Human Comedians

 So: in my opinion, the greatest artists, creative and recreative, are 'human comedians' who treat seriousness with humor and humor with seriousness. That's how you get Mozart and Schubert and Brahms--Beethoven and Schumann at their best. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Since I've been talking about piano lately, let's talk piano. First of all, there are those pianists beyond mortals whose talents break the scale. There is no way to measure the quality of pianists like Rachmaninov, Josef Lhevinne, Hofmann, Cortot, Friedman, E. Fischer, Gieseking, Arrau, Horowitz, Richter, Lipatti, Kapell, Ogden, Argerich, Pollini, Sokolov, young Fleisher. Their most important quality is their uncanniness: the inability to hear them without disbelief that such things are possible on earth. Like Bach and Wagner, or Beethoven in heroic mode, Schubert and Mahler in their tragic modes, these are artists so gifted and powerful that they launch past the human. I like many of these pianists and dislike a number of them too, but criticism means nothing in the face of them because it's like an ant critiquing a cyclone. You do not get their superhuman strengths without their limitations. Though even among them, there are surely those who lose no human qualities among their superhumanity: Rachmaninov, Lhevinne, Lipatti... Does that make them the three greatest of all time? Well... there's an argument to be made. I might add a few surprising later pianists to that list: Gulda, Yuri Egourov, Hamelin, even Fazil Say, and there may be a whole new generation of these giant pianists coming up. We'll see.

But then you get the human comedians. Not necessarily giants (though a few come close: like Schnabel, Rubinstein, Lupu), but humans who practice art's highest calling: to figure out what it means to be a (&**%^% human being. To explore seriousness and play in equal measure, compassion and contempt, judgement and mercy, external and internal, dance and song, and integrate between these poles so as to provide a balance sheet that locates where truth lies. I've listed these pianists so many times that I don't feel the need to do it again.

Whether in music or any art, the most sublime purpose is to uncover life's multidimensional polyphony of expresssion. This is why great art rewards further contemplation than the initial experience. This is art's ultimate purpose and where I find lie the most meaningful experiences.

But I have to list, because the best I can do to illustrate to illustrate my bullshit syllogism is offer clips that may or may not show what I mean. Never the mind the details of how they play, just focus on the complicated, nuanced emotions they might make you feel.

Artur Schnabel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV8yluxHXm4

Artur Rubinstein: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLscY15Z0r0

Benno Moisewitsch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0jN-gl4ryo&list=PLMeOYP-ZXc_3n3ZMR251z0Ck4KcsElvxq&index=12

Guiomar Novaes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBubTPbv6EE

Solomon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDj6U0nHJ9M

Lili Kraus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwx6gOjtaeo

Clifford Curzon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAhIjl4u954

Shura Cherkassky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-gMklGePdU&list=PLMeOYP-ZXc_0T_5JJ8UcDKP_OI9NFBCg2&index=73

Rudolf Firkusny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgmC9gwU4is

Eugene Istomin (how did I forget him?) Piano Sonata in D Major, D. 850: II. Con moto 

Leon Fleisher (old): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdCf2dSTvMo&list=PLrZpHCu1Z8H6MCpqDPkSg45pcBdN1mk0w&index=8

Paul Badura-Skoda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eW_0UQu2ug

Alfred Brendel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aTdpcPA7S8

Tamas Vasary: Chopin / Tamas Vasary, 1962: Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise - Janos Kulka - YouTube

Stephen Kovacevich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXAPfMhykS8

Maria Joao Pires: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OEVFBMpmk

Radu Lupu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4nnjhHe15U

Nelson Freire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTC3TwYpjB0

Krystian Zimerman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe-GrRQz8pk

Stephen Hough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0XVgLZ8dVQ

Helene Grimaud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac7XtxUXn54

Leif Ove Andsnes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aecvdNPJeqM

Lars Vogt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wty50EN5xY

Paul Lewis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot4vxMtAh3A

Consider these the S-Tier pianists as it were who pursue what I take to be the supreme goal of art, or something... there are a number who come close: Haskill, Kempff, Casadesus, Serkin, Bolet, Gilels, Moravec, par examples, but I find a few human elements missing in each. Not many, but enough that I feel one doesnt quite hear a whole human experience in their playing.

It's not possible to express what this all means or how it works without going into much further detail, and even if I did, it would still read as bullshit to many.

The pianists I first mentioned in a >S-Tier category, a place beyond humanity. What does our humanity matter in the presence of giant natural phenomena? Even so I'm not sure these pianistic giants are either greater or better.

One day perhaps I'll rank musicians with no <S tier and see where these giants land while taken to task for their limitations.