Added: 4 years ago
From: Hiddejan
Views: 57,700
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:

All Comments (417)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • michaelangeli is out of tune

  • Funny, it's the 2nd or 3rd time I watch this video but I totally forgot about switching Gilels and Argerich. So I thought "that was rather bad from Martha, but WOW! Gilels IS great" - then I read again the comment and I felt really happy, Martha Argerich rules again :) Pletnev's great, too, and yes, Richter makes it sound like Beethoven :D

  • .................. *_* poor Tchaikovsky~~

  • Horowitz, Gilels, then Argerich

  • Horowitz - hands down!

  • @Hiddejan Who is playing the ending passage after the octaves?

  • @davidmirth Alexei Sultanov

  • Richter makes it sound like Beethoven. I prefer Argerich, Rubinstein and Sultanov

  • Sports! sad,,,,,,,,,,,

  • Rachmaninov said to Horowitz, after he heard him play this concerto live "Nobody can play the octaves as clear and fast as you! But it was not musical at all "

  • WOW ---- I have always wanted to hear these comparisons! I guess there are few that would add perhaps? Thibaudet, Fischer, Cziffra, Cortot, Hofmann, Brendel, De Larrocha, Curzon, Gieseking, Janis, Kempff, Cherkassky, Bolet, Davis, Ogdon, Rachmaninoff, Solomon, Watts, Pollini, Wild, Backhaus? I don't even know if all of them played this or even had recordings...off the top of my little head. JUST CURIOUS...I am an enormous fan of HOROWITZ and ARGERICH here. So that is my tie vote :)

  • horowitz no dubt!! is clear and fast fast great vladi:)

  • Horowitz and Argerich are unbelievably fast! Amazing!! Tiempo sounds a little messy, but Berezovsky even more so. I don't get the Lang Lang haters though... didn't sound horrible to me though he could have gone a little easier on the pedal.

  • Rubinstein head and shoulders. He plays it the most musically.

  • ...no, the audio does not get progressively better, no way, I am not sure why, these are all the sucky MP3's, something like that, they are all compressed in the same way, if you perform the same deballing operation on all the guys, hell, no wonder they all suck the same way...still a neat "video" if that's the right term...and Gilels and Ashkenazy sound best, to my surprise, unless Mr.Uploader is pulling a fast one, or at any rate...pulling something...

  • I love how you started with the oldest to the newest! xD And the audio gets progressively better!!!

  • Andrew: My bad. My point should have been that IF the tempo in this cadenza is kept in strict time, there will be an apparent reduction in tempo in the triplet section -- that is, there will be three octaves to the beat rather than four (as in the previous section). I still feel, however, that players in general should make it clear that Tchaikovsky has written the first section with four octaves to the beat followed by a second section with three octaves to the beat. Just me.

  • Horowitz and Argerich FTW.

  • Argerich got some really big balls.

  • To my ear what's remarkable about this collage (other than the fact that Michelangeli and Richter are a half-tone sharp) is that not one of these superstars makes clear that the octave passage changes from duple time to triplets for the last ascending scale. This is clearly marked in the score. I suspect the reason is because the duple section would simply have to be played more slowly to keep up tempo when the triplets occur and no one wants to sound "too tame" at the outset. Just a theory.

  • @cziffra11 Not true.

  • Tchaikovsky Octaves played by 16 Pianists 20101215ac===

  • Comment removed

  • What a wonderful post... thank you! For what it's worth, I think Horowitz unbeatable (how did he do it?) but Gilels and Agerich excellent too. Or am I just getting old? Thanks again - fun.

  • horowitz and argerich rule.

  • michelangeli fake, horowitz best

  • Comment removed

  • I'm sure I'll be downrated for this.. these don't sound very different at all. Slight differences, but I see some people going "X obviously played the best" or "ugh, Y was terrible!" even though it's totally interchangeable.

  • @Theseventhknight You just have a lousy ear, that's all.

  • @vysehrad some playing it faster, some playing it slower... that's not vast interpretative difference. It's all sixteenth notes at fortissimo.

    In general, I think if you can't play it yourself, you can't really have an opinion on how other people play it.

  • Comment removed

  • @Theseventhknight There are differences of touch, tempo, tone, articulation, cleanness, and accuracy. I can play it, but that's irrelevant; you have an opinion yourself, don't you?

  • @vysehrad Why bash others who you don't know? Why are you so insecure about your own ear?

    I have never learned this concerto seriously so I don't have an opinion at all, and besides, all of these are recordings so who cares? They can not even compare to whatever it sounded like in the hall. You can't really tell the difference of touch and tone and cleanness on a recording! How close were the microphones to the piano? And any decent pianist can play them fast and flawlessly if they work at it.

