I tremble to recommend a DVD for you to watch. The Art of Piano was written by Christian Labrande and Donald Sturrock. It is an introduction to some of the great pianists like Backhaus, Cortot, Cziffra, Gilels, Hofmann, Horowitz, Moiseiwitsch, Rachmaninoff, Richter and Rubinstein, and discussed by great pianists like Barenboim, Graffman, Kissin, Kocsis, Sandor and Vásáry.

The best way to be introduced to culture is for everyone to consider the same bits; ideally we would all listen to the same recording of the same work by the same performer. If we don't do that, we really run the risk of trying to compare apples and pears. You might listen to Bach because you once heard the Musette which you liked, and I would listen to Dvorák because I once heard the Bagatelles which I liked. I'm not sure what helpful conclusions our discussions might produce.

I believe we understand culture through immersion; fundagelicals are on record as believing we can understand culture through aspersion.

One of the things a DVD like this might accomplish is to offer a framework for how to enter the baptistery as it were. It may help to know where to look and what to make of what we see. As important as I think my opinion of the great pianists is, it probably is not as important as the opinions of other pianists. And your listening to Ashkenazy because I like him is not really a good way for you to come to like Krystian Zimerman (whom I don't particularly).

This DVD will also give you some limited sense of how the world has changed.  As Barenboim said, we must realize that we are talking here about pianists who performed during the times these great works were composed. Some of the great works were composed for these pianists. There is value in entering the field with some notion of the difference that makes.

If you can get some sense of what these pianists where trying to do, you might know what to listen for and how to compare them to today's pianists who are doing something else entirely. To play a work solemnizing a historical event you lived through is very different from playing the work as though it were a museum piece, a standard work of the repertory.

This DVD might help you think of culture less as a parts list and more as a mindset.

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The Art of Piano
NVC Arts
N3984-29199-2