Best technique of the 20:th century

[hodi]

which pianist has the fastest Flight of the Bumblbee?

I know that
Cziffra - 2:57
Volodos - 1:36

[stevie]

richter, schumann, uneven?  i am quanderously pondering.

the flight of the bumblebee was fantastic.  that was cziffra alright.  inhuman.  possibly insane.  but, pretty good. 

wasn't cortot supposed to be pretty good as well.  he was one of my teachers teachers. 

first of all - the transcription was by cziffra, but the recording is a LIVE recording by Hirofumi Uematsu, he is FASTER than cziffra in any existing recording of cziffra playing this piece(live AND studio)


and yes, cortot had a great technqiue, but had quite a disregard for accuracy, his basic mechanism and dexterity however was very good, if not completely 1st class.

[musicsdarkangel]

i havent heard all of them but ive heard pollini playing chopins etudes    and thats enough for me. pollini 

Pollini's etudes suck.  Not to mention I heard he rerecorded several parts over and over. 


Listen to Ohlsson's if you actually think Pollini's etudes are impressive.

[stevie]

which pianist has the fastest Flight of the Bumblbee?

I know that
Cziffra - 2:57
Volodos - 1:36

the cziffra recording you are refering to is the studio version where he takes the repeat, and essentially plays it twice.

the volodos version was also studio, and is likely edited together(maybe not though).

wheras the CZIFFRA LIVE version i have, from a concert in 1957 - is 1:25

Uematsu edges cziffra out by one second in his live performance, coming in at 1:24


i am presuming youre talking about the cziffra transcription, in the rachmaninov transcription which is more widely played - langlang holds the record at around 50 seconds.

[chromatickler]

No

 More like he was just simulating and the recording itself is speed up.


I listened to Rachmaninov playing the Minute waltz on highspeed in my winmediaplayer and I could´t hear that it was speed up by 50% .


It actually sounded better then the normal speed version.

pathetic

[doublesharp]

bartok?! saint-saens?!

sure they were great pianists, but their techniques didnt stand out too much, at least not in the recordings ive heard, though both were way past their prime when they were recorded.

horowitz could be very sloppy, but in his prime, his octaves were some of the best in history, you will make many people VERY angry at his exclusion...

anyway, i think hamelin and cziffra, both at their prime, could play about equally as dextrously and accurately at extreme speeds.

my vote, even though i dont want it to, would have to go to hamelin - because cziffra never touched works as difficult as hamelin has, maybe thats an unfair comparison...but its a very hard decision to make.

ive heard this too about Horowitz and his octaves, but ive never actually heard any recordings by him that illustrate how good his octaves were.  what would be some good recordings or pieces (and incidentally could you give an example of exactly how fast he could play them in comparison to others, perhaps in notes per second or something like that?)

[stevie]

https://dasdc.net/forum/download.php?id=32

i found this sample somewhere

this is him in his 50s....quite impressive dont u think? 

[janne p.]

https://dasdc.net/forum/download.php?id=32

i found this sample somewhere

this is him in his 50s....quite impressive dont u think? 

This is Horowitz? Oh man, and he put on the image of a perfectionist...

[brewtality]

did Busoni even record anything over 5 minutes long? how can he be included on the list

[sevencircles]

"my vote, even though i dont want it to, would have to go to hamelin - because cziffra never touched works as difficult as hamelin has, maybe thats an unfair comparison...but its a very hard decision to make."

Agree!

Barere could also play Godowsky´s hardest works but he never recorded them by the way.

Not many people would call Hamelin too slow but I actually find that he plays the uptempo trancriptions by Chopin (Godowsky) too slow and tame.

We have to remember that very few recordings of Bartok,Busoni and Saint-Saeins exist.

I have little doubt that all 3 of them had during their prime better technique then for instance Horowitz.

I agree about Pollini´s Chopin etudes but you should hear his Cadenza during Bartok´s concerto.

I listened to Schnabel playing Hammerklavier then I heard Pollini playing it then I though this Schnabel guy is so overrated even a dry performer like Pollini could play Beethoven a lot better, technically in particular.


I don´t think Volodos edited the Bumble-bee transcription. He is capable of playing that fast and clean.

[m]

Btw, Richter did have a great technique (though not the best by any means), if you're going to discount him for wrong notes you might as well remove Hofmann, Horowitz etc. The fact remains that none can play 10/4 faster than Richter and he was surely not in his technical prime at the time.

