Fave 10 Pianists

[leethoven]

Hi Guys!
I know this topic was brought up years ago but I want to see your *new* faves as of 2021. Things changes when there's the pandemic, right?
Here's mine-
1. Martha Argerich ( I have an obsession with her )
2. Glenn Gould (With all my respect!)
3. Yundi Li
4. Alicia de Larrocha
5. Vladimir Horowitz
6. Alfred Brendel
7. Krystian Zimerman
8. Jorge Bolet
9. Evgeny Kissin
10. Nikolai Lugansky
Add your ideas!
                                                                                  Stay Healthy and Safe,
                                                                                          leethoven

[j_tour]

Yeah, I'll go for it.

(1) Monk

And then the others.  Gould, Hewitt, Argerich, Ashkenazy, Brendel, Schiff, Richter, Cecil Taylor, and I'll add Lisitsa for the win.  No particular order. 

TBH, I don't listen to a lot of music, especially piano music.  I'd rather just hack my way through it at the keyboard or at a desk, but I do pay attention.

[lelle]

I'm pretty set in my ways in terms of what pianists I listen to the most, so there is not much that has changed during the pandemic.

So to one pianist would be
1. I discovered a new-found appreciation for Schiff during the pandemic after hearing his Beethoven lectures. He is now one of the pianists I'll listen to if I want to hear the sonatas.
2. Kempff - I already listened a lot to Kempff before but I rediscovered him and started appreciating him more during the pandemic

Otherwise it's pretty much

Top:
Cortot
Richter
Annie Fischer
Rubinstein

In no particular order, pianists I enjoy hearing to varying degrees
Horowitz
Brautigam
Clara Haskil
Gieseking
Argerich
Cziffra
Schiff
Barenboim
Roland Pöntinen
Murray Perahia
Maria Joao Pires
And many more I probably forgot...

[thepianolad]

1. Krystian Zimmerman
2. Seong Jin Cho
3. Martha Argerich
4. Vladimir Ashkenazy
5. Horowitz
6. Helene Grimaud
7. Evgeny Kissin
8. Daniil Trifinov
9. Daniel Barenboim
10. Sergi Rachmaninoff

[ranjit]

Yeah, I'll go for it.

(1) Monk

And then the others.  Gould, Hewitt, Argerich, Ashkenazy, Brendel, Schiff, Richter, Cecil Taylor, and I'll add Lisitsa for the win.  No particular order. 

TBH, I don't listen to a lot of music, especially piano music.  I'd rather just hack my way through it at the keyboard or at a desk, but I do pay attention.

Interesting. I thought you would say Tatum or OP.

[j_tour]

Interesting. I thought you would say Tatum or OP.

Well, I have to disappoint.  I respect Oscar Peterson, but I don't consider him even in the top thirty of jazz pianists.  Beautiful tone, at times, at the keyboard, pretty complete technique, at least in the broader jazz idiom, but he's just not one of my fellas, through no fault of his own.

Tatum's a different matter, but aside from earlier dalliances in stride and ragtime and swing music, bebop is where it's at for me.  Jelly Roll, Teddy Wilson, Count Basie, Fats Waller and many others from pre-bop come ahead of Tatum for me, for the simple reason that I can understand their music a bit better, whereas Tatum is just way out there, man.  (In very much a positive sense!)

I do need to add Cortot:  having just become aware of his recordings of Chopin and Liszt, he doesn't sound like anybody I've ever heard.  To me it's fresh and invigorating playing, no matter the years he was active.

Also, Mitsuko Uchida impressed me not too long ago with some performances from Debussy:  I thought she was just a Mozart unitasker, but it appears not!

[leethoven]

.

[ranjit]

I thought I might contribute to this thread, but Cziffra just overpowers everyone else in my list of preferences! I find it hard to appreciate Liszt as performed by other performers after listening to him. And his recordings of other composers weren't bad either -- his Scarlatti sonatas are among my favorites. I think one thing is the way he feels rhythm feels so different, and all of those rhythmic idiosyncracies feel far more natural to me than most straight interpretations.

I recently heard Ivan Moravec's performances of Mozart and Chopin, and he's earned his spot as well.

There are other great performers, don't get me wrong, but once in a blue moon, you listen to a performance and it is even better than the best rendition of the piece you can imagine, and these are the only classical pianists who have really done that for me until now.

