "The tonal quality, too, is spellbinding. The opening bars of the G flat major Prelude (which you will hear on the set below) are among the simplest Rachmaninov wrote, yet you know at once you’re in the presence of something extraordinary.
How many other pianists could phrase the right-hand’s repeated chord-pattern with that kind of suppleness, or bring such fullness and focus to the left-hand melody?"
The tonal quality of that recording is not excellent and there are plenty of pianists that play it just as well (even better IMO in particualr because of the recording quality), Ashekenazy for example.
BTW Rubens did not choose recordings that are atypical of the pianists playing. He chose pieces played by pianists in a repertoire where they are less known but not unique for some. Horowitz played Beethoven (so he added a bit of reverb, it does not change the style), Pollini played Mozart (he recorded several pieces), Serkin played Chopin (the only pianist in the list that is stylistically easy to recognize)....
You seemed to imply you thought the article was just one person's opinion so that's what my post was about. I'm sure the pianists who contributed to the poll didn't listen to lots of recording by many pianists to decide who they should vote for. The results of the article are just for discussion but are at least somewhat interesting because the voters were top pro pianists.
But since you asked: I think Arrau should be top five at the very least. And Argerich should be higher than 9, but maybe not Top 5.
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