Well, in fact I believe Richter had one of the very best techniques of last century and if even to take a speed, 10/4 is not his only achievement. It is true pure virtuosic music did not interest him as much, but when he did play it, he PLAYED IT. His Schumann Toccata is frightening in its almost mechanical stability and speed. His Feux Follets (live from Sofia) shows unmatchable 3'20. His Feux Follets private live recording from Kiev from 50's shows 3'12--that's the concert in which he played all 12 TEs. Nobody ever got even close to such timing, not studio, not live. His 2nd 8th and 10th TE's are on the same technical sevel and are still unsurpassed, as well.
His Chopin 10/2 shows remarcable 1'10 live from Prague, which is even more remarcable because it was straight after 10/1. His 25/6 live from the same concert is 1'40. To my knowledge nobody even touched such a speed, live. Cziffra and Friedman are close.... but studio.

His Prokofiev 2nd and 6th Sonata from 50's (again live) are just stunning, as are his Prokofiev 1st or 5th Concerti. All of these are colossal not only in their technical execution, but also of titanic energy. To express such an energy one must have no ANY technical boundries.

But most of all he was Musician and Artist. His Hammerclavier, Diabelli variations, and even smaller Beethoven variation cycles are just magnificient.

Yes, he had wrong notes. Kapell ones said to somebody--you have two choices--whether to play clean, or play with passion. Richter chose the last, and I'd rather listen to his, or Rachmaninov, or Horowitz', or Gilels' wrong notes, than to somebody like Ashkenazy or Pollini right ones.

And lets talk about his repertoire...

[m]

I don´t understand what´s so incredible about Rachmaninov´s technique either.  He was possibly in his sixties when he did the Hungarian Rhapsody and that would explain the wrong notes.

I heard some recordings of him from around 1920 and there were no wrong notes there but I still found his playing a bit dry and cold and I didn´t got the impression that he had better technique then Hamelin, Pollini etc.

One of my teachers Pnina Saltzman, who studied with Cortot since she was a little girl, heard live everybody--Rachmaninov, Friedman, Hoffmann, Lhevinne, Sauer, Paderewski, Cziffra, Horowitz, Rubinstein, Lipatti, etc.

Her words: "Nobody was like Rachmaninov. He was demonic. Nobody could even possibly get close. His technique was unbelievable. No recordings could possible show the beauty of his tone. His recordings do not represent even a bit as for WHAT HE WAS."

'nough said...
 

[m]

I listened to Schnabel playing Hammerklavier then I heard Pollini playing it then I though this Schnabel guy is so overrated even a dry performer like Pollini could play Beethoven a lot better, technically in particular.

Let's not go there.
BTW, what else did you hear with Schnabel?

[sevencircles]

Maybe you are right Richter.

There are 2 persons that I thought about putting on the list but replaced with Busoni and Bartok and that is Richter and John Ogdon.

John Ogdon played some of the  hardest works around just like Hamelin and he was almost unlimited when it comes to repertoire since he could sightread better then almost any other virtuoso pianist.

Another important factor when it comes to technique is the action of the keys.

Stiff action obviously makes the lowregister keys very hard to play.

I know Barere used the stiffest keys around and I have got the impression that Hamelin uses the lightest keys.

I may be wrong about Hamelin though.

MARIK:I heard most of Schnabel´s sonatas. My expectations were very high and I got dissapointed in particular with his technique.

[stevie]

Well, in fact I believe Richter had one of the very best techniques of last century and if even to take a speed, 10/4 is not his only achievement. It is true pure virtuosic music did not interest him as much, but when he did play it, he PLAYED IT. His Schumann Toccata is frightening in its almost mechanical stability and speed. His Feux Follets (live from Sofia) shows unmatchable 3'20. His Feux Follets private live recording from Kiev from 50's shows 3'12--that's the concert in which he played all 12 TEs. Nobody ever got even close to such timing, not studio, not live.

berezovsky live FF - just a couple seconds off 3 mins

i agree about TE8, but its a close match between richter and berman in the TE2.