[bachforlife]

Ashkenazy, Hamelin, Argerich and Kissin are all great pianists. Yundi Li plays Chopin wonderfully.
But my favourite pianist who always gets me has to be Grigory Sokolov. He possess every technique and every tone color known to music.

[lelle]

I greatly admire Sokolov's abilities, but sometimes I find his interpretations very strange and different from what seems to be in the score, which takes away my enjoyment :/

[nw746]

There are a few pianists of whom I will generally try to acquire every available recording regardless of repertoire simply on the grounds of having the finest possible degree of control over touch. These are:
György Cziffra
Josef Hofmann
Josef Lhévinne
Marc-André Hamelin
Arcadi Volodos
Yeol Eum Son
Krystian Zimerman
potentially Mariam Batsashvili if she ever starts recording anything

There are many more of whom I collect almost every recording even though they don't have quite the same level of supreme control, because the control they do exercise focuses on tone colour and dynamics and articulation and tempo, thereby allowing for ideal if perhaps not note-perfect interpretations:
Martha Argerich
Géza Anda
Maria Tipo
Michel Dalberto
Lili Kraus
Annie Fischer
András Schiff
Angela Hewitt
Peter Serkin
Edwin Fischer
Steven Osborne
Friedrich Gulda
Mitsuko Uchida
Herbert Schuch
Steffen Schleiermacher
Marcelle Meyer
Michael Finnissy
Michaël Lévinas
Stephen Hough
Zoltán Kocsis
Michael Endres

Finally there are some people who don't really have much control over the piano at all but still manage to produce visionary and at times unusual interpretations:
Artur Schnabel
Alfred Cortot
Walter Gieseking
Wilhelm Backhaus
Maria Yudina
Paul Badura-Skoda


There are of course many more pianists one could put into all of these categories but these would be my personal favourites. If I absolutely had to restrict it as much as possible, I'd go with Argerich, Anda and Cziffra, most of the time.

[kc_gracie]

Interesting. I haven't really thought about my absolute favorite. My 1-10 will probably be in order. However, that also may not be true either. I feel like I go to each individual for something different. Perhaps one single piece by them really struck me, so I will listen to them more based upon a great impression.

1. Vladimir Horowitz
2. Daniel Barenboim
3. Alfred Brendel
4. Evgeny Kissin
5. Krystian Zimerman
6. Andras Schiff
7. Bertrand Chamayou
8. Vikingur Olafsson
9. Lise de la Salle
10. François-Frédéric Guy

I also really like a number of others. I feel somewhat like I should list them, but then I would just list WAY too many people.

Anyways, that's my list for the time being (mainly based upon the albums I have been listening too over the past year or so).

-KC

[kc_gracie]

Oh my God. I forgot Murray Perahia! Well, add him to my 10. He is one of my absolute favorites of all time.

-KC

[anacrusis]

Good choice, Murray Perahia is a mighty fine pianist. He has made some Beethoven sonata recordings I really like.

[music.]

Arthur Rubinstein, Krystian Zimerman, Glenn Gould, Helen Grimaud, Argerich. I might even add Yuja Wang since she matured over the years.

My favourite? Jorge Bolet. 
 

[billym]

I'll add my 2 cents.

1. Krystian Zimerman
2. Artur Rubinstein
3. Daniel Barenboim
4. Vladimir Horowitz
5. Alfred Brendel
6. Emil Gilels
7. Seong-Jin Cho
8. Vladimir Ashkenazy
9. Daniil Trifonov
10. Martha Argerich

[music.]

Horowitz, Rachmanioff, Bolet, Argerich, Economou and even Yuja Wang since she matured over the years.
Why doesn't anybody include Rubinstein besides billym? He was such a great pianist. He was a fine standard.

[billym]

Horowitz, Rachmanioff, Bolet, Argerich, Economou and even Yuja Wang since she matured over the years.
Why doesn't anybody include Rubinstein besides billym? He was such a great pianist. He was a fine standard.

Yeah I'm totally with you, music. Rubinstein was a titan of artistry- he's one of the greats. Anyhow looking back on my list I think I will move Gilels down one spot and put Richter in 6th. There's a good number of his recordings I've been listening to fairly recently that are so good.

[ranjit]

My current list (in no particular order):
1. Gyorgy Cziffra
2. Ivan Moravec
3. Alfred Cortot
4. Goran Filipec
5. Zimerman

And why do I sometimes like the performances of concert pianists as kids more than their adult performances?