  • @SteveMass1101 My purpose was not to bash, but to disagree. I disagreed with a person who claimed that these octaves all sound the same. Where did you get the assertion that I'm "insecure" about my "ear"?

    Your assertion that one can't tell the difference is just absolutely false. It is not true that any decent pianist can play them flawlessly. None of my favorite renderings in this list are perfect, but that's quite beside the point.

  • @vysehrad I get the assertion that you are insecure about your ear because you told someone "You just have a lousy ear, that's all" that you don't even know. Maybe he has a fantastic ear, who knows? The idea of having a lousy ear is only your concept of someone else, and your own concept comes from you. The world is your mirror. When you read this here, you don't really see me, you see yourself reflected. Your own thoughts, your own concepts, and beyond.

  • @SteveMass1101 My training as a classical pianist and experience as a classical music aficianado has given me the ability to detect these differences between performances. His claim that there were no detectable differences between the performances is easily falsifiable by those with taste and/or training. You are babbling incoherently.

  • c'est argerich la meilleur interprétation :)

    mais je pense que les octaves d'Argerich en 1973 sont meilleurs que ceci

  • Excellent video, and awesome idea! I say Horowitz, Argerich, or Pletnev.

  • Gilels and Pletnev 

  • Argerich damnit so sick :S

  • It's OK those octaves... BUT I think that the octaves in the FIRST movement are far much more impressive and difficult than the THIRD... Maybe is the most octaves passages ever written...

  • HOROWITZ!!!

  • michelangeli fakeeeeeeeeeee

  • Michelangeli! fake!

  • I gotta go with Richter.

  • so who is playing the final coda ???

  • @Torowe1 - Yeah, who is playing the coda?!!!

  • I love that some of these genii even transpose into different keys !! ah the wonders of playback speed !!

  • Horowitz win! The greatest of all times! as rachmaninov said!

  • @ArodenPianoWushu93 Yep,but other's say that's Richter ^^

  • Obviously Argerich has the greatest technique, unrivaled. I think Pletnev has the best tone. Richter has the best combination of power and control. Of those who take it slowly, Kissin sounds most like he's simply choosing to, rather than forced to do so due to technical limitations.

  • Holy fuck but Lang Lang is truly atrocious.

  • Michelangeli rules !

  • @BrettStasa LOL, Michelangeli's recording here is a half step high, so it was clearly sped up. Guess he played it too slowly.

  • argerich is good... i feel sorry for the poor piano that langlang banged half to death :(

  • Gilels pour la parfaite fusion des doigts et de la musique. Ainsi que Pletnev si proche de Gilels dans cet extrait.

    Rubinstein pour la conduite dramatique impressionnante.

    Argerich et Tiempo à égalité pour l'électricité et la fulgurance pianistique.

  • sultanov and gilels the best!!!!!!

  • @Neuhaus43

    horowitz and argerich and sultanov !!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Damn.. Horowitz and Argerich sure have speed.. wow..

  • Such superb video edition !

  • I think I liked Pletnev's the best. And I'm so excited because I am going to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam tomorrow to see him conduct Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead and Prokofiev's 2nd piano concerto!

  • And Nelson Freire?!

  • Nice Idea ... GREAT PIANISTS ! All of them ....! But I REALLY ENVY the generations.....who were contemporary of RUBINSTEIN & RICHTER .... I could just imagine. . . atmosphere of their live performances...

  • What an extraordinary recording, well done and appreciated.

    Thank you for sharing.

  • first i want to say that i lyke the video and second its that in this part with octaves its a magic place wher every pianst makes his own potions, for my this part is important only 15% from the concerto ,i cannt say if horowitz plays better than lang lang,,,,,,,,, the 100%concert it intresting if you hear it with all of the pianst .

  • Its not Michelangeli, dude. He never played this concerto 'cause he used to say it was too "bombastic" for his taste.

  • whoever that was at 3:50 was the best. Excellent job on the video too from the biginning to the very end except one thing, you should have made the dude at 3:50 the last of the 16.

  • The "dude" is Evgeny Kissin!

  • It's not Michelangeli, he never played this concerto in public...

  • yeah i agree. argerich is the one that stands out for me though. i thought gilels was til i read the description

  • Horowitz # 1

  • My Top 3: Richter, Michelangeli, & Gilels.

  • 1.Gilels

    2.Berezovsky

  • Richter

  • It's quite interesting that Michelangeli's and Richter's versions are almost a semitone higher than all the others...

