Which pianists had/have a natural, effortless technique? I know nobody is born with knowing how to play the piano, but surely there have been some who didnt have to work extremely hard to be a virtuoso?
In my opinion Josef Hoffman was definitely, DEFINITELY, one of them…
who else? Horowitz? I heard he practiced very little…
ziff and richter are not because they were compulsive practicers, as was godowsky…
was Rachmaninoff a natural?
da 1st mofo that pops up in my head is da Genzuiking. he’s highly gifted with natural tech and he seldom practiced da 88. on top ov dat, da Horo admired him very much along with Schnabel.
da Horo dizzed da rest of German pianists.
Never heard da fuckah play…i suk
Walter Gieseking.
You probably have heard some wicked thing from him.
no, sadly I havent…
o/t…HOLY SHIT DOES ANYONE HERE HAVE DA LIVE POGO REC OF DA RACH PC 2??? I only ave the first movement and it is excellent!@!!! where’s da rest…
WRONG!!! He never dizzed da rach…lol… 
Rach iz not GERMAN.
WTF…MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH DA RANDOM MISTAKE!!! I DIDNT NOTICE U SAID GERMAN, I THOUGH U SAID RUSSIAN, CUZ I THOUGHT GIESEKING WAS RUSSIAN…
MWHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH SHEEYAT…
please forgive muh dumbass…
owns me
HAHA POZZ da community with more emoticons in da net
wrong!!! da ziff was not a natural…
HO dissed gensuiking aftah da war tho. he refused to play concert with gk on da program. da Ruby and othah mofoz did this too because supposedly Gensuiking was nazi sympathizer
Gilels’ APPROACH and tone-color are the most natural
Hamelin technique is most correct and efficient (and sometimes rather radical)
but overall
among sound, approach, technique, ideas, the most natural pianist is Sergio Fiorentino.
tru, but i iz talking about da 88. dat has nothing to do wif da genzuiking’s playing.
for german mofoz, da Horo cudn’t stand da kempff, fischer, backhaus, friedberg, petri …etc.
“I hated them all. Their performaces are insufferable” (Horowitz).
haha randomly i quazi agree wiz da jeff here 
deres some crazy shiat in dis gould biography dat I read…lyk when he was born he was wiggling his fingers eraditically and da doctah said “dis mofo iz eitha gonna be a surgeon or a pianist”…probably a load of sheeyat but still rather shibby to think it might be true
and den deres da learning to read music before being able to read words and all da shit lyk dat…there were a bunch, but I forget a lot of dem now
Speaking of which, da Lezbo should learn how da Hog played Liszt before starting to record his 1st CD. now da mofo issued 96 pimp CDs in total.
da Lesbo recorded 96 Pimp CD
and still don’t know how to play da 
tiz iz truly zome 
-level sheeyat
speaking of lesbo and hiz complete 
do anyone haff diz cd hyperion-records.co.uk/details/66438.asp
i would very interest to hear dese pimp’s transcrib of preludes and fugues.
diz iz not very strange. I learnt to read when I was 7 and a half and learned to read sheet music when i was 7. and I am not pretending to be special becuase I have a friedn who started to play piano together with me who did the exact same thing.
-da Meph
peter feuchtwanger.
at age 10 he played all the chopin and liszt studies after only hearing them on grammophone. n the grammophone went a bit too fazt so he heard n played everything a semi-tone too high…
wikid, da 10/1 in c sharp major, da 10/2 in b minah etc.
“Owing to my poor achievements at school I was not allowed to have piano lessons as a child. In any case, following our emigration we had no piano at home. So I often played truant and went instead to visit a neighbour - an elderly lady from Munich - on whose piano I was able to try out everything that I’d heard on gramophone records. (I was unable to read music at this stage.) I played all the Chopin Studies according to recordings by Cortot and Backhaus, nearly all the Beethoven Sonatas as played by Schnabel, and many other piano pieces. As I had perfect pitch and both our home gramophone and that of my neighbour ran too fast, I played all these works a semitone higher than written. When I subsequently heard them at the right pitch in concerts, I immediately and without difficulty corrected my performance. Thus I learnt how to transpose in a completely natural way (and I believe it is very important for my own students to develop the same skill if they can). When I was thirteen my parents finally allowed me to have piano lessons. My first encounter with a piano teacher, one of the most respected in town, went something like this: “Have you ever had lessons before?” “No.” “So, can you play something for me?” “Yes.” “Well then, show me what you can play.” I played La leggierezza by Liszt, with the alternative ending as played by Simon Barere on my recording. It seems that my performance must have excited the teacher, for he fetched his wife from another room and said, “Listen! The lad’s never had a lesson and plays better than my most advanced pupils.” I had to play the piece again for his wife. His next question was, “Can you read music?” “Yes,” I lied, ashamed to be unable to play a single note at sight. He opened a volume of Beethoven at an Adagio. I thought it might be the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, and played it as I knew it from Schnabel’s recording. He opened another volume, again at a slow movement - the second movement of the Pathétique? When he gave me a third test, once more with a slowish tempo marking, I played the second movement of the Appassionata. When I’d finished, he said, “Peter, why don’t you admit that you can’t read music? For one thing, you played the wrong sonata each time, for another, everything was semitone too high, and besides, you never once looked at the music. And by the way, La Leggierezza is in F minor, not F sharp minor.” He played me the opening in the right key. Embarrassed, I admitted that I�d never learnt to read music. He asked me to play La leggierezza again, which I did, this time a semitone lower and - as always - with a flat hand. He said, “You must play with rounded fingers, as if they were little hammers. Imagine you�re holding an apple.” (How often I’ve heard these words from other teachers much later in life!) As I didn’t play nearly so well when I followed his advice, I never returned to this teacher. Shortly afterwards I began studying with a former pupil of Emil van Sauer and went to an old lady who�d played to Clara Schumann in her time. Both recognised at once that I had a completely natural technique and didn’t interfere.”