Fastest fingers in the West?

Fastest fingers in the West?

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norman lebrecht

April 10, 2015

This is Grigory Sokolov at work. Check the fingerwork from 0:18.
Grigory-Sokolov-Concert-in-Barcelona_1357772365_1

Comments

  • Theodore McGuiver says:

    Absolutely stunning, I love Sokolov’s playing. Shame the audience couldn’t wait to applaud until he’d actually finished, though.

  • Arto says:

    And what about the joy and technic of Fazil Say in his own Paganinni variations?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZSefvtdYiY

  • PAM says:

    This video is WILD — a friend shared it with me last week. Sokolov is just amazing….

  • Alberto Martinez says:

    Fast fingers are not impressive, the musicianship is

    • M2N2K says:

      Fast fingers *are* impressive too, but the combination of technique with musicianship impresses most highly. In any case, it is strange to talk about speed in Sokolov’s case because he practically never takes extremely fast tempi and actually prefers to play fast movements at a relatively moderate pace. His fingers impress mostly by their immaculate rhythmical and tonal precision as well as remarkable evenness of touch, with all of this augmented by subtle differentiation of timbral colors.

  • Jeffrey Biegel says:

    I think Abram Chasins Rush Hour in Hong Kong and the Presto of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons ‘Summer’ last movement for solo piano is faster yet. 🙂

  • Hilary says:

    Remarkable playing, and as others have pointed out, it’s the colour (plucked sonority at times) he invests with the dexterity which is so impressive.
    Weissenberg also had pretty fast fingers as well but occasionally reduced the music to an equivalent of a pile up on the subway escalators. Great pianist, all the same.
    I’m fairly deft but my fingers got in a muddle very quickly in the Couperin.

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