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Five Pianists - No Bad Recordings? · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  Thank you. This is Jed Disler and welcome to
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  The Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide
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  to piano recordings. I'm so sorry that I did
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  not have an episode this past Monday. It's been
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  quite a busy few weeks, you know, with taxes
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  and a lot of other projects and some deadlines
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  and some recordings that I had to make at the
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  piano for publicity purposes. I got way behind,
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  but I will try my best to keep on schedule. So
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  if you missed me on Monday, not to worry. In
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  fact, I heard from a couple of subscribers saying,
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  what happened? Have you forgotten us? And no,
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  I have not. But I have been having this interesting
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  back and forth correspondence with a subscriber.
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  who quite casually mentioned that certain musicians,
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  in his opinion, never made bad records. And I
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  asked, who are these musicians? And we started
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  to talk about it. And the subject got on to jazz
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  pianists who might fit this description. And
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  we got on to popular music and blues. For instance,
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  he was saying that he thought that the great...
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  Blue singer and guitarist and bandleader Muddy
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  Waters never made a bad record. I would kind
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  of agree with that. Even Electric Mud, you know,
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  his psychedelic experimental disc, that wasn't
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  so bad. I can think of maybe the bluegrass guitarist
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  Doc Watson. I never heard anything of his that
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  I didn't think was less than excellent. And then
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  we got on the subject of conductors. Pierre Monteux
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  is a conductor who arguably never made a bad
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  record. Certainly, Carol Antrell and the Czech
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  Philharmonic. I can't think of any of his Czech
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  Philharmonic recordings that are less than excellent.
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  Charles Macaris was an amazingly consistent conductor
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  on disc. Now, in the classical piano world, which
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  pianists can I safely say never made bad? bad
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  records. I thought about this and I'm going to
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  propose five pianists for the moment who I think
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  fit the bill. And I know there are others and
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  maybe you will not agree with me, but I've thought
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  of five pianists and we will take the conversation
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  from there. I'm going to start with Sergei Rachmaninoff.
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  He made his first recordings for the Thomas Edison
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  label in 1919, and then he quickly moved on to
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  RCA Victor, for whom he recorded up until 1942,
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  the year before his death. One may or may not
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  find all of his interpretations convincing, and
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  he can be pretty idiosyncratic and individual,
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  but his consistency and his sense of purpose
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  and his conviction about what he's doing and
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  his colossal personality cannot be denied. Also,
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  the level of technical proficiency in these recordings
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  is quite humbling when you consider that there
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  was no editing involved. These were real performances.
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  But it's not just note accuracy. In Rachmaninoff's
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  playing, you rarely hear any error of voicing
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  or of balance between the hands. or of timing.
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  And the Rachmaninoff recordings continue to be
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  studied and scrutinized and enjoyed by piano
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  mavens worldwide. And they've always been at
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  pianists' top of the lists of, you know, who
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  are the best pianists on record. And I've put
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  a couple of links in my episode description so
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  you can hear for yourself. I've done that with
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  all the pianists on this list. Dinu Lapati is
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  the next pianist on my list, and he left behind
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  only about three hours worth of commercial recordings,
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  maybe more than three hours, but not that much
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  more. The finesse of his technique and the cultivation
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  of his musicianship added up to... a recorded
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  legacy that's been revered ever since his tragic
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  death at the age of 33 back in 1950. Certainly
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  the Lepati recordings of the Chopin B minor sonata,
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  the Ravel Alborada del Grazioso, the Bach Partita
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  No. 1, and the Chopin Barcarolle have retained
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  their reference status for more than 75 years.
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  I would... put the Czech pianist Ivan Moravec
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  in a comparably rarefied category. He was much
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  more of a subjective interpreter compared to
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  Lopati, yet the extraordinary finesse and care
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  that he brought to both his playing and to what
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  he brought to the recording studio really do
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  stand the test of time. He really cared what
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  his recordings sounded like. For instance, the
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  Four Chopin Ballades have long been considered
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  classics. And I have a soft spot for his rather
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  rhapsodic and volatile, yet really thoughtful
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  and deeply considered 1963 recording of the Beethoven
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  Fourth Piano Concerto. I've talked about that.