  • GILELS

  • michelangeli is the cleanest (as always)

    cziffra would have won the race if he played it though. :)

  • gilels

  • Gilels & Pletnev

  • GILELS

  • GILELS

  • i like arthur rubinstein best and then martha argerich and on third place it's kissin's version :D

  • interesting video

  • 1) van cliburn 2) horowitz

  • Argerich en Gilels.

  • HOROWITZ is THE DAMN BEST....followed by argerich.....i love both......

  • Sultanov and berezovsky wins!!

  • it is Martha then and Dong-Heyk Lim

  • it is magnificent, that argerich is the only woman in that list of great pianists. We compare Argerich to other male pianists.

    This is the perfect proof for me, that Argerich, physically weaker then a man, plays great and is a extraordinary talented pianist with perfection and high class playing.

    I like the Horowitz and the Richter version, but Argerich is great !!!

    In my eyes there is missing the pupil of Vladimir Horowitz. Byron Janis is great too.

    Great video

  • Martha Argerich "weaker than a man"?!! You won't come across many men who are stronger than she was in her prime!

  • Richter.

  • Where's Rachmaninoff?

  • @Neverpiefly I may be wrong, but I don't think he played it, I wish he did though

  • I'd have said Gilels ...until I read further !!! YES, indeed, Argerich is the EMPRESS of the keyboard !!!!

  • Sultanov wins.

  • Proof if any was needed that Martha Argerich is the world's greatest living pianist.

  • Volodos? he's good.

  • guys this is full of mistakes : michelangeli never played Tchaikovsky , no way. marta and gilels are swapped , what else ?

  • many thanks for this!

  • Can you please put up Michelangeli playing the whole 3rd mvt? PLEASE!!!

  • lmao i loved minute 5:05 haha finally it solves! i was like come on i need the orquestra!! hahaha very nice video :D quite interesting :D

    but... Who plays it till the end????? :o

  • oh i just read it was sultanov! i really like it! where can i get the full audio of the concerto with sultanov!?

  • Fantastyczne video !

  • I thought Kissin was cool. I've really turned around on him.

  • Comment removed

  • The best tempo and clearness: Richter, Gilels, Sultanov.

    The worst of all: Tempo, and Beresovsky. I couldn't hear anything under the pedal.

    The fastest: Horowitz definitly but the recording was very bad.

  • By Gilels, do you mean Argerich? The person that made this vid accidentally switched them around.

  • yes i agree you :) in fact i watch argerich in 1972 :D

  • HAHA! Great video! I'm with the majority I think...Horowitz, all the way.

  • gilels owns all

  • Richter, Argerich, and Horowtiz!

  • Hamelin should do this! Horowitz was the best in this video, I think.

  • The fastest Tchaikovsky octaves are in the Horowitz/Walter recording in 1948. However, the recording sounds like it was recorded a mile away from the stage....

  • Horowitz played the fastest and best. He is the King .....

  • Richter, Gilels and Horowitz..

    Definetly.

  • Horowitz, Gilels and Sultanov

  • Tempo is just bragging with no clarity at all, plays fast but sloppy

  • The best? Horowitz... as always!!!!!!!!!!! I mean, is there someone else? Maybe Richter but that's it for this passage, besides he is playing with Toscanini, his father in law!!!

  • Gilels and Michelangeli !!!!!!

  • Argerich' s left hand is coming behind the right hand! Listen carefully.

  • 3:23 sultanov. definetly

  • The lines written by Liebromeistral belong to Glenn Gould. However, he originally does not mention Argerich and Cziffra as pianists"determined to make us aware of their relationship with their instrument". Of course, Argerich and Cziffra are true musicians, as Richter was. (I'm sure Gould would agree).Their technique is totally serving the essence and style of the composers. For Liszt, i dont know, i wasnt there... but some people seem to be so sure that Liszt was a show-off pianist...how??

  • I think it's because she has an inhuman technique, and in virtuosic works, her strong desire to wow people causes her to forget the importance of playing musically.

  • Musical performance can be divided into two categories. The first category includes musicians like Argerich, Cziffra, Liszt, who are determined to make us aware of their relationship with their instrument. The second category includes musicians who try to bypass the whole question of the instrument and create the illusion of a direct link between themselves and the music and help the listener to achieve a sense of involvement with the music itself.The perfect example of that Sviatoslav Richter.

  • Nice work....:-)

  • This can't be Michelangeli as he never played this in public or recorded this in the studio. Who is this if it isn't Michelangeli?

  • an alien?

  • Thanks for putting this together! It's great.

