We can be very snobbish in our approach to pianists.
Sometimes we are put off by the gossip surrounding a pianist, or by their appearance, or their nationality. This makes it harder for us to simply listen to their musical performances.
The problem is perhaps - how hard it is to simply listen to music! Listening, like meditating, it is simple to say and hard to do. Both activities involve physical passivity; an emphasis on our inner world; and a determination to ignore the petty complaints of our own mental policeman. Two thorny old examples: the nine wives of Nyiereghazy seem to put some people off that amazing Hungarian; and Maria Callas' romances confuse many people from listening with their soul to her singing.
Here are two AMAZING pianists from down under who deserved much much better: Geoffrey Tozer and Noel Mewton Wood, both from Australia.
Geoffrey Tozer is one of VERY few pianists of recent years who seem to play like a Golden Age pianist: a golden sonority; a loose-limbed flexibility assisting virtuosity; an emphasis on conveying mood rather than on hitting the right notes in a tight and controlled way.
If you watch how relaxed (keeps breathing!) and musical he is while navigating the scarifying parts of Paul de Schlozer’s etude: fluidity to die for, and I’m sorry to say that so many currently celebrated virtuosi are not even approaching the same league.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYs3BPmGMBg&feature=related
Noel Mewton Wood - the Classical piano world’s answer to Nick Drake. He committed suicide aged 31 by swallowing prussic acid, on learning of the death of a friend. Yikes. But just give him a chance: his Weber sonata no 2 could hardly be bettered - the warm tone, the gorgeous pedalling, the superb phrasing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGxtFIE5AX0&playnext=1&list=PLBEA66FDF7BB14896
If he were an 18-year old Russian prize winner, performed Chopin Polonaises, and dated a secretary at ICA, for sure we would listen more easily. How fashion -driven are our two ears!
Perhaps their two chief forbears in the Australian lineage are Eileen Joyce and Percy Grainger:
Eileen Joyce can be seen here performing Grieg, again with admirable freedom, musicality in abundance and joie de vivre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeAp512sdGs&feature=related
Percy Grainger seems to be undergoing a long overdue image rehabilitation, his recording of the Chopin B minor sonata remains one of the finest ever made, no easy achievement!
