Piano Forum

I can see the shame dripping from this post.

I don't have anything to be ashamed of.  It's you, who would attempt to make people feel shame when they do something so innocuous as speak their minds, that should be ashamed!  If you can't take the contrary view, better just not read them any more.

He is playing fast in service of the art of keyboard athleticism, noone is claiming otherwise.

That's my point exactly, it is athletic, and nothing otherwise, and I think many others point as well.  So when you watch the video, you are left being impressed with the athletic quality with which he played the octaves.  Great!  But most people don't think that was what Liszt had in mind, and therefore it just falls short.  We can't judge the pianist from a one-minute video, but we see this and must react.

But this is perhaps a personal matter above anything else.   I am more impressed with colorful sounds that create the impression of living, breathing characters, or actual singing, or actual speaking.  You get this in Horowitz, and I was going to ask the rhetorical question, that if there were a young pianist playing the Horowitz repertoire without the Horowitz mistakes, and faster than Horowitz, but without the characters, would you be more impressed, but then I was afraid you would actually say yes, and I didn't ask the question.   

This is as 'shallow' or 'enlightened' as any other person who persues technical excellence in any field.

Thou sayest!

Walter Ramsey