  • Very interesting comparison (doesn't matter, that you get almost crazy, while listening that...)!

    My favourite is Richter - his slowing down at the end produces for me the greatest tension. And it's even music, what he plays, not only an obsticle run (like e.g. LangLang).

  • Most bored: Kissin

  • Gilels wins.

  • loved gilel's interpretation

  • Tchaikovsky you sexy bastard! ;)

    what a composer!

  • WOW!!! Who was that Sergio Tiempo?! He is sooooooo handsome!!

  • getting jealouse, jajajaja

  • .. me parece que si, je :-) t,v.m.b

  • 0:44 Horowitz 0:59 Van Cliburn 1:14 Ashkenazy 1:30 Rubinstein 1:46 Michelangeli 2:04 Richter 2:20 Argerich 2:38 Gilels 2:50 Pletnev 3:05 Scouros 3:22 Sultanov 3:40 Kissin 3:59 Tiempo 4:15 Dong-Heyk Lim 4:30 Berezovsky 4:46 LangLang
  • FANTASTICO!!!!

    Grazie Amore Mio!

  • 2:20 Gilels

    2:38 Argerich

    (read the description)

  • @klausknulp no! at 2:20 is Gilels playing and at 2:38 is Argerich playing!

  • To compare this part seems to me rather childish: "who can faster and louder".

    Would be much more fruitful to compare "music" and not this empty virtuosi stuff.

  • horowitz and argerich.

    by far.

  • Watch the Thirteenth Van Cliburn Competition live starting May 22 through June 7 at the Cliburn website. The webcast will feature live streaming of the performances, online voting, commentary, backstage access, all chamber music rehearsals with the Takacs Quartet and orchestral rehearsals with James Conlon, and more. Its free and open to everyone.

  • great video! Horowitz was, as you'd expect, phenomenal. The real surprise here was Lang Lang who, despite all the shit people give him, was pretty awesome too.

    Kissin was boring, and Ashkenazy was his usual uninspired self. How the hell did he win the Tchaikovsky competition anyway?

  • Wow, what an exceptionally bad audio quality from 0:44 to 5:02. First I thought something was wrong with my headphones but no...

    Sorry to tell you that but you completely spoiled your video.

  • stop complaining about the quality of the audio and listen the the quality of the music. Bad comment!

    Thanks for posting!!!

  • Ehm, what quality of the music could one listen to, when all of it is totally blurred by the poor audio quality?

    You'd rather learn some logic reasoning before trying to teach people lessons about what they should or should not do.

  • Can't understand that this should be Michelangeli, - I have never head his version of this concerto, - are you sure it's him?

    I heard at story that he did practice it for 20 years, - but he never played it live... but maybe this is wrong?

  • Can somebody explain to me why the Octaves played by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli sound like they were transposed?

  • Michelangeli has NEVER performed it in public!

  • The best are by Gilels. The most iqual, the most amazing and the most fast.

    (I play this concerto too)

  • Horowitz is the best :) insuperate and insuperable

  • Agreed

  • What's so special about this "octave" ? Is it particularly difficult to play ?

  • Yes, Octaves are the best! Octaves aside from 9ths and 10ths and up are considered to be difficult or impossible. If you play like Lang Lang and half the people today with the "claw", you'll find it is impossible and you'll probably break your hands trying to emulate them.

    If you try and copy Horowitz, you might find it easier, but since he could play the loudest out of all of these, I'd say you'd break your hands in twice as many ways.

  • (Play with flat fingers people! It is the easiest and most proficient - Horowitz was living proof of that.)

    PS I am biased to Horowitz's and Argeriches performance. Argerich is so even, and Horowitz is powerful like the waves of the sea.

  • way to go,

    nice upload :p

  • very nice clip...

  • I think technically Rubinstein is the best, but all are good... i Just thing that the last 8 are not really great pianists as the old ones (not from the octaves but from their playing)

  • i prefer RICHTER for the tempo and expression

  • it might be overkill. but a very entertaining exploit :D bravo!

  • Martha Argerich is by far the best! I'll be hearing her on later this month in London!

  • I wasn't aware Michelangeli played it. What recording is the Michelangeli from?

  • Does Michalangeli's sound like it's in a different key?

  • wow the orchestra sounds fantastic... i'm guessing LSO from the Sultanov recording?

  • yes you're right.. sultanov he's my favourite pianist

  • WOW!!! Who was that Sergio Tiempo?! He is sooooooo handsome!!

  • I hate Lang Lang

    Argerich is the best !

  • Martha Argerich and Lang Lang ...