Rachmaninoff, Horowitz, Sofronitsky and Gilels may seem too cool to the fans of La Soirée Hot – a series of erotic films that occasionally features a young female pianist. Indeed some conservatoire students (in Moscow and elsewhere) listen more eagerly to Chinese [Yuja Wang] or Georgian [Khatia Buniatishvili] pianists than to Rachmaninoff, even if they play his own concerti. In other words, audiences opt for hot concerts, décolletages and short dresses; and ah, ah, ah, oh, ah, ouch. Crescendo-accelerando, ouch, diminuendo-rallentando.
Of course, in comparison with these more or less young ladies, Radu Lupu [der davor abgewatscht wird: wie beim Schubert Brendels sei er auch bei dem von Lupu „unable to listen tolerantly“] is in a deluxe category. Yet, to some extent, he is Hélène Grimaud’s grandfather.
There are many pernicious trends in today’s music-making, but they all boil down to a common denominator known as Abbau or deconstruction. Alfred Brendel, Radu Lupu and Grigory Sokolov deconstruct phrases and global structures so that what we are left with amounts pathetically to odds and ends (as if paying homage to Beckett’s late works). Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida did their best to bury metaphysics and God. I do not think that music should undergo the same therapy.
Joachim Kaiser told me once, „Sokolov has three climaxes in every phrase.“ The problem with so many ahs, ohs and ouches is that they are aimed at the lowest common denominator. But in our day and age any common denominator is far more common than Highest Faithfulness.
Sokolov may be defined as Lang Lang’s sophisticated grandfather. Or Bang-Bang’s brother. Anyway, I’m fairly convinced that he is not Emil Gilels‘ son.
So die letzten halbe Seite des vierzehnseitigen Texts im Booklet von „Je suis Beethoven“. Die Episode mit Trifonov („vergessen Sie Horowitz, Gould, sogar Kissin“) aus dem von Dir verlinkten Text kommt, das sehe ich beim Blättern, davor auch noch. Aber das alles zu lesen überfordert mich gerade. Und eben: Lust drauf hab ich auch nur mässig.
Die „Tempest“-CD ist allerdings grosse Klasse, keine Frage.
Wenn ich die Watschen für Sokolov, für Lupus Schubert, in dem dieser vor jeder bedeutenden Phrase fast anhalte, lese, muss ich aber schon etwas grinsen, denn Afanassiev, phrasiert ja selbst immer wieder mit enormer Emphase – mit erhobenen Zeigefinger also, gerade so, wie er schreibt 
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #164: Neuheiten aus dem Archiv, 10.6., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba