Welp... last night I said that Hofmann's Waldstein was sui generis, but that's before I heard Benno Moiseiwitsch's, whom Abram Chasins regarded as Hofmann's 'heir', a sentiment which according to Chasin's book, Hofmann endorsed. According to wikipedia, Rachmaninov similarly regarded Moiseiwitsch as his 'spiritual heir.'
This performance is incredibly similar to Hofmann, but in this performance, the sound is at least acceptable, and Moiseiwitsch still has far better technique in the finale. Perhaps Moiseiwitsch lacks that very last small measure of 'danger' Hofmann risks in the opening movement, but in a competition it is a 'photo finish.' Like Hofmann, Moiseiwitsch seems to anticipate the developments of historically informed performance - not only in the extreme fleetness of his tempos, but in the light clarity of his touch. How many pianists can make Beethoven not only sing, but dance? And yet, when you read the comments, a number of listeners allege that Moiseiwitsch makes Beethoven sound far more like Liszt or Schumann. I suppose that when you're accustomed to hearing Beethoven in the austerities of Pollini and Gilels, there's something about this approach that sounds sinfully romantic, and yet, when you read accounts of Beethoven's own playing, surely it was far closer this manic juxtaposition of emotions.
Not that Moiseiwitsch was at all a manic type of pianist. He simply followed the music where it took him, and reached the emotional core with almost too much seeming ease. Moiseiwitsch was a "pianists' pianist" more than a public's. It's not hard to figure out why, what's harder to figure out is how the public warmed to similar pianists like Hofmann for as long as they did. Hofmann had none of (god bless them) Horowitz and Rubinstein's playing to the gallery. None of Rubinstein's raising the hands high in the air, none of Horowitz's piano-destroying encores, and neither did one get obvious theatrics from contemporaries of Hofmann like Rachmaninov, Lhevinne, Godowsky, Friedmann, Schnabel, Gieseking, (Cortot perhaps...). I suppose their success can only be explained by the conclusion that between the two World Wars, audiences were so passionate about piano playing that there most have been hundreds of thousands of listeners around the world if not more who could genuinely discern the transcendent from the merely excellent. By the time Moisewitsch peaked, classical performance was just a little bit its 'Golden Age,' and the superstars were performers who put a little more effort into 'putting on a show' that should have probably been reserved for the music itself; but a career's a career, and if Rubinstein and Bernstein and Pavarotti became superstars by their theatrics, they did more than enough good for music and for other people to easily be forgiven their vulgarities.
Moiseiwitsch arrived a generation too late for his approach, which recalled both Rachmaninov and Hofmann in their prime until his death well in 1963. Rachmaninov and Hofmann could not be more different, they are like heads and tails from the same coin. You can fancy yourself hearing the enormity of Rachmaninov's frame (6'3, some say 6'6, hands that took in a thirteenth) as you can the wispy slightness of Hofmann's (5'2, hands that barely reached a ninth). And yet, between them is that same musical orientation of finding that perfect melding of classical and romantic, both employing the use of extreme musical discipline and rigor to find the greatest possible emotional resonance.
We'll come back to Moiseiwitsch, an artist far better known for his romantic repertoire than his Beethoven. Perhaps it's common now to disparage pianists who make specialties of the 'old romantics' like Chopin, Schumann, Liszt. Conservatories turn out hundreds of them every year, and the term used for them is "finger jocks." And yes,... there's something rather brainless about certain more contemporary approaches to their music (we won't mention any names...), but when played by pianists like Moiseiwitsch, Hofmann, Rachmaninov, Friedmann, there's nothing brainless about it. These are artists as grounded in the oral tradition of this music as today's younger bluesmen are to John Lee Hooker and younger jazz cats are to Miles Davis.It takes a level of artistry that marries passion to technique to intellect to taste, and the reason it's so popular is that, when done well, it speaks directly, rather than the brain or the nerves, straight to the heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0jN-gl4ryo
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