[lelle]

3. Alfred Cortot

Ah, a man of my own tastes I see. I find Cortot to be such an utterly compelling pianist, even in his worst moments.

[lostinidlewonder]

Too bad no one mentioned Claudio Arrau.

[roncesvalles]

In no order after the first
Michelangeli
Pollini
Richter
Maria Tipo
Hamelin
Aimard

others I like but not always
Argerich
Hewitt
Zimmerman
Trifonov

[lelle]

Too bad no one mentioned Claudio Arrau.

Young Claudio Arrau maybe, I find old Claudio Arrau pretty dull.

[lostinidlewonder]

Dull?? That’s a highly marginalised opinion if I’ve ever seen one.

[lelle]

Below is some Beethoven. I just feel I miss the kind of vitality and forward momentum I associate with Beethoven from his playing.

[lostinidlewonder]

That still doesn't make your opinion any more valid. Vitality, forward momentum? Which exact parts let's see exactly the comparisons and how you measure it.

[lelle]

That still doesn't make your opinion any more valid. Vitality, forward momentum? Which exact parts let's see exactly the comparisons and how you measure it.

Well, any opinion about something subjective is as valid as any other, since it's down to personal taste. I won't tell you that your opinion that Claudio Arrau is not dull is not valid, just that I disagree. I think Arrau is fine, just not my preferred taste.

I quite enjoy Annie Fischer, who to my taste plays with a lot more fire and immediacy than Arrau:

While she has a quicker tempo in many places, it's just not the tempo that does it. She just "goes for it" in a different way that I prefer.

[ranjit]

While she has a quicker tempo in many places, it's just not the tempo that does it. She just "goes for it" in a different way that I prefer.

I hadn't heard much of Annie Fischer before, but that recording certainly makes me want to listen to more of her playing. I am a sucker for the kind of 'immediacy' you mention, and I've often thought about what causes it, so that I can attempt to bring it into my own playing.

Let me try to analyze these side-by-side:
- The touch sounds ever so slightly harsher, which gives it a 'fiery' quality
- There is more dynamic variation
- There is more use of subtle accelerandi during the exciting portions
- There is more slowing down at the ends of certain phrases, which creates an anticipatory effect
- The conclusions of such passages are often more punctuated to give it a kind of 'oomph'
- There are long, sustained, subtle crescendos
- The melody is emphasized more, and played in a way which draws attention to every note as compared to more "flow-y" playing.
- Arrau seems to have a tendency to always use ritardandos for emphasis -- this results in the work taking on a more 'theatrical' quality.

For a clear example of what I mean, listen to 22:43 in Fischer's recording vs 24:43 in Arrau's. Arrau's tempo is much more stable, and to me creates an effect which sounds more 'rehearsed'. Fischer's approach feels more like a punch to the gut -- the way she initially "waits" and then "pounces" creates real drama.

I keep thinking about Cziffra because I see parallels between all of these players -- after all, they were contemporaries. When Tamas Vasary was interviewed about Cziffra, he mentions what Annie Fischer thought of his playing -- that she initially didn't like it, but she eventually grew to appreciate the honesty with which he played, by which she meant the kind of way in which he phrased things and used rubato, adding breaks to give the piece an entirely free form. I have heard recordings of Tamas Vasary, Cziffra, and now Fischer, and there are striking similarities in their approach. Perhaps it is part of the Hungarian tradition, passed down from Liszt? Overall, I find it incredibly compelling.

[lostinidlewonder]

Well, any opinion about something subjective is as valid as any other, since it's down to personal taste.

Err no it is not an opinion that Arrau was one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. Have a look at all the accolades and adoration Arrau has, look at his track record, you are totally blind to that and just want your flimsy opinion without any juxtapositioning of what you think is better and not dull. You also are comparing a live stage performance with a recording?

[thalbergmad]

Berman
Berman
Berman
Berman
Berman
Berman
Berman
Berman
Berman
Berman

[lelle]

Err no it is not an opinion that Arrau was one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. Have a look at all the accolades and adoration Arrau has, look at his track record, you are totally blind to that and just want your flimsy opinion without any juxtapositioning of what you think is better and not dull.

