What do you mean by sound production exactly?
This: youtu.be/8PdiQj_TIiY
No, what kind of sound the pianist draws from the instrument - the richness, variety, and color of it. Lipatti sounds pretty sterile to me. It’s not pencil drawings perhaps, but it’s simple, two-dimensional, sharp, and without much nuance. Compare to all the color, warmth and lushness of Arrau’s oil painting above.
I just listened to Gieseking’s early Gaspard…
Simply stunning. With the Ondine, nobody comes close.
It’s interesting to hear a non-percussive scarbo… again, one of the most unique and stunningly beautiful ever.
Is it a rip roaring stunning IZLAMIC BOMBAH wannabe kind of scarbo like early Pogo? No. I think I prefer it GIESEKING style 
It’s interesting you cite Arrau, because variety of sound/tone colour isn’t one of his most salient qualities to my mind.
Although the recording is an early one and his sound changed considerable as he aged.
Apart from the obviously colourful pianists like Horowitz and Gieseking, I don’t know that it is a quality I really hear in many pianists.
You’re right when you say it boils down to what’s important to you.
Except in certain composers like Debussy and Scriabin, colour isn’t what draws me in.
I’m more interested in a pianist’s conception of a piece than how well they realise that conception (and I’d tend to classify sound production as the latter).
As far as sound is concerned, I care more about a singing tone than a varied one.
Let’s put it this way…
I think what attracts me most to my favorite artists: Friedman, Gieseking, Richter, Rachmaninoff, Horowitz - they don’t treat music like a nice neat museum exhibit. Music needs some roughness too, tru. That’s why I prefer Friedman to Moiseiwitsch when I compare their conceptions of the same world side by side.
You have to get involved and excited with the music sometimes. To let loose once in a while. Not just observing and being humbled by the composer’s greatness or sum sheeyat.
I find that overt focus on “paler” shadings - sure, immaculate, to pretty, shimmering - but after while, just like anything - it becomes just one color.
You know - it’s nice to be STONED off your rocker, but not 24/7.
Back in Lipatti’s day - that kind of extremely polished, controlled but also limited in scope - type of playing, was a novelty.
I certainly see what is attractive about it - just as we can listen and admire the early Hofmann studio recordings.
Nowadays we have an abundance of this kind of playing - it is the norm rather than the exception
For me, I appreciate Lipatti’s artistry, but there isn’t anything that he recorded which I come back to again and again.
But tastes shift over time… maybe I will want to have a good dose of angelic purity via Lipatti or Michelangeli.
No variety is certainly true with Arrau - towards the end of his life at least it was pretty much one big oil painting from beginning to end with everything he did. Still, lots of colors, and a rich, full sound. Note however that the Les Jeux above isn’t the Columbia recording, but a 1980s live recording.
There’s also an early Judo that I like, from 1929 I believe.
Oh shit! I wouldn’t have guessed that!
TM, the sort of clear, polished playing we hear at competitions is very different from that of Hofmann and Lipatti. I can still hear that it’s Hofmann or Lipatti when I hear them, which is more than what I could say about the anonymous playing of most young pianists.
“Letting loose” also depends on the piece, I don’t hear any self imposed constraints in Lipatti’s Petrarca or Chopson 3 for example.
Moreover, I don’t want to hear roughness in a lot of the rep that he recorded, e.g. Bach, Mozart, Schubert impromptus or Chopin Waltzes.
Also, what do you know about being stoned, Mr Virgin-Lungs ? 
Haha admittedly I never been stoned but I’m a pretty crazy ass mofo. self proclaimed Mr Flat Earth Secret Tranny Hunter.
Dat wuz quite a blow below da belt 
I dun know exactly what turns me off regarding Lipatti, but I certainly need to relisten to all his stuff tru
haha no hate.
I respect you more for not smoking.
Start with this:
I actually like the sound hear better than on the EMI CD.
You might need to listen to it a couple of times to really “get” it, because a lot of what he does is very subtle.
That’s the Columbia. Outstanding too, but less appropriate to use as an example for what I meant with sound production.
Yeah, I need to clarify this with Lipatti too - I’m not questioning the quality of his playing (and especially not when compared to his contemporaries). I’m just relaying my subjective reaction to it.
tru, I believe this copy has him doing sum IMPRO 
before sum of da selections.
Same thing here, I clearly appreciate the polished quality of this mofoz playing
Not improv per se, just preluding.
A shame this has disappeared. As the whole world knows now Horowitz sometimes still did around that time too, Bolet rarely even much later… I can’t think of any contemporary pianist who does it.
I wonder how much contemporary pianists think about the tonal relations between the keys of the works they programme?
I suspect Debargue does based on the encores he choose to play when I saw him live but I doubt many others.
I have to admit that I often didn’t, until one concert where I programmed Schubert G flat impromptu then Schumann Romance in F sharp.
Too samey, should’ve chosen something contrasting.
I wonder too… there’s such a sharp distinction between performers and composers today. There is a story going around of Pogorelich that he had been invited to a distinguished birthday party, I think in London sometime during the 1980s, and played some pieces there he was touring with at the time. At the end he was asked to accompany the guests on the piano in Happy Birthday. His reply? “I am sorry but Happy Birthday is not in my repertoire”.
…no Alla Turca transcriptions from Mr. Pogorelich.
Hahahaha!!!
But then again, that was pogorelich just being Pogo.
Pletnev would have unleashed a wikid birthday song, same goes for da Matzuev
I wonder what Sokolov would have done. He doesn’t strike me as that kind of guy, but if you can IMPROVISE a FUGUE. IN PUBLIC. LIVE ON THE RADIO.
Then you can probably do something with Happy Birthday too.