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  performance on this podcast. I honestly can't
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  find any recordings in the Ivan Moravec commercial
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  catalog that are less than distinctive. Now,
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  of course, you may prefer other interpretations
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  in certain works, but Moravec was a pianist who
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  always knew what he wanted, and he never settled
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  for less than his best. I also would say that
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  Martha Argerich never made a bad recording, at
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  least insofar as her solo piano recordings and
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  her solo contributions in concerto recordings
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  and in her many, many chamber music collaborations
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  on disc. Her utterly natural and effortless pianism
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  really beggar's belief in so many cases, and
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  she's been remarkably consistent on disc and
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  in public. She was playing at full capacity when
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  she recorded her Deutsche Grammophon debut back
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  in 1960, and she still is playing at a remarkably
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  high level that totally belies the fact that
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  she is almost 85. My only caveat, though, is
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  that Argerich has tended to re -record a lot
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  of the same repertoire over and over and over
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  and over again with various collaborators, and
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  while her handling of the piano parts generally
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  remains consistent, the level of collaborators
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  do not always rise to her standards. Example,
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  Argerich recorded the Ravel G Major Concerto
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  for the first time in the 1960s with Claudio
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  Albato and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra,
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  and this has been one of the reference versions
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  for decades. Now, she remade the Ravel in several
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  live situations, and while the piano part is
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  still really wonderful, the orchestras are not
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  quite as good as... Berlin, and I don't think
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  the conductors are as good as what Abato gave.
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  Basically, her interpretations haven't changed
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  a great deal over the decades, but these pickup
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  orchestras and less than genius conductors don't
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  always match what transpires in Argerich's earlier
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  recordings of these concertos. And you can say
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  the same thing about repertoire with two pianos.
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  I mean, like how many recordings do we have of
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  the Rachmaninoff suites with Argerich and various
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  pianists? Or how many Beethoven Kreutzer sonatas
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  with Argerich partnering various violinists do
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  we have? The last pianist on this list may surprise
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  you, or perhaps it won't surprise you, but As
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  a pianist, I would put Vladimir Ashkenazi on
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  the list of people who never made a bad record.
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  I'm talking about his piano recordings. His discography
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  contains a staggering amount of recordings. tons
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  of piano repertoire, and he remade some of these,
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  of course, over the years. I would say that 99
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  % of Ashkenazi's piano discography represents
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  an extremely high standard of technique and musicianship.
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  Now, it's true that Ashkenazi could be more inspired
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  in certain areas of the repertoire than other
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  areas, like I wouldn't put his late Schubert
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  sonatas at the top of my list, but I might put
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  his Schubert G major and D major sonatas very
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  close to the top, or maybe right at the top.
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  And his Beethoven piano sonata cycle, I think,
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  continues to be overlooked and really underrated.
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  I think it's that once Ashkenazi began recording
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  complete cycles of repertoire starting in the
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  early 1970s, that it became kind of easy to take
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  him for granted. And yes, it's always on a high
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  standard, but do you want his Mozart concertos
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  instead of Murray Pariah's or Andras Schiff?
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  Or do you want his Beethoven instead of Claudio
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  Arrau? But if you just listen, you often will
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  be surprised at just how... excellent most of
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  his Mozart concertos are, and don't underestimate
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  big chunks of his complete Chopin piano work
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  cycle or his many chamber music. collaborations.
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  As a pianist, Ashkenazi maintained a really consistent
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  standard on disc. Now, some recordings are better
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  than others, and you may prefer some interpretations
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  by other people, but for someone as prolific
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  as Ashkenazi, his overall consistency cannot
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  be easily discounted. So, in that sense, I would
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  say that he never or rarely at least never made
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  it bad piano recording. What other pianists do
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  you think belong on this list? I'm curious to
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  know your choices. And if you don't agree with
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  my choices, I'd like to hear your reasons why.
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  And I think this is a topic that we can have
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  a nice, healthy discussion and debate about.
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  So until next time, this is... Jed Disler, and
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  you've been listening to The Piano Maven, your
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  friendly podcast guide to piano recordings. And
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  I look forward to your response to this episode,
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  and I look forward to you and I being together
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  for the next episode.