Your favorite still living Classical Pianists, or only dead ones ?

Alexeï Lubimov - My favourite living legend. The magic touch, helped by some wonderful ECM recordings. Lubimov has played everything tonal, atonal, lyrical, contemporary, from Mozart to Cage. I love his work with newer Russian composers.

Marino Formenti - The hands of surgeon. Fairly recent acquaintance, avant but also mysterious and magical. I love his interpretations of anything he touches from Kurtag to Stockhausen. His own music is pretty hot too.

John Tilbury - I mentioned him on another thread. British player now in his 70s, mostly known for his astonishing interpretations of the late Feldman pieces. Also involved with the early Cornelius Cardew graphical scores as well as being a permanent member of the AMM group. He is the past the present and the future.

Alfonso Alberti - Another new voice from Italy. He's been given quite a lot of recent premieres from upcoming and established living composers (Pesson, Sciarrino, Coluccino). A name to watch.

Hello Bert.

I think there are many great contemporary pianists, but as human nature would have it, they are always being compared to the legends of the past.

Having said that, I think that some of the "dead legends" had a certain advantage, in that they studied under the masters from the day, many of whom premiered compositions and knew the composer intimately. Leopald Auer and Milstein come to mind, as do Scriabin and Horowitz.

I always choose performance over sound quality. Thank God the sound engineers back in the 50's and 60's, or even earlier, really knew what they were doing.

With "Classical" music, most of my recordings are from the 50's thru the 80's.

Don't know if I answered your question...

Cheers

BBM