Best LIVING pianist (in your opinion)?

[liszt-and-the-galops]

In your opinion, who's the best pianist alive today?

The options I listed are the 10 living concert pianists I could think of who might arguably be "best." To get this out of the way, I mean historically rather than currently (so "Martha Argerich," rather than "84-year-old Martha Argerich specifically," for example).

IMO, it's between Gibbons and Katsaris (edge to Gibbons), though I'm curious what everyone's thoughts are on this.

[frodo10]

I'm not a good one to vote here.  I've only heard of Cyprien Katsaris, Martha Argerich, Marc-André Hamelin and Yuja Wang and haven't really listened to Wang.  I just randomly picked out a CD of Beatrice Rana playing the Hammerklavier sonata (having never heard of her before the CD).  I don't see how anyone could play any better technically.  Her soft passages are so soft, i can barely hear - which is a little annoying to me. But I don't know how large her repertory is or how much she performs.  I prefer Scherbakov performance of Liszt transcriptions of Beethoven symphonies over Katsaris, but this might be just because my ear is biased having heard Scherbakov CDs of these many times.  I only have 1 CD of Hamelin and it is a Schumann CD.  I prefer Andsnes performance of Schumann Fantasie op 17 over Hamelin.  Argerich was amazing at her peak.  But is she the best?  Anyway, I'll pick her.  Any great pianist must be able to perform Bach well IMO.  I've never heard any pianst mentioned here play Bach.  They must also be able to perform Beethoven well.  Perahia plays Bach to perfection as well as Beethoven - although I don't really like his Hammerklavier.

Anyway - you get the picture of why I can't really say whose best.  But I voted.

[kosulin]

Kissin

[psipsi8]

Hard to say, but what about Ivo Pogorelich? He never disappoints me. Instead, he's really creative. Because I'm a great fan of Bach, I'd have to include Grigori Sokolov and Daniil Trifonov amongst my favourite interpreters of his music and of Baroque music in general.

[frodo10]

I've always liked Vladimir Ashkenazy.  I better put his name out now before he dies.  HUGE discography and a career that spans many decades.  Everything that he does fits my ear.  Bach WTC 1/2,  Complete Beethoven sonatas, Complete Chopin, Rachmaninov,  Mozart, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, Schumann, Scriabin, Shostakovich. 89 CD's of solo piano with Decca - no concertos here.  Not to mention his conducting career.

[thorn]

I like Ashkenazy too, pianist-conductors are rare these days. As are pianist-composers like Hamelin and Trifonov mentioned above, likewise Stephen Hough. If you go back in history all the greats were able to do all three, so not sure why we stopped judging living musicians by the same measure? Sure it's not necessary if we're talking "concert" pianist, or "good" pianist/musician. But for words like "great" and "best" I think we should expect that extra level.

[gasplamey]

Yunchan Lim.
Of those on this list, Katsaris by far.