Very interesting article!
Who are the pianistic idols of the pianists you love(and also those you don’t)?
ahahaha FUCK!!
da HUFF rape endorzement
da ANTZNEZT interp plagiarizheeyat
n da FREDDY HO obzezzion
harzhly no one mentioned da ZIFF 
Horowitz’s was surely Rachmaninoff? Bolet had Rach as #1 as well. Hough I believe in this article because I’ve often heard him take Cortot as example earlier, but I otherwise take these official bets lightly (from past experience if nothing else). I also know Hough held Horowitz in high regard early in his career, who Cherkassky at one point also singled out without hesitation as his favourite. Sokolov’s I think it goes without saying must have been Gilels. I wonder which Richter’s was? The pianist I’ve heard him give the highest praise was Sofronitsky. Arrau idolized Busoni, and I think Gould’s was - curiously enough - Josef Hofmann.
Richter described Sofronitsky as a pianistic God. Among mortals he favored Neuhaus in many interpretations such as the Emperor Concerto.
Rachmaninoff of course favored Hofmann, at least publicly. And Hofmann, likewise, Rachmaninoff.
Van Cliburn favored Oscar Peterson.
Gavrilov’s favorite is Gavrilov.
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I think he wouldn’t even hesitate to go on record with that 
Ashkenazy: “it’s impossible to imagine anyone playing Rachmaninov better than Van Cliburn.”
Hmmm…
Thibaudet: “and he (Ruby) was so sweet, gentle and grandfatherly; he was sweet and grandfatherly.”
So let me get this straight, he meant to say that Rubinstein was sweet and grandfatherly?
Randomly da Rach is my fave from dat generation as well.
Surprisingly, Arrau also praised Horowitz. Serkin also did, and I think Horowitz was at least a bit jealous of Serkin as well.
Well, 30’s Arrau played kinda in da 
style. Only without a brilliant tone.
Credit to Aimard for choosing Kontarsky. The rest a bit zzzz
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‘An artist like Kontarsky is far from a musical world which increasingly tilts towards the sensational, the demagogic and the populist.’
I would love to hear the honest opinions of musicians like Aimard as to the whole DG / Dress / Gloss stuff that goes on now.
Was Gould’s favourite not Schnabel?
Gould loved Richter too.
Could be… I said Hofmann since I remember he spoke very highly of a recital he attended with him in his youth.
The most surprising of Arrau’s favourites - to me anyway - is that he was also hugely fond of Conrad Ansorge. There are just a few sides around with him, and I think he only had a big career in Germany, but… yeah. That’s a name which certainly doesn’t pop up much.
With regards to Serkin incidentally, I think Horowitz saw him as his biggest rival in the US after Rubinstein. A former friend who heard both regularly in the 60s and 70s said Serkin was the only pianist he had heard who could generate the same kind of electricity as Horowitz and drive the audience in to a frenzy, even if repertoire and style were completely different.
Yes… my brain tells me the same. I respect him for in a time of individualism and extremes he stood as this beacon of austere logic. In some way I think he is to pianists what Bach was to composers. Showing the way.
But as a whole human being I just don’t agree. 
Rach’s playing reminds me of a watchmaker picking apart a clock or something. After I’ve heard him play I know exactly how the composition is put together and how every element of it fits and relates to one another, but I haven’t actually experienced it. I’ve never been moved by his playing, I’ve never been impressed with his concepts or insight, he’s never transported me while playing. As with Hamelin - with me at least - he speaks solely to the intellect, and I think I’d like more than that out of a pianist I’m naming my favourite from a given era.
The cadenza in this is my favourite Rach playing. The perfectly judged rhythm and rubato in the climax of this cadenza. Unmatched.
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I don’t know who my favourite golden age mofo is incidentally, but one who has risen in ranks significantly in recent years is Busoni. We only have a few sides of his playing, in uncharacteristic repertoire and which we know he hated making, but I still think a genuinely impressive musical figure shines through. The Fugue in his Bach rec is wonderful, as is his brilliant connection of the A major Chopin Prelude with the G-flat Etude, and that’s not even touching the Liszt Rhapsody. He didn’t leave my favourite recordings from the period, but I feel a personal identification with him somehow, more than with any other golden age mofo (as in if I had been a pianist myself, I think I would have sought much the same things he did).
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But this…more than intellect? It is also very touching and expressive, it does transport me…
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Yes yes!!!
Man, I’m sure he was less “calculating” than in his studio recs, we have some “live” material tru.