The greatest pianists past and present
Posted by: EJS on 04 May 2012
Coinciding with the young pianists thread, I'm starting a thread to provide an overview of the best established pianists past and present. Let's hope we can do a better job than Universal with their Greatest Pianists of the 20th Century series!
Let me kick off with my two heroes:
Stephen Kovacevich
Christoph Eschenbach
(Who actually has this recording? He just did a remake for Harmonia Mundi)
Marc-André Hamelin
This set i continue to enjoy very much...
but just how good is Walter Olbertz?
Debs
Such a daft thread. Greatest pianist with which composer ???
It really matters.
e.g. I just love Perahia....... but not every disc, every composer.
Choosing one ultimate artist is impossible.
.... though I have certain sympathies with EJS's views 
Christoph Eschenbach
(Who actually has this recording? He just did a remake for Harmonia Mundi)
I have the original pressing. It is a well balanced studio recording.
I definitely prefer his B flat over Brendels. So far his rendition of the tune has made the most sense to me. ( sort of getting a point of it )
I am not sure if he belongs in the same calibre as Richter or Horowitz. I'd place him in the top of my B list 
Such a daft thread. Greatest pianist with which composer ???
It really matters.
e.g. I just love Perahia....... but not every disc, every composer.
Choosing one ultimate artist is impossible.
.... though I have certain sympathies with EJS's views
Well, of course, the idea of this post was to end up with an updated list of the who's who of pianism, not a contest or online poll on 'The Greatest'.
Cheers,
EJ
Christoph Eschenbach
(Who actually has this recording? He just did a remake for Harmonia Mundi)
I have the original pressing. It is a well balanced studio recording.
I definitely prefer his B flat over Brendels. So far his rendition of the tune has made the most sense to me. ( sort of getting a point of it )
I am not sure if he belongs in the same calibre as Richter or Horowitz. I'd place him in the top of my B list
Kuma, I do like his new recording, it's a romantically interpreted, dark reading. Much closer to Uchida than to Brendel (I do like Brendel's 80s recording of d960, I believe the middle of three official recordings. Have his latest live recording as well, but am not as impressed with that one.)
EJ
Shura Cherkassky
Nils Frahm
Good call MrClick - new and up and coming talent.
Nicholas Angelich
Louis Lortie
Nikolai Lugansky
Boris Berezovsky
Boris Berman
Lilya Zilberstein
Anton Kuerti
Van Cliburn
Claude Frank
Leon Fleisher
Richard Goode
Garrick Ohlsson
Grigory Sokolov
Ivan Moravec
Nikita Magaloff
