Your 10 favourite pianists

[rauschwerk]

For 40 years I devoted the bulk of my pianistic energies to accompanying singers, instrumentalists and choirs. That's reflected in my list.

Susan Tomes (Domus, Florestan Trio)
Lamar Crowson (Melos Ensemble)
Benjamin Britten
André Previn (principally for his chamber music recordings)
Graham Johnson (for his playing, his scholarship and for recording wonderful albums of songs off the beaten track - Hahn, Gounod etc)
Eileen Joyce (mainly for her pre-war solo recordings)
Murray Perahia
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Andrei Gavrilov (didn't make many recordings - what became of him?)
Solomon

[Ein Heldenleben]

For 40 years I devoted the bulk of my pianistic energies to accompanying singers, instrumentalists and choirs. That's reflected in my list.

Susan Tomes (Domus, Florestan Trio)
Lamar Crowson (Melos Ensemble)
Benjamin Britten
André Previn (principally for his chamber music recordings)
Graham Johnson (for his playing, his scholarship and for recording wonderful albums of songs off the beaten track - Hahn, Gounod etc)
Eileen Joyce (mainly for her pre-war solo recordings)
Murray Perahia
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Andrei Gavrilov (didn't make many recordings - what became of him?)
Solomon

Good list. On a chamber music note I would put in a vote for Menahem Pressler and amongst contemporary UK pianists the indefatigable Simon Crawford-Phillips.

[rauschwerk]

Therein lies the nub of the problem with a finite list! Certainly I'd want to add Menahem Pressler, also Maria Joao Pires, but without any idea of whose names I'd want to delete.

[Alison]

The next ten would have to include Eric Parkin and Martin Jones.

[Bryn]

The next ten would have to include Eric Parkin and Martin Jones.

Having recently mentioned Satie in another thread, I really should have included John White:

[kindofblue]

Might the Forum permit an eleventh? I think a prepared piano would bring out the best in them, Enjoy...

https://twitter.com/chopsueyside/status/1482891930166079488

[Edgy 2]

Might the Forum permit an eleventh? I think a prepared piano would bring out the best in them, Enjoy...

https://twitter.com/chopsueyside/sta...91930166079488

Oooh if we're allowed cats then

[Barbirollians]

Oooh if we're allowed cats then

Isn't that originally the cartoon Johann Mouse ?

Tom's most legendary performance at the piano was in The Cat Concerto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKZgi06fVsk

[jayne lee wilson]

Here's the definitive-instinctive Feline Virtuoso... a Classical Cat who is "contemporary for ever".... as Stravinsky said of the Great Fugue....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypJDXayM5FM

Then that strangely predictable human being comes in and ruins everything....

[kindofblue]

Here's the definitive-instinctive Feline Virtuoso... a Classical Cat who is "contemporary for ever".... as Stravinsky said of the Great Fugue....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypJDXayM5FM

Then that strangely predictable human being comes in and ruins everything....

Nora is indeed very talented, and I loved that brief Jerry Lee Lewis moment when she stood up at the keyboard. Class.

Someone needs to compose a duet for four paws.

[Barbirollians]

For 40 years I devoted the bulk of my pianistic energies to accompanying singers, instrumentalists and choirs. That's reflected in my list.

Susan Tomes (Domus, Florestan Trio)
Lamar Crowson (Melos Ensemble)
Benjamin Britten
André Previn (principally for his chamber music recordings)
Graham Johnson (for his playing, his scholarship and for recording wonderful albums of songs off the beaten track - Hahn, Gounod etc)
Eileen Joyce (mainly for her pre-war solo recordings)
Murray Perahia
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Andrei Gavrilov (didn't make many recordings - what became of him?)
Solomon

Interesting to be reminded of Gavrilov who seemed in the early 1980s to be very much the big thing . Some wayward but amazing performances - like his Tchaikovsky 1 with Muti which labours in the first movement ,charms in the second and thrills in the finale .

[smittims]

Some surprises in rauschwerk's list, reminding me that Roger Woodward once said his favourite pianist was Fats Domino.

I know it's an old thread, but here are my ten:

Gieseking
Schnabel
Cortot
Solomon
Katchen
Rachmaninov
Ogdon
Brendel
Backhaus (yes, really!)
Kempff.

It's not without significance that most if not all of these are dead.

[rauschwerk]

Some surprises in rauschwerk's list...

That's what I had hoped for. If I had made a list of '10 greatest pianists' it would certainly have been different. I especially value Gavrilov's playing of Prokofiev Concerto 1 and Suggestion diabolique (amazing fire - one pictures smoke rising from the piano - though I know it's not the only way to play it), Balakirev's Islamey (the closing bars still take my breath away, and Katchen sounds tame after this!), and a disc containing Scriabin's 4th sonata and 24 Preludes from various sets. On this last recording the piano is rubbish but that doesn't diminish my pleasure in the playing.

[gradus]

That's what I had hoped for. If I had made a list of '10 greatest pianists' it would certainly have been different. I especially value Gavrilov's playing of Prokofiev Concerto 1 and Suggestion diabolique (amazing fire - one pictures smoke rising from the piano - though I know it's not the only way to play it), Balakirev's Islamey (the closing bars still take my breath away, and Katchen sounds tame after this!), and a disc containing Scriabin's 4th sonata and 24 Preludes from various sets. On this last recording the piano is rubbish but that doesn't diminish my pleasure in the playing.

Pletnev's recording of Islamey has much the same effect on me.

[Tony Halstead]

Modern Piano, alphabetically:

Daniel Barenboim, Sarah Beth Briggs, Clifford Curzon, Leon Fleisher,
Vladimir Horowitz, John Lill, Gerald Moore, Murray Perahia,
Rachmaninoff, Art Tatum.

'Bonus list' of HIP players, alphabetically:
Malcolm Bilson, Ronald Brautigam, Christopher Kite, Steven Lubin, Trevor Pinnock, Melvyn Tan.