Recommend some lesser known pianists please

[thalberg]

Do you know of any pianists that are not famous, but whom you really like--on youtube perhaps, or who have web pages with CDs for sale?

I think it's always interesting to hear really great playing from people whose lives did not happen to lead them down the road of fame.

[mattgreenecomposer]

I could be wrong but I dont think Leif Ove was mentioned in that other post.  Nobody plays Grieg better in my opinion.
No one said Tori Amos

[mattgreenecomposer]

Woops I see him there now...I didnt recognize him without his clothes on, my bad.  lol!

[thalberg]

Yeah I knew that would be a challenge for people.

[retrouvailles]

Geoffrey Tozer, Peter Donohoe, and Pierre-Laurent Aimard (he is very much on the rise) are three not-so-well known pianists that I really like. The latter two are on YouTube, and their talents are clearly exhibited. I think I can come up with some more later.

And I wouldn't say that Andsnes isn't well known. He is very much well known. You have to be well known and respected just so you can get your piano airlifted to some mountains in Norway just to play Grieg's Ballade in G minor just to commemorate an anniversary.

[quantum]

Antonin Kubalek

[n_n]

many conservatory teachers aren't bad performers at all... can be superb indeed... and ususally they give public  performances at the concervatories for free...  you might want to check out your local conservatories' websites for the listing....who knows... you might find gem!

[sharon_f]

There are so many wonderful performers out there.

I agree with Kubalek. I heard him playing some Brahms on the radio one day. It was quite beautiful. Nahvah Perlman and Michie Koyama are two other lesser-known pianists I would recommend.

[franzliszt2]

Donohoe is very well known in England. He has a huge technique, and the biggest sound I have ever heard. He always does huge programmes, like last 3 Beethoven sonata with Liszt sonata and then other stuff lol. He's a little boring though, very mechanical, and very metronomic. He's awful at giving masterclasses, he told us to practice Hanon and Pitchna everyday with a portable dvd on the piano and put a movie on. He has an AMAZING memory! Like a really incredible memory.

Aimard is extremly famous, his Ligeti is mind blowing. I have seen him twice, playing messian, and that was incredible, and once playing Schumann symphonic etudes and a load of otehr random etudes by Rach, Chopin Debussy, Ligeti etc... That wasn't so great.


If you live in a big City, for example London, you get to see some really great concerts by unheard of pianists. A lot of pianists are big in there own country, and so when they come over to a different country it takes a whle to get recognised. Look for conservatoire students, and teachers from conservatoires.

[gerryjay]

 i have two suggestions:

 giorgio vercillo https://digilander.libero.it/giorgiovercillo/index.htm
 debora halasz https://www.naxos.com/artistinfo/bio6460.htm

 btw her husband/brother/whatever franz halasz is one of the best guitarrists of the new generation.

[general disarray]

Bernd Glemser
Michael Dussek
Arnaldo Cohen
Markus Groh
Ashley Wass
Alistair Hinton (modest he is, but I bet he sits around sight-reading at tempo Sorabji when he's not composing his own fiendishly difficult works for piano.)
Per Tengstrand

and
Janina Fialkowska, who had the good fortune of having her "Mephisto Waltz" lifted by Barrington-Coupe  for his wife Joyce Hatto, and, thus, coming to wider attention.  Brilliant pianist.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

i very much like what I've heard from Roberto Cappello. I first encountered him on a disc from the Schloss vor Husum festival; he plays a lot of obscure 19th century repertoire (Thalberg, Tausig, Herz etc) with some flair.

[retrouvailles]

Let us not forget our friend Jonathan Powell. He has championed lots of "impossible pieces" by Sorabji and Finnissy, but has also played some more "traditional" repertoire like Chopin and Medtner. Very well, I might add.

[indutrial]

Let us not forget our friend Jonathan Powell. He has championed lots of "impossible pieces" by Sorabji and Finnissy, but has also played some more "traditional" repertoire like Chopin and Medtner. Very well, I might add.

Seconded!

I've always strongly appreciated pianists who are willing to take on unperformed/unrecorded repertoire and Powell takes that to a new level without losing sight of the more standard repertoire. Other pianists who have opened my ears to underperformed repertoire:

Marie-Catherine Girod (Dutilleux's sonata, Auric's sonata, Bax's 4 sonatas)

Daniel Blumenthal (Tansman's 5 sonatas and 3 sonatinas, Stanchinsky's piano works, lots of other French pieces)

Marilyn Nonken (an absolute ton of amazing post-1950 music, including works by Finnissy, the complete piano works of Tristan Murail, David Rakowski, and a set of preludes by Dusapin)

Łukaszewski Marcin (numerous Polish pieces including Bacewicz's excellent etudes and pieces by Sawa and Serocki)

And lastly, Ian Pace, of course, who has been involved with some of the most stunning piano repertoire in the world, ranging from Finnissy's monster work "History of Photography in Sound" to Rzewski's "The Road" in addition to loads of other complex and breathtaking pieces of contemporary piano composition, such as Dusapin's stunning etudes and concerto.

