It is useful to remind people every once in a
while that being famous does not equate with
being good. The music and recording industries
have been brainwashing and gaslighting classical
music listeners since the very beginning of the
recording era into believing the following were
great pianists, while in fact they were some of
the worst:

Claudio Arrau
Wilhelm Backhaus
Lang van Bang
Daniel Barenboim
Alfred Brendel
Clifford Curzon
Solomon Cutner
Walter Gieseking
Glenn Gould
Gary Grafmann
Ingrid Haebler
Angela Hewitt
William Kapell
Wilhelm Kempff
Dinu Lipatti
Elly Ney
Neowrice Pawllini
Meowrray Purrahia
Rudolf Serkin
Mitsuko Uchida
Yuja Wang

Who do you think is/was the "best" (meaning
the worst) of the above? Did I miss anyone?

Thanks!

Not Gould. And not Brendel - at least when it comes to 365 (and maybe some Schubert?), the rest I heard of him was really bad.

And Barenboim did a reference recording of Schoenberg's five pieces for orchestra (op 16) - so he shall be forgiven for being a bad pianist and generally a bad conductor.

DeepBlue wrote:
>
> It is useful to remind people every once in a
> while that being famous does not equate with
> being good. The music and recording industries
> have been brainwashing and gaslighting classical
> music listeners since the very beginning of the
> recording era into believing the following were
> great pianists, while in fact they were some of
> the worst:
>
> Claudio Arrau
> Wilhelm Backhaus
> Lang van Bang
> Daniel Barenboim
> Alfred Brendel
> Clifford Curzon
> Solomon Cutner
> Walter Gieseking
> Glenn Gould
> Gary Grafmann
> Ingrid Haebler
> Angela Hewitt
> William Kapell
> Wilhelm Kempff
> Dinu Lipatti
> Elly Ney
> Neowrice Pawllini
> Meowrray Purrahia
> Rudolf Serkin
> Mitsuko Uchida
> Yuja Wang

Sorry I forgot Clara Haskil!

Cheers!

DeepBlue wrote:

> Sorry I forgot Clara Haskil!

How about Rudolf Buchbinder?

JudeoN4zi wrote:

> DeepBlue wrote:

>> Sorry I forgot Clara Haskil!

> How about Rudolf Buchbinder?

Okay he's not too famous, but neither are some of the ones you listed I believe (say Grafmann or Kapell)..

DeepBlue wrote:

> Sorry I forgot Clara Haskil!

What about Annie Fischer? I mean I think E. Fischer and C. Hansen suck as well, but when you compare them to other pianists of their time, they're actually not too bad... same could maybe be said about Gieseking..

> Cheers!

I also do think that Radu Lupu sucks... (yes yes blabla you can mention his prokofiev pc 2 or sth which he played live in some competition or whatever... but who cares, it was probably worse than Toradze's ;) )

Add HJ Lim and YES and Hiromi.

Add Schiff Kocsis and Ranki (Ranki was probably the best of them, while being the least famous)

JudeoN4zi wrote:

> DeepBlue wrote:

>> Sorry I forgot Clara Haskil!

> How about Rudolf Buchbinder?

Sucks -- but not famous enough! ;-)

JudeoN4zi wrote:

> DeepBlue wrote:

>> Sorry I forgot Clara Haskil!

> What about Annie Fischer?

Sucks -- but not famous enough! ;-)

JudeoN4zi wrote:

> Add Schiff Kocsis and Ranki
> (Ranki was probably the best
> of them, while being the least
> famous)

Ranki was indeed the best of his
class, which included Schiff,
Kocsis and Jando.

Schiff is a pig. I am surprised
at myself for forgetting him!

JudeoN4zi wrote:

> I also do think that Radu Lupu sucks...

He was really good when he was young.
Then he started to sour in the 1990s.

> (yes yes blabla you can mention his
> prokofiev pc 2 or sth which he played
> live in some competition or whatever...

Cliburn 1966.

> but who cares, it was probably worse
> than Toradze's ;) )

There is no shortage of great Proko 2
performances. I would rank Volodos,
Petrov and Zak as the top ones.
Toradze studied with the latter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmHtDO1JCRU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt7ps6cx2KE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeLmtCLMxdY

Cheers!

DeepBlue wrote:

> JudeoN4zi wrote:

>> I also do think that Radu Lupu sucks...

> He was really good when he was young.
> Then he started to sour in the 1990s.

>> (yes yes blabla you can mention his
>> prokofiev pc 2 or sth which he played
>> live in some competition or whatever...

> Cliburn 1966.

>> but who cares, it was probably worse
>> than Toradze's ;) )

> There is no shortage of great Proko 2
> performances. I would rank Volodos,
> Petrov and Zak as the top ones.
> Toradze studied with the latter.

Petrov is way too heavy and stodgy for this work; I onced like Zak here, but his approach is from a different time.. no like anymore. Volodos is good from what I just heard, but the quality of the recording is soso -- I'd probably choose Toradze over Volodos, but these two seem to be the best.

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmHtDO1JCRU

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt7ps6cx2KE

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeLmtCLMxdY

> Cheers!

JudeoN4zi wrote:
>
> DeepBlue wrote:
>
>> There is no shortage of great Proko 2
>> performances. I would rank Volodos,
>> Petrov and Zak as the top ones.
>> Toradze studied with the latter.
>
> Petrov is way too heavy and stodgy for
> this work; I onced like Zak here, but
> his approach is from a different time...

Duh!

> no like anymore. Volodos is good from
> what I just heard, but the quality of
> the recording is soso -- I'd probably
> choose Toradze over Volodos, but these
> two seem to be the best.

Toradze's is a studio recording, while
Volodos' is a live performance. No fair.

Cheers!