Best live performer?

What are your most favourite (a)live performers?
Covering all aspects (flawlessness, technique, style, virtuosity, interpretation, etc…)

My Top3 at the moment is:

  • Blechacz
  • Volodos
  • Hamelin

Sokolov
Mickey
Richter

The usual: Freire, Argerich, Lugansky, Berezovsky, Hamelin, Sokolov, Zimerman in no particular order.

Volodos, Sokolov, Hough, Argerich

i recently saw argerich live. it wasnt all its cracked up to be, honestly.

my picks are hamelin, zimerman, and maybe michelangeli.

damn, ABM’s returned to the living.

he’s so good he is always considered with the living

also i misread OP :cry:

wait, i guess i also misread it. i understood it as the best performer in concert, rather than in studio. well, if you want my favorite living performers in concert, just cross mickey off the list, but keep the other two.

so i will say Sokolov and… i dunno… nobody else really comes close in my book

Does Sokolov play a lot in America? He is not my favorite, just wonderin’
I would say argerich, but she speeds up a lot live, which I don’t love.

Writing (a)live was a shortcut used which means “live” and “alive” :slight_smile:

I don’t think I have to explain this one :slight_smile:

PS: Berezovsky is somehow…an animal

I saw Argerich recently too in Prokofiev 3 in London. The audience just loved her. I think she didnt even have to play and she would have got the same applause. It was a great performance.
I think shes at the point now where she is just so comfortable with all her repertoire, she can do a great performance just as second nature.
Its just a shame about the acoustics in the Royal Festival Hall. They leave a LOT to be desired. She created some beautiful sounds in the quiet parts, they were really magical, things I never heard in any of her recordings or TV broadcasts, but they kind of got a bit lost in that hall. Its such a shame. The same happened in there with Zimerman.

Volodos is coming to Birmingham in September to do Brahms 2, I cant WAIT! Hes my idol I think, or maybe Sokolov, I dont know, tough call

exactly what i felt when she played in HK, she played Beethoven 2nd with encore of bach englizh zuitez no.2 last 2 mvtz and Schumann Kinderszenen 1zt piece

I was at that performance - is it me or was it not as exciting as one would think? I was expecting it to be supercharged and it was just very in check! Amazing pianism all the same but didn’t lose it enough for me.
Yeh, the acoustics in Fest Hall suck especially under the balcony, I refuse to get a seat there, would rather be on top. Can’t believe London doesn’t have a decent sounding concert hall (Wigmore aside coz it’s small)!

Sokolov does not ever play in america.

I think Argerich WOULD be in my list too as she has the potential to be brilliant live sometimes, but her practice laziness and perhaps some other factors can also lead to her perfs being a disaster… it’s sort of hit or miss and runs the gamut from brilliance to “oh, wow, bad day, huh?”

I’m pretty sure she just plays the same pieces over and over these days. And no solo recitals.

well that’s because she’s sick, but even in the “older days” i have been told this was the case as well…

I just came home from seeing Berezovsky do Rach PC3. That guy is some beast, he makes a fullsize concert grand look like a toy piano :open_mouth:

but he can’t play a beautiful phrase :frowning:

Haha indeed…he’s like an animal…the way he plays the Liszt Transcendental Etudes or the Godowsky Transcriptions of the Chopin Etudes just confirm that as well.