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Addressing Some Injustices

This is in reference to remarks I may (or may not) have made about certain artists (i.e., classical pianists) in my typical dogmatic fashion (reminiscent of the great Hans von Bülow, I suppose) that I am prepared to withdraw, principally among them my sweeping (or, to use an Ayn Rand adjective, "wholesale") dismissal of Evgeny Kissin.

 More significant, however, are those dismissals that I'm unprepared to withdraw, which it might be advisable to keep in mind when you find yourself drunkenly on the point of purchasing a ticket to an Hélène Grimaud recital (especially if you know that she's going to play something well beyond her technical abilities, like the Liszt Sonata or the Bach-Busoni Chaconne).

 Divagations and stuffy academic prefatory remarks aside, I have finally come to appreciate Evgeny Kissin as a serious artist who occasionally produces good music. His phrasing is still hit-or-miss, however, and his exaggerated rubati give him the sound of being overwhelmed by the music rather than of taming it. His uncontrollable swaying when we have the misfortune of seeing him play doesn't help. But all that aside, his technique is amazing, and his music is truly great when he doesn't lose himself in a random distribution of rubati, as for example in the Chopin Preludes, which few play as well as he does. The even scales and the demonic thirds in Op. 28, No. 24 surpass even Argerich's performance of the piece. Only Cortot plays it better.

 I don't want to write too much about Alfred Cortot here, since that would imply that I didn't hold him in the highest estimation before, but it's impossible not to bring up Cortot's sheer perfection in the Chopin Preludes and Etudes. Every single one of them is exquisitely crafted, and performed with the breathtaking effortless spontaneity of one who has the piece in his blood, so that even when he recorded entire opera (plural of opus huff huff), each individual piece in it stood out as something whole and independent of the rest. When others record entire opera, one gets the impression that they're merely doing it to gratify their producers or to satisfy their own vanity in recording the whole set. Not Cortot. He is the poet of the piano.

 If anyone can be said to be a specialist of the Chopin Etudes, it's Pollini. You can avoid the rest of his Chopin on account of his emotional inertness, but he plays the Etudes brilliantly.

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