[chromatickler]

in fact, Berezovsky often exibits that Richter-like energy in his best performances. His islamey live from the tchaikovsky competition dwarves all others i've heard. the animalistic intensity is so blatantly convincing that it took me 10 listens to realise he had in fact resorted to 'random hits' during a climactic bar (and dropping another in the process) of the extended alternating chords passage. this is an exemplary case where the dare i say, MUSICAL effect so overwhelms as to halt any attempts at objective critique on the listener's part. and if we as some are inclined to, rate technique on the musical effect produced, then the technique i heard in this performance would no doubt be one of the very best.

another recent russian who plays in this style is Pavel Raikerus, who should have been in the finals of the utrecht liszt competition.

[stevie]

hey, i have a friend who was a fellow student of Pavel's in the St.Petersburg State Conservatoire.

he was known as the class bully, he would beat up all the other classmates, and he was expelled for this very reason.

a very unsavoury individual...



i havent met the guy , but i mean come on....look at him, its obvious hes up to no good.

[orlandopiano]

I am surprised no one has mentioned Kissin.

[jerry xie]

you forgot horowitz and gould!!!add them

[sevencircles]

Everyone who vote for someone who isn´t on the list please mention it in a reply.

I heard from some guy from usenet that a pianist called Pierre-Laurent Aimard or something like that is superior to a even Hamelin when it comes to technique.

He said that Hamelin was more tastefull and musical though.

[chromatickler]

I heard from some guy from usenet that a pianist called Pierre-Laurent Aimard or something like that is superior to a even Hamelin when it comes to technique.

most likely some wishful thinking based on aimard's ligeti etudes recording. i do not know of any serious pianists who hold this opinion.

in terms of depth of repertoire + consistent quality of technical execution (in live performance and studio recordings), there are few if any living pianists who can match hamelin.

some other negelected monster techniques:

lang lang -it's obvious u guys let your 'tastes' get in the way here
fiorentino -absolute technical control on par with hamelin
argerich -glaring weaknesses and unmistakable strengths, similar to horowitz

[Skeptopotamus]

hey, i have a friend who was a fellow student of Pavel's in the St.Petersburg State Conservatoire.

he was known as the class bully, he would beat up all the other classmates, and he was expelled for this very reason.

a very unsavoury individual...



i havent met the guy , but i mean come on....look at him, its obvious hes up to no good.

wow that guy is creepy.


Aimard and Pace need to be on here.  i mean damn, anyone who can perform complete works of finnissy (pace) is awesome.

[sevencircles]

Skeptopatamus: Feel free to vote in a reply.

Someone else suggested Aimard as you can read in my post!

[chromatickler]

i mean ***, anyone who can perform complete works of finnissy (pace) is awesome.

in one of his interviews he refers to "pitch" as a "parameter" with the same level of interpretive freedom as other parameters like dynamics and tone.

sounds like MADGE to me

[sevencircles]

Feel free to vote for Richter, Horowitz or any other player not in the list!

Just write a reply that says "I vote for Richter" etc.

[brewtality]

personal bias aside (i'm VERY tempted to vote Hofmann) Marc Andre Hamelin has the most perfect technique I've ever heard or seen. He's simply amazing especially considering the difficulty of the repetoire he plays.

[sevencircles]

Marik: The Midsummer night´s Sherzo played by Rachmaninov. Is it the recording they have on Classicalmanual.ru?

[m]

Marik: The Midsummer night´s Sherzo played by Rachmaninov. Is it the recording they have on Classicalmanual.ru?

Yes, that's the one.

[donjuan]

oh, and my russian colleague Vadim Rudenko was also annoyed at his exclusion from this list.

he prides himself on his phenomenal technique, and would like you to view him warming up, at half tempo:

https://datazz2.free.fr/rudy_warmingup.wmv

warming up at half tempo?? I dont think so... it sounds and looks more like hes performing Pletnev's Nutcracker transcription at normal speed.  personally, I prefer Pletnev's playing

[musicsdarkangel]

ive heard this too about Horowitz and his octaves, but ive never actually heard any recordings by him that illustrate how good his octaves were.  what would be some good recordings or pieces (and incidentally could you give an example of exactly how fast he could play them in comparison to others, perhaps in notes per second or something like that?)

TCHAIK 1!!!  TCHAIK 1!!!

[musicsdarkangel]

I am surprised no one has mentioned Kissin.

Kissin really does have an amazing, tight, solid technique.


Anyway, Ogden sightread through the Brahms 2 at age 9.  I just read that in a book, which is pretty scary.

