Didnt a lot of his students say that those recordings arent an accurate representation of how he played?
Im not trying to say your wrong or anything, I just find it interesting how some people responded to this thread purely from recordings and live recitals they have heard, and others are taking much more into consideration.
I suppose you could hear a pianist play 1 piece exactly the way you like it, and think of them as your favourite pianist. How much should you hear of somebody in order to make up your mind?
Busoni would be at, or near the top of pianists I would hop into a time machine and hear on a moment’s notice–he truly must have been one of the greatest ever.
I agree. Id go see Liszt too, and Beethoven
Or watch/hear Bach tear shit up, improvising his ass off on the pipe organ.
Well either way, I think Busoni’s recordings are fantastic and I’ve never read anything about them not being representative of his playing. I DO remember reading, however, an interview with Gunnar Johansen who said his piano rolls sounded nothing like him, with the exception of the Feux Follets.
Apparently, there were more recordings made in 1919, but all of these were rejected by Busoni. He was asked to play the Liszt Faust waltz in 4 minutes, among other things. Only the 1922 recordings survive. He was in his 50’s when he made them.
A pity that no major compositions were recorded- the Liszt Rhapsody is cut.
If only he had recorded earlier, say 1911 - the year of his Liszt Centennial programs.
Imagine if all we had of Ginzburg were his studio recordings, or just 1950’s Gieseking recordings. It is very hard to judge. Even Ignaz Friedman is very poorly represented by recordings - he recorded and attempted to recordings things that were not in his active repertoire: Grieg Concerto, Beethoven’s 5th, the 30 minutes of Chopin Mazurkas and 20 minutes of Mendelssohn’s Songs without words.
At the same session that he recorded the last 2 movements of Chopin Sonata No. 2, he decided to re-record the Beethoven Op. 27/2. What an incredible waste of studio recording time. The fact is, if he record companies chose some of his active repertoire, he probably would have found the studio work much easier. And look at the treatment that Cortot got - he recorded a ton of major works at the end of the acoustic era, and then re-recorded all those works when electrics came out.
If only Friedman signed on to HMV in London. Same goes for Rachmaninoff. Seems that Colombia records was just as idiotic as RCA. Look at the treatment Busoni got Faust waltz in 4 minutes? Beyond idiotic.
Busoni approached DG about recording all the WTC and his Bach transcriptions around 1921–they turned his request down.
I actually really like that Beethoven recording…
I love that recording too - but I would have preferred that he finished the Chopin Sonata, since he already recorded and approved those Beethoven Movements in an earlier session!!!
But really, with Friedman, they should have recorded his Chopin Liszt and Schumann first, then got around to recording the Beethoven. 6 hours of recorded material is plenty - if you choose the right pieces to record.
Pludermacher, Tudor, Fischer, Entremont, Berman, Bolet, Sandor, Y. Takahashi, Laredo, Fiorentino, Agosti, Janis, Lewenthal.
Da random incluzion of da Sofronitsky in everywunz lizt iz a bit wtf to mah-bad-zelf; iz da SDC havin a Sofronitsky fad atm? Hiz non-Scrib recz dat I haff heard zeem wildly hit-n-mizz (n often wikidly inappropriate fo da muzic); zum inzane perfz, but juzt a bit too… wtf… a lot of da tym to put him in a top 10 lizt imo.
wanna talk about a bit wtf, you have yuji takahashi on your list
da fake-jre randomly becummin mah ztalker; if u wunna see mah cock, all u haff to do iz azk, baby 
Alzo, not everywun only liztens to Chopin n Beethoven; da Yuji Takahashi iz wun of da premiere performahz of contemporary m*zic zheeyatzu, n alzo randomly drop da doc-beating rape on da Rzewski PUWNBD, but I iz sho u iz actually familiah wiz a wide selection of hiz dizcography befo makin deez random, mad-at-zkep ztatementz n already iz aware of diz 
I just like stalking you because you’re so cool
And Yuji only has a career because of Eonta, which even for Xenakis’s piano writing is a piece of shit, brass parts aside. His sister is much more m*sical, see her Scelsi recordings for proof… But then, I don’t know anything about him because my only knowledge of music is Chopin and Beethoven.