I'm well aware that Arrau has many accolades but taste is still subjective. I'm not going to prefer Arrau's recording of a specific piece just because many other people do, if my taste is different from those people. Einaudi, who was discussed in a thread here before, has many more admirers than Arrau but I do not think that makes Einaudi objectively better.  I posted a recording that I enjoy more in my previous post in this thread with Annie Fischer that you can listen to and see if you understand what I'm looking for in Beethoven.

I hadn't heard much of Annie Fischer before, but that recording certainly makes me want to listen to more of her playing. I am a sucker for the kind of 'immediacy' you mention, and I've often thought about what causes it, so that I can attempt to bring it into my own playing.

Glad you enjoyed the recording! She certainly is a powerhouse. Fischer was admired by Sviatoslav Richter among others. I think the harsher sound is partly due to the instrument and studio setup, I don't remember if its a Bösendorfer or something like that. I wish they had chosen a slightly less metallic sound but I'm willing to look past it because the playing is so fabulous.

[lostinidlewonder]

I'm well aware that Arrau has many accolades but taste is still subjective. I'm not going to prefer Arrau's recording of a specific piece just because many other people do, if my taste is different from those people. Einaudi, who was discussed in a thread here before, has many more admirers than Arrau but I do not think that makes Einaudi objectively better.  I posted a recording that I enjoy more in my previous post in this thread with Annie Fischer that you can listen to and see if you understand what I'm looking for in Beethoven.

You can post whatever you like (although comparing a live stage performance vs a studio recording is not really that convincing) that still doesn't make your opinion any more believable. Your opinion which you of course can harbor is still highly marginalized, hardly any one else will agree with you that Arrau is "dull", just a ridiculous comment which you probably should have kept to yourself since you have not shown how he is dull rather comparing him to who you think is better but that doesn't prove dullness. Crazy people will also say Michael Jordan wasn't that good of a basketball player.

[lelle]

You can post whatever you like (although comparing a live stage performance vs a studio recording is not really that convincing) that still doesn't make your opinion any more believable. Your opinion which you of course can harbor is still highly marginalized, hardly any one else will agree with you that Arrau is "dull", just a ridiculous comment which you probably should have kept to yourself since you have not shown how he is dull rather comparing him to who you think is better but that doesn't prove dullness. Crazy people will also say Michael Jordan wasn't that good of a basketball player.

I disagree that my opinion has to be believable, but I find it entertaining that it seems to be triggering the master triggerer himself. According to what measuring system? Can you tell me how to show that he is dull? I find his recording more boring than Annie Fischer because the tempo is slower and passages that are full of fire and forward momentum in Fischer's recordings sound more plodding and pondurous in Arrau's playing, and I prefer the former. Arrau is good, just not my taste.

[nw746]

Arrau's Beethoven is terrible, and I'm not sure why so many people like it. I assume because it's slow and therefore easy to listen to, unchallenging and relaxing, which is the kind of thing most people prefer (therefore also why they like Barenboim and Kempff). Arrau is decent in Chopin, Schumann, Schubert, and pretty good in his early recordings from the 1940s and 50s and some of his live recordings from Tanglewood, but in general his technical control over dynamics and articulation leaves a great deal to be desired, and his tempi are invariably too slow regardless of the repertoire.

Bear in mind that of all the people who listen to classical music, only a small proportion actually listen to it because it is a complex and challenging art form of great intellectual rigour. Most of the people who listen to it just want "some nice soft music for the background" or "fun classical beats to work/study to" or whatever. Any pianist who successfully presented Beethoven with all of the breakneck tempos, clashing dissonances and violent contrasts that his music demands would find themselves not selling very many records.

[lostinidlewonder]

I disagree that my opinion has to be believable

So you're the kind of person who thinks the world is flat too no doubt lol.

but I find it entertaining that it seems to be triggering the master triggerer himself.

Lol triggered? Yes you can believe that if you feel better about yourself lol. Your weak opinion that arrau is dull requires evidence or you are just a crazy person talking crap.

According to what measuring system? Can you tell me how to show that he is dull?

You're the one with that marginalised opinion so if you can't prove it to yourself you are just believing ideas that you yourself don't even know why. Just because someone you think plays better does not mean that he is dull.

I find his recording more boring than Annie Fischer because the tempo is slower and passages that are full of fire and forward momentum in Fischer's recordings sound more plodding and pondurous in Arrau's playing, and I prefer the former. Arrau is good, just not my taste.

