Youtube once decided to offer me a performance by Grigory Sokolov. Since then I have listened to many performances by him and have always been enthralled.
Fortunately for us, the world is full of brilliant classical pianists. The music-lover would be hard pressed to choose a favorite, but there's no need. Why do I have to decide whether Andres Schiff or Angela Hewitt, so different from one another in personality and self-presentation, is a better pianist than Yuja Wang, let's say, or twentieth century virtuosi like Rubinstein and Horowitz?
Nevertheless, I find something particularly compelling in Sokolov's playing. When I listen to one of his (obviously) recorded performances I have the illusion that he is playing just for me, that he is sharing with me an intimate and personal understanding of the music.
That understanding goes beyond technical mastery of the pieces he plays, the impressive mastery one hears in a performance, by memory, of long, difficult, and demanding pieces, by any competent concert pianist. It is also more than sheer musicological understanding, which I'm sure he has. It's the elusive quality of emotional understanding. As he plays, one senses that the music is meaningful to him, that it has reached deeply into his soul, to use language that makes me uncomfortable. Because it has that meaning for him, he conveys that meaning to the listener and miraculously connects the listener to the composer, simultaneously making himself invisible, a link between the long dead composer and the living audience, but also incredibly present.
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