[stevie]

TCHAIK 1!!!  TCHAIK 1!!!

https://dasdc.net/forum/download.php?id=32

[sevencircles]

No votes for Godowsky yet?

[jalgor]

Nope.

[musicsdarkangel]

https://dasdc.net/forum/download.php?id=32

thanks!


MAN, he's fast.

But he's played it faster than that too.

Gilels plays it faster than that in his DVD.

[BoliverAllmon]

ballmoniii@yahoo.com

volodos please

[BoliverAllmon]

horowitz's rach 3 recording from the 30's is blazing.

[sevencircles]

I listened to Rach:s Mandelsohn Scherzo and I must say that it is the most impressive playing I have heard a 62 year old do.

Most people are way below their peak at that age and one can only guess how good he was when he was 30.

[stevie]

maybe actually not as good, he only really worked hard at piano when his career as a composer couldnt fully financially support him.

[brewtality]

maybe actually not as good, he only really worked hard at piano when his career as a composer couldnt fully financially support him.

Before the age of about 44 his repetoire consisted mainly of his own works, however his childhood study with Zverov had helped him develop a solid technical foundation.

[sevencircles]

Really!

I assumed that comparing the 62 year old Rachmaninov with the 30 year old would be like comparing the 62 year Pollini with the 30 year old.

I assumed that he was a lot better when he was young just like Pollini, since so many people voted for him.

Godowsky did mainly play his own works as well, right?

[hodi]

https://perso.wanadoo.fr/jemboy/video.html
i think we have a winner 

[stevie]

Before the age of about 44 his repetoire consisted mainly of his own works, however his childhood study with Zverov had helped him develop a solid technical foundation.

i dont doubt that, but this is speculation, it just doesnt justify him being even in 2nd place in this poll!

thats an insult to cziffra.

[sevencircles]

Hodi: Is that you playing?

The piano is "cough" slightly out of tune!

For my as a pianist it´s easier to play guitar with my fingers (with fingerpicks) like countryplayers or twohanded tapping.

Easier to coordinate for me and I think it would be for Jemboy as well.

This guy could easily become the Tony Macalpine of 21:st Century!

[brewtality]

i dont doubt that, but this is speculation, it just doesnt justify him being even in 2nd place in this poll!

thats an insult to cziffra.

how about Hofmann who only has 3 votes! This must surely be because most people haven't heard him play, otherwise I'd question the hearing abilities of some of the forum members. Hofmann and Cziffra's techniques were superior to Rachmaninoff's.

[sevencircles]

Agree:

Hoffmann was alone in his greatness  before he started drinking. A true universal genius.

He is rumoured to have invented the windscreenwiper by the way!

His small hands made even an octave a painfull stretch though but he could play scales so clean,fluently and tastefull it´s scary.

I am sure he would played more demanding pieces if he learned to sightread properly.

[brewtality]

Hilariously, he had no problem playing difficult pieces (like Godowsky's Fledermaus) after just hearing them once or twice. 

[da jake]

Hamelin - Greatest recorded technique in history (overall.)

But I have this weird theory that Hofmann and Gould could do some mechanism and articulation things that Hamelin could not.

[practicingnow]

So many could be added to that list:
Kissin - could ANYBODY in history match this guy's speed, articulation, accuracy and control on such a consistent basis?  (The answer, BTW, is no).
Katsaris - the best octaves I have ever heard, including Horowitz and Argerich, not bad finger technique too...
Kuzmin - not as well known, but his recordings are out there, Feux Follets, Don Juan, etc. AND (this is very important), as clean live as he is on his recordings...
Valentina Lisitsa - speed, accuracy, control - amazing, she can play side by side with anyone...

I'm not so sure that some of those pianists should be there -
Ashkenazie - great, but I have never heard him do something that was so seemingly inhuman, ala Horowitz or Cziffra or Barere or Katsaris
Hamelin - I know his recordings, but have you ever heard him live?  Sometimes (often) it can be a slop-fest...ah, the miracles of modern editing!  He simply chooses to play repertoire that many pianists don't, so there is no-one to compare him to - but I'm SURE that Kissin or Volodos could do what he does, if they chose to...
Bartok, Saint-Saens, Busoni - we just don't have enough to judge them by, unfortunately...

[stevie]

about kissin, his technique isnt the best.

judging from a live video of la campanella, the final section, he plays it at the same speed as yundi li, but with about 25% less accuracy.