Thursday 17 July 2008

The 20th century boasted a plethora of great pianists -- even more than great violinists. Of them all, however, I find that Alfred Cortot, Artur Schnabel and Edwin Fischer have the greatest universal staying power. All three were at their peak in the 1920s and 30s, and it is interesting to imagine Abbey Road in the 1930s where Schnabel was recording the complete Beethoven piano sonatas and Fischer was at work on the complete 48 Preludes and Fugues of Bach -- to which I have just begun to listen with very great enjoyment. One wonders at the sheer courage of EMI/HMV in those days -- four hours of Bach; on 78 rpm discs!

One characteristic of all three pianists, I sense, it that one feels listening to their recordings that they were essentially playing for themselves; not for a microphone, posterity, a jury, the gallery. There is an entrancing feeling of communion when Fischer plays Bach. To be continued ...

4 comments:

oisfetz said...

Maybe, but at that time there were much better pianists: Barer,Lhevine,
Rachmaninoff,Petri,Rozenthal,Friedman,
Godowsky,Borovsky,Brailowsky and many
others.Technically they were vastly
superior.

Harry Collier said...

There were many, many better technicians. And most modern pianists can out-play Schnabel, Fischer and Cortot; technically. But better pianists? I think not.

oisfetz said...

Well, IMO you can't be a good player
of the piano or any other instrument
if you'r not a good technitian. How
can nobody be a good interpreter of
any piece playing wrong notes,tempi
indications an so on. To me, Cortot
was a bad pianist. But,of course,is
always individual tastes that import.

Anonymous said...

IMO, Cortot was an extraordinary musician, which is much more difficult to achieve than technical perfection.
Piano engineers are common and, for the most part, boring to listen to.