Volodos : Greatest Technician?

[zhiliang]

I hope i will not be starting a very fierce debate on this. But i have seen somewhere in another forum, about this question whether Arcadi Volodos may be the greatest technician ever. So what do you all feel?

Regards,

Zhiliang

[BET23]

got HAMELIN?

[thracozaag]

I hope i will not be starting a very fierce debate on this. But i have seen somewhere in another forum, about this question whether Arcadi Volodos may be the greatest technician ever. So what do you all feel?

Regards,

Zhiliang

 I certainly think that Volodos is AMONG the greatest technicians.  I'm not going to bother listing those people, though, as I find these discussions rather silly.

[comme_le_vent]

Volodos is surely one of the greatest technicians, BUT there are quite a few right up there with him - hamelin, argerich, cziffra - for starters. Compare cziffra's bumblebee trans. compared with volodos' interpretation, its considerably faster and more exciting, but then again volodos could be holding back some speed to be more in control and be more articulated.
One thing is for sure, there is no clear leader of the pack(despite what some ignorant ppl might say). I would vote for Hamelin, mostly because of the sheer control and polish of his sound in the most difficult passages/repertoire.
How can anyone judge  this subject fairly?

[liszmaninopin]

Volodos is very good, but I would vote for Hamelin and Cziffra as the greatest technicians.

[cziffra]

i find volodos absolutely enigmatic- for someone that never practices scales, didn't study seriously until he was 16 and is now only about 30, his achievements are more amazing than any child prodigy story i've ever heard.  how does he do it?

[eddie92099]

...off to see him do Prokofiev 2 next week (you may get jealous now),
Ed

[liszmaninopin]

Cziffra, actually it is rather uplifting to late starters like myself to hear of such achievements.  It shows that it isn't impossible for someone who didn't start in preschool to become a great pianist.

[steinwaymodeld]

i find volodos absolutely enigmatic- for someone that never practices scales, didn't study seriously until he was 16 and is now only about 30, his achievements are more amazing than any child prodigy story i've ever heard.  how does he do it?

Cziffra
i have wondered for the story about Volodos for so long, i think he meant 'not study seriously' as 'not studying with a international famous pianist' or ' studying in a conservatory'

he must have some kind of music background and stuff to support him right?

I would appreciate if you would post his story.

[cziffra]

as far as i know, he has always been musical, but he was trained primarily as a singer, with piano on the side, until he was about 16.  then some professor who'se name i can't remember was really impressed with his playing and told him to focus on that instead.  that was when the "serious study" began.

martha argerich says similarly- she didn't start playing "seriously" until she was 16, after winning that famous competition and playing mozart concerti at the age of ten, so to answer your question, they probably did have a lot of musical background, just compared to their own standards it was nothing much.

the less said of THEIR standards the better, else i'll get very depressed.

[changpark]

I really think other than Franz Liszt of whom we don't have any recordings to use as evidence, Cziffra is the greatest technician better than Volodos by some margin. During his time he was considered to surpass Horowitz by quite some margin as well as Art Tatum himself. I came across his biography and it says he found the general repertoire boring as the technical demands were too low. Even if you look at his transcriptions which were mostly improvised, they are phenomenally difficult even against the likes of the most demanding pieces of works in the standard piano repertoire.

[adari]

I really think other than Franz Liszt of whom we don't have any recordings to use as evidence, Cziffra is the greatest technician better than Volodos by some margin. During his time he was considered to surpass Horowitz by quite some margin as well as Art Tatum himself. I came across his biography and it says he found the general repertoire boring as the technical demands were too low. Even if you look at his transcriptions which were mostly improvised, they are phenomenally difficult even against the likes of the most demanding pieces of works in the standard piano repertoire.

Don't forget that Liszt's technical ability was inferior to Alkan's.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Come on guys, don't be ridiculous.  After a certain caliber it doesn't matter.

I've seen some 14 year old monsters whose technique is on par with Kissin and everyone else.

You can't compare perfect technique with perfect technique.  They're all the same.