What is the point of 'who played INSANE piece best!' videos?

[gasplamey]

I got this video recomended to me and  what the fxck is the point? Everyone knows the best recordings of this piece are Rach Horowitz and Yunchan and its not like anyone can listen to the same thing 30 times in a row and actually remember every deail to compare every pianist in every phrase anywayso why? And also why are all of the videos 'live only' when like every single one of the pianists probably has a better studio recording. And its only like 60 seconds of the piece at most not representative of anything really.Then the titles are always so clickbait like another one was 'the HARDEST passage in standard repertoire' and it didn't even look that bad just hand crossing and badly written 'musicality or some shxt. Another one was like 'most DEVELLISH leaps!' and its literally just mephisto waltz. This just seems like a easy way to make money.

[perfect_pitch]

First of all...don't know if I can give Horowitz a place in the best performers... albeit I only heard his recorded performance shortly before he died (can't remember what year it was). It was good, but top 3? I'd argue with that. I'd probably put Olga Kern in the list of top performers.

Secondly, welcome to the internet. It stopped being a place where people could upload their intelligent thoughts and ideas a long time ago, and is now full of videos of people trying to profit from other peoples videos in an effort to flood the interwebz with ad revenue and things that will earn them views.

Now you get piano tutors out there who just watch other peoples performances and critique them. Sure there is some value in a great tutor showing off good and bad technique, but there are large chunks where you are watching a video of them... watching another video.

[liszt-and-the-galops]

As someone who's made a few of these videos myself, I'll try to give a decent answer...

Everyone knows the best recordings of this piece are Rach Horowitz and Yunchan

Disagree, ESPECIALLY with Yunchan Lim. His performance is solid, but no where close to the likes of Rachmaninoff, de Larrocha, Lugansky, Argerich, etc. (who I also like more than Horowitz).

If you look at the comments under almost any of these videos, you'll see plenty of differing opinions, even for stuff that you would think would be pretty clear-cut. E.g. under a video doing this for the opening of Albéniz - Lavapiés (which only showed 10 pianists), the top eight comments stating a preference of performances are:
Gustavo Diaz-Jerez and Alicia de Larrocha
Alicia de Larrocha
Alicia de Larrocha
Esteban Sánchez
Alicia de Larrocha and Luis Fernando Pérez
Gustavo Díaz-Jerez
Gustavo Diaz-Jerez and Alicia de Larrocha
Vanessa Perez

its not like anyone can listen to the same thing 30 times in a row and actually remember every deail to compare every pianist in every phrase anywayso why?

You don't have to remember every single detail about every single phrase to adequately compare different performances of the same piece, especially if you're fairly familiar with it.

I'd agree that stuff like judging the final of the Chopin Competition (eight people playing the same two mediocre 30+-minute concerti) isn't actually a thing you can do (see the Abolish the Chopin Competition thread), but you can absolutely compare 10-20 pianists playing the same short passage over the span of 15-30 minutes in broad strokes.

And also why are all of the videos 'live only' when like every single one of the pianists probably has a better studio recording.

Studio recordings are edited to be "perfect." Live performances are far more likely to accurately showcase a pianist's ability to create music rather than showcase an editing team's ability to "create" music.

And its only like 60 seconds of the piece at most not representative of anything really.

Usually the passage that's picked is a difficult-to-play/interpret part of the piece in question (e.g. Book I var. 14 of Brahms' Paganini Variations, opening until the first double barline of Albéniz - Lavapiés), so the passage is at least fairly representative while still allowing for real comparison between the pianists' interpretations.

Then the titles are always so clickbait like another one was 'the HARDEST passage in standard repertoire' and it didn't even look that bad just hand crossing and badly written 'musicality or some shxt. Another one was like 'most DEVELLISH leaps!' and its literally just mephisto waltz.

I'm 90% sure that the "hardest passage in standard repertoire" one was one of my videos, specifically one for Albéniz - Triana. I'll leave it up to the reader to determine if this is truly the hardest passage in standard repertoire, though I'd personally say that either it is or it's up there, depending on what other stuff you consider "standard repertoire" (e.g. the opening of Lavapiés that I mentioned earlier is harder but whether it's standard rep is debatable).
 

(note: there's a chance you'll see the title as "the most absurd hand crossing in standard repertoire" instead because of Youtube testing shenanigans, though I'd say that that title is even more objective than the other one lol.)

I can't speak for other people who do the same style of video, but for the ones that I've done I've tried to keep my titles "enticing" while still being accurate ("Liszt's most infamous etude" for S. 139 no. 5 "Feux Follets" and "Alkan's most insane minute of piano music" for the first climax of his Concerto for Solo Piano).

This just seems like a easy way to make money.

I'd be surprised if anyone making these videos has made a penny off of them (I know I haven't). My understanding is that if any of the live performances used in the video are copyright-protected (usually there's at least a few that are), then you can't monetize the video.

You also can't monetize on Youtube at all until you have at bare minimum 500 subscribers and over 3000 "valid" public watch hours. I don't have the former, so I don't earn any money from my channel at all and can't even remove the that ads Youtube places so they can steal money from small creators.



To be honest, the reason I make these videos at all is because I liked the ones made by Es Bahn/ArgerichStan, but they haven't uploaded one in over three years and there's plenty more pieces that I want to see these videos made for. Plus, it's always fun when I find a cool recording/performance during my research that I didn't even know about, e.g. this performance of Feux Follets by Vladimir Sofronitsky. And why not share it?

[dizzyfingers]

I got this video recomended to me and  what the fxck is the point? Everyone knows the best recordings of this piece are Rach Horowitz and Yunchan and its not like anyone can listen to the same thing 30 times in a row and actually remember every deail to compare every pianist in every phrase anywayso why? And also why are all of the videos 'live only' when like every single one of the pianists probably has a better studio recording. And its only like 60 seconds of the piece at most not representative of anything really.Then the titles are always so clickbait like another one was 'the HARDEST passage in standard repertoire' and it didn't even look that bad just hand crossing and badly written 'musicality or some shxt. Another one was like 'most DEVELLISH leaps!' and its literally just mephisto waltz. This just seems like a easy way to make money.

I find them annoying too, fortunately the YT algorithm doesn't show them anymore - - perhaps because I don't click.  And yes, imo, they are for making money, though I'm sure the poster has a genuine enthusiasm about these pieces.

If you can drum-up the ancient memories to when you were a 16 yr old piano student, pianistic virtuosity was an exciting prospect - - a dream that still had some potential for fulfillment, given how little we understood the requirements at that age.

What beguiles me is how adults can still be captivated by this perspective - - I suppose it's because they are new to listening to classical music and are still taken with virtuosity.  It's is a remarkable physical-mental achievement.  After a while, though, you just get used to it.

[essence]

Talking of Rach 3, it is impossible to ignore Cherkassky.

On the very first two pages, he already does the rubato better than anybody - it is a rocking boat, with a bigger wave half way through the second page. Absolutely perfect.

Sargent wasn;t a bad conductor either. But there is no doubt who is the leader.

First heard it when borrowing record from Michael Tanner.