Actually, Yuji Takahashi’s first encounter with Xenakis’ music was with “Herma” - Musique Symbolique, which he commissioned in 1960 and premiered in 1962 in Tokyo. Eonta was commissioned by the Domaine Musicale (a Parisian contemporary music festival), as an ensemble piece, not specifically a work for and/or including piano, to be conducted by Pierre Boulez in 1963; Boulez originally intended for Georges Pludermacher (the pianist who gave the European premiere of Herma in Boulez’ and Stockhausen’s presence, although not Xenakis’, at the 1962 Darmstadt Festival; there is a funny story about this premiere, as Boulez was reported to have perused the sheet music prior to the performance and stating the it would be laughed off the stage, in his typically jealous fashion, but the opposite happened, as it was so enthusiastically received it was encored twice, as opposed to his Premiere sonate pour piano, which was also in the repertoire) to perform the piano part when the score was received, but Pludermacher, after a couple weeks with the score, was incapable of learning it adequately, at which point Xenakis slightly retooled a few sections and rededicated it to Takahashi as a last resort to quickly learn the piece. Takahashi very rarely performs the work (he has done so four times in his life), and it is in fact more commonly performed by his sister, Damerini, Knoop, Pace, Ooi and Woodward, although Nicolas Hodges is really the one who plays it a lot; perhaps you are so stupid you can confuse a 70 year old Japanese man for a 40 year old fat, balding English pianist? As such, Takahashi has very little to do with Eonta (perhaps you confused it with Palimpsest, a work he performs much more frequently, although this work was premiered by Bellocchio with the Divertimento Ensemble, so again, there is little correlation between Yuji Takahashi and Eonta). But I’m sure you knew all of that as well, and just accidentally wrote “Eonta” instead of “Herma”. Perhaps an unfortunate google/youtube clicking mistake. At least read some of the wiki next time before you pretend to know something, Xenakis being a hilariously bad topic for you to try to faggot your way through, considering he’s the composer I’ve studied the most, having read all of his essays, his book and about 20 about him, ULing his complete works to youtube, scanning all of his piano works (if you have a scan of any of his piano stuff besides Herma, it’s from me), randomly had three (3) usernames on here/pianoforum with “Xenakis” in them etc.
Not sure why you’d say Eonta is “poor piano writing”. I’m sure he’d consider the stab-in-the-dark bullshit you just wrote poor writing as well, so consider it even.
Aki Takahashi is “more msical"? Maybe one of the most poorly conceived sentences in history. It’s so stupid I really don’t know how to respond to it; to do so would require way too much of my effort. So, in rebuttal, Yuji Takahashi is "more msical”. And since it’s obvious I know more about this than you, my opinion is more valid. I supply an identical amount of evidence, but am more knowledgeable, therefore I am correct, I guess. Oh, you want me to randomly name an album. Rzewski. Done. Oh, also, all of Aki Takahashi’s New Age, pentatonic, iconoclastic Japanese crap-discs immediately downgrade her to well below Yuji. But you probably like that shit.
Who is this asshat and why is it here? Logorrhea dementia is a condition that should be ignored, I understand, but this kind of masturbatory babble
does begin to annoy.
Ban?
I concur, getting sick of skep’s sheeyat, and I haven’t even been reading it. 
I’d prefer to know Chopin and beethoven good rather than being able to play Herma or whatever piece from Xenakis. period.
allow me to do diz wiz da ZEPP ztylinz:
ahahhaaahahahahahhhaa
u iz zuch a legend cuz u dun know who da ZKEP iz. dat iz how ve can tell dat u iz a legend; cuz u dunno who peepz lyk me iz, az u ztated 
alzo, dun vorry; da CANDAIN vil ban me at 99 poztz, diz I can azzure u, although tiz a bit fruitlezz, az dat iz da zection I randomly nevah go in.
Alzo, I iz keepin diz pozt zhort, bcuz apparently, if u correct zum1 elze’z bullzhit uzin a LONG pozt, den people get pizzed, but not with a SHORT pozt. tiz peepz with reazonin zkillz lyk dat hooz opinionz really mattah to mah-bad-zelf. Alzo, tiz worth noting dat I iz not da wun ztartin diz zheeyat, juzt da wun who iz bettah at it
I can honeztly zay two thingz az fact, tho:
1- I honeztly haz abzolutely no idea who u iz 
2- da fact dat u dun no who i iz makez u unlegendary 
ahahaha mannnnnnnn juz da word ‘HERMA’ bringah back zo many gensui memoriez fuckkkkkkkkkkk 
n da moz legendary zkepto-cizm i remembah wud haff to be
da MT tannhoe dizz, which went zumzheeyat lyk diz:
"average playin
from a 14 yr old"
ahahaha tru, n da MT Ravel SLW-dine, although diz unprecedented zlwnezz pozz haz been uzurped elzewhere on diz forum