Some exponents of impeccable technique sometimes play too "neatly" for musical peoples ears. Sometimes people are confronted when they hear things phrases sharply rendered or absolute evenness of a scale or arpeggio run and consider it sterile or technical playing. Or if they hear a melodic line played too measured or without enough this or that whatever. They can't get over the fact that someone is playing in a way which does not conform to their own ideological model of music.
Music is beyond that, who is to say we need to separate technical from musical and consider the greatest players those that are technical and musical? Music is not that one dimensional, listen to the person play without criticizing and you will feel the magic of a performance. Being there in person is a much different experience as you witness the music being given birth to and can hear its natural source.
Music is mostly SUBJECTIVE it is not a very objective issue when it comes to what sounds right among the professional recordings. So when someone says I want to hear more "color" they are not even saying anything intelligent in all honesty. Who gives a damn how they played, you want to know how they effected the audience and how they effect listeners, that is what is important. If you listen to someone and say, oh it effected me in the way that I wanted to hear more different types of sound come from their playing. That means that you totally missed out on what the music was trying to tell you and the experience of a live performance. If you really want to critique her playing take out the score, mention the bars, but then, which layman is really going to care about your review?
If you deconstruct every single performance in terms of critical thinking you are simply missing out on the beauty of music. There is a reason not to ever read what critics write about you whether it be good or bad, you can fall into the trap of believing what people say who have really no idea about your musical journey and have only ever witnessed one small snippet of time when you performed or recorded something. I have been to performances where the person might not have played the best but the entire audience was eating out of their hands. As apposed to witnessing people who play wonderfully but have no connection to the audience at all, what a bore!
These days we don't want the playing to be top notch, we want the performance to be top notch.
Topic: Valentina Lisitsa Review