I think these folks deserve way more attention and it's brutally tiresome to read post after post of people talking about the same popular players and their zillion competitive versions of the same old repertoire. It's doubly interesting to me when a person is willing to be a music researcher alongside the role of being a music performer.

Same thing with cellists. Sure, Yo-Yo-Ma is an amazing player, but I'd rather listen to a guy like Matt Haimovitz, whose repertoire spreads beyond the standard repertoire to include works by composers like Dutilleux, Hindemith, and Crumb, in addition to more common repertoire like Bach and Beethoven.

[etudes]

i very much like what I've heard from Roberto Cappello. I first encountered him on a disc from the Schloss vor Husum festival; he plays a lot of obscure 19th century repertoire (Thalberg, Tausig, Herz etc) with some flair.

a guy who played Alkan - Grande Sonata and Liszt- Berlioz symphony fantastique?

[ronde_des_sylphes]

a guy who played Alkan - Grande Sonata and Liszt- Berlioz symphony fantastique?

I'm not aware of him having played any Alkan, though it would not surprise me if he had. On the Schloss vor Husum disc which I have he plays Granados, Thalberg and Reger. I've also got recordings of him playing Pixis, Tausig and others.

[general disarray]

Let us not forget our friend Jonathan Powell. He has championed lots of "impossible pieces" by Sorabji and Finnissy, but has also played some more "traditional" repertoire like Chopin and Medtner. Very well, I might add.

He hasn't been forgotten:  as you know, he was listed in the "Top Ten Living Pianists" in the Repertoire section.  And rightly so, I might add.

[minor9th]

 Piotr Anderszewski, Yevgeny Koroliov, Griogy Sokolov come to mind.

[phillip21]

spam

[leslieb547]

In England, as already mentioned, Peter Donohoe and Ashley Wass, but a third name, and one of the best and most versatile pianists I heve heard live on many occasions is Martin Roscoe. Heard him & Ashley Wass live playing the Liszt, 2 piano transcription of Beethoven's 9th symphony last year which 'brought the house down'. Martin is currently completing recording all of the Beethoven violin sonatas with Peter Cropper (2 CDs of which have been released to excellent reviews) and is then going to record all of the Beethoven piano sonatas based on the recently published 'new' edition - should be worth waiting for.

[franzliszt2]

Oh yes I forgot about Martin Roscoe! He's a fantastic pianist, with the most amazing tone! I have never heard him in concert, I've just heard him playing stuff in a lesson to me and it was pretty mindblowing! Elevateme knows him a lot better than me, he studied with him for a while.

[pianogeek_cz]

As far as youtube goes, Guilietta Koch has become one of the favorite pianists of mine...

From the local pianists, Miron Šmidák. I've never yet heard anyone play more... meaningfully, in the sense that when he plays, I know what he is saying there.

[gerryjay]

 how can i forget before?
 roberto szidon is a very interesting pianist.

[mephisto]

Roger Muraro and Håkon Austbø, amazing pianists. At least for Messiaen fans.

[gerryjay]

Roger Muraro and Håkon Austbø, amazing pianists. At least for Messiaen fans.

well this is messiaen's year. let's celebrate his music!

[retrouvailles]

Agreed to both of you! These pianists have contributed much to Messiaen's growth in the repertoire, so this is enough to validate their merits in my opinion. Of course, these two pianists play things other than Messiaen well.

[jpowell]

Piotr Anderszewski, Yevgeny Koroliov, Griogy Sokolov come to mind.

And I always thought Sokolov was one of the best known living pianists!
Perhaps I have a warped perspective ...

But, I can really recommend some other Russian pianists of the older generation:

Victor Bunin (pupil of Feinberg)
Igor Zhukov
Igor Nikonovich (his Medtner recordings are fantastic) and
Vladimir Tropp (listen to his Tchaikovsky!!)

These are all great players and real musicians.

By the way, I thought Austbo's Scriabin *awful* for some reason. Perhaps I missed the point.

[cygnusdei]

Piers Lane. I enjoy his CDs of Moscheles, Henselt, and Saint-Saëns etudes.