You just making up rubbish, that's fine you can have this fantasy in your head. Come on compare exact bars and contrast them, your opinion will just crumble at any attempt to show that arrau sounds dull. You think you can say arrau is dull and its your opinion and people should respect your opinion? Well I'll just make fun of you because it's a wrong opinion. So you think someone plays Beethoven better than arrau (who is considered a Beethoven specialist), and thus he is dull through and through right? Ignore all his other playing lol. Illogical and just wrong.

[lostinidlewonder]

Arrau's Beethoven is terrible...

Ahh pianostreet, the flat earthers of classical music taste.

[nw746]

Ahh pianostreet, the flat earthers of classical music taste.

I've studied and analysed the Beethoven piano sonatas in detail for ~22 years. I have heard recordings by ~60 different pianists, including ~17-18 complete cycles. I have graduate and postgraduate degrees in music. It is my carefully considered opinion that Arrau's Beethoven is lousy, with the exception of the following recordings:
Op. 57, Ascona, 1959 [Aura/Ermitage]
Op. 10/3, Brescia, 1973 [Music & Arts]
Op. 53 and 81a, Columbia Studios, 1947/49 [United Archives]

All of which are good, if perhaps not the last word in any of these sonatas.

Arrau's best recording, and one everyone should hear, is the recital of 20 May 1963 in Lugano, where he plays Brahms's Variations on a Theme of Handel & Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit. The rest of the 1959 Ascona recital from which the Appassionata I recommended above comes is also worth hearing: Schumann's Fantasy and Debussy's Pour le piano (plus Chopin's C-sharp minor Etude). And I have always been fond of his 1964 Tanglewood recital of Mozart piano sonatas, even though it is not exactly in a style suitable to Mozart. In general, most live recordings by Arrau are worth hearing.

His studio Beethoven recordings, however, including both complete cycles, can safely be avoided. Most of the later live recordings (including the other ones packaged with the Brescia Op. 10/3 I mentioned) are also not very interesting; his attempts at the late sonatas were always soporific. There are many better choices: Paul Badura-Skoda, Olga Pashchenko and Peter Serkin on period instruments; Schnabel, Annie Fischer, Edwin Fischer (no relation), Bruce Hungerford, Friedrich Gulda, Hisako Kawamura, Jörg Demus, Michel Dalberto, Michaël Lévinas, Mitsuko Uchida, Steven Osborne, Solomon Cutner, Stephen Kovacevich, etc, on modern instruments. For people who really like slow, relaxing, easy-listening, Beethoven for babies type performances, Wilhelm Backhaus, Emil Gilels and Grigory Sokolov do so with much better command of piano touch and sonority than Arrau ever had.

I would accept praise of Arrau's studio recordings if one were discussing, say, his recordings of Schubert D946, D760 & D780 from 1956 on EMI, or the set of Schumann's major piano works he recorded from 1966 to 1976 for Philips, or for that matter the even later set of Chopin's major piano works recorded from 1973 to 1984, all of which do reveal a musician with deep insights into the Romantic repertoire and an innate understanding of the music of Schumann in particular, equalled by few others. But the technical ability with which he backed up these insights has been surpassed by many others before and since; and the studio tended to rob him of the energy of live performance that otherwise allowed him to overcome these deficits. And his Beethoven happens to just... not be good most of the time. It and the studio Mozart sonatas are the weakest part of his discography, and I have to assume the high praise he (and Barenboim, and Brendel; and for that matter Karajan, Thielemann, etc) has always received for his Beethoven is because most critics do not actually like the music of Beethoven very much and wish his music had been written by Ludovico Einaudi instead.

[nw746]

Compare the 1959 Ascona performance:

For me at least, eleven years makes a pretty big difference: the Ascona performance is less rigid in tempo and rhythm, the slow tempo & slightly exaggerated pauses cause the music to crackle with foreboding, even when the loud explosions don't quite live up to that promise. The Bonn performance is fussy, plodding, and sounds slow despite being technically faster, due to the fact that the slow tempo isn't stretched in the same way; it's shorn of drama. His studio recordings ended up suffering a similar fate.

As I said, although I think it's a good one, the 1959 Ascona is not my favourite Appassionata; that would be another recording, from someone else who also didn't have much technical skill to back up his ideas. I just think he had better ideas. (And a more appropriate instrument.)

[lostinidlewonder]

I've studied and analysed the Beethoven piano sonatas in detail for ~22 years. I have heard recordings by ~60 different pianists, including ~17-18 complete cycles. I have graduate and postgraduate degrees in music. It is my carefully considered opinion that Arrau's Beethoven is lousy, with the exception of the following recordings:
Op. 57, Ascona, 1959 [Aura/Ermitage]
Op. 10/3, Brescia, 1973 [Music & Arts]
Op. 53 and 81a, Columbia Studios, 1947/49 [United Archives]

All of which are good, if perhaps not the last word in any of these sonatas.

Arrau's best recording, and one everyone should hear, is the recital of 20 May 1963 in Lugano, where he plays Brahms's Variations on a Theme of Handel & Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit. The rest of the 1959 Ascona recital from which the Appassionata I recommended above comes is also worth hearing: Schumann's Fantasy and Debussy's Pour le piano (plus Chopin's C-sharp minor Etude). And I have always been fond of his 1964 Tanglewood recital of Mozart piano sonatas, even though it is not exactly in a style suitable to Mozart. In general, most live recordings by Arrau are worth hearing.

His studio Beethoven recordings, however, including both complete cycles, can safely be avoided. Most of the later live recordings (including the other ones packaged with the Brescia Op. 10/3 I mentioned) are also not very interesting; his attempts at the late sonatas were always soporific. There are many better choices: Paul Badura-Skoda, Olga Pashchenko and Peter Serkin on period instruments; Schnabel, Annie Fischer, Edwin Fischer (no relation), Bruce Hungerford, Friedrich Gulda, Hisako Kawamura, Jörg Demus, Michel Dalberto, Michaël Lévinas, Mitsuko Uchida, Steven Osborne, Solomon Cutner, Stephen Kovacevich, etc, on modern instruments. For people who really like slow, relaxing, easy-listening, Beethoven for babies type performances, Wilhelm Backhaus, Emil Gilels and Grigory Sokolov do so with much better command of piano touch and sonority than Arrau ever had.

I would accept praise of Arrau's studio recordings if one were discussing, say, his recordings of Schubert D946, D760 & D780 from 1956 on EMI, or the set of Schumann's major piano works he recorded from 1966 to 1976 for Philips, or for that matter the even later set of Chopin's major piano works recorded from 1973 to 1984, all of which do reveal a musician with deep insights into the Romantic repertoire and an innate understanding of the music of Schumann in particular, equalled by few others. But the technical ability with which he backed up these insights has been surpassed by many others before and since; and the studio tended to rob him of the energy of live performance that otherwise allowed him to overcome these deficits. And his Beethoven happens to just... not be good most of the time. It and the studio Mozart sonatas are the weakest part of his discography, and I have to assume the high praise he (and Barenboim, and Brendel; and for that matter Karajan, Thielemann, etc) has always received for his Beethoven is because most critics do not actually like the music of Beethoven very much and wish his music had been written by Ludovico Einaudi instead.

Looks like you have an elaborate reason to support why you harvest such marginalized perspectives but you are still not being specific you are just throwing up generalizations. Lets see you take some EXACT bars of music in a recording and demonstrate how Arrau is "lousy" and "terrible" with Beethoven lol. Do you have a favorite recording or an actual artist?

[music.]

Looks like you have an elaborate reason to support why you harvest such marginalized perspectives but you are still not being specific you are just throwing up generalizations. Lets see you take some EXACT bars of music in a recording and demonstrate how Arrau is "lousy" and "terrible" with Beethoven lol. Do you have a favorite recording or an actual artist?

Well...... Some people just have different tastes. I personally enjoy Arrau - I respect and acknowledge him as one of greatest pianists of all time. His Beethoven is WONDERFULL, and I listen to MOST of his sonatas.
But like I said before, others might find him boring and typical. That's just their opinion. Everyone deserves to voice their thoughts, right? 

[lostinidlewonder]

Well...... Some people just have different tastes. I personally enjoy Arrau - I respect and acknowledge him as one of greatest pianists of all time. His Beethoven is WONDERFULL, and I listen to MOST of his sonatas.
But like I said before, others might find him boring and typical. That's just their opinion. Everyone deserves to voice their thoughts, right? 

Yes people can say whatever they like even crazy ideas like such as "Arrau is lousy and terrible playing Beethoven" but those who have never heard about Arrau should be wary of such ridiculous comments making them more stupid.