Can I come?

(Then again, those 'Roman' hands and Russian' fingers.) (get it? )

Shameless.

He reminds me a little bit of Tom Hanks in the movie "Big".

Yes, it's sad. Sometimes I wonder what'd happen if he suddenly lost them. Would we have a new deranged but artistically amazing pianist, like Pogorelich (in whose case the roles of mother/wife and teacher were united in one person)?

I hope you are not saying that he married his mother? That's not good.

Of course not. It's widely known that, just after the Chopin Competition he married his teacher, who was at the time twice his age.

Oh, that's interesting. I did not know that. Thanks for the information.

By my math, she was 43, he was 22 when they married. I know plenty of hot 43 year olds so
I say way to go to Ivo! The Van Halen song "Hot for Teacher" comes to mind, not sure why.

And still is.

http://www.math.brown.edu/~banchoff/twiceasold/

Regardless, she died in mid 90's.

Hmm... He is notoriously neither a Jewish nor a bad kind of pianist.

Today I attended another Kissin concert in Chicago, and just like the last time I saw him play, I was completely stunned by his amazing skill/talent/technique. Really, he was so good, I wish you all could have been there with me. He played an all-Liszt concert which was this:

* Etude No. 9 in A-Flat Major (Ricordanza)
* Liszt Sonata in B Minor
* Liszt Funérailles
* Liszt Vallée d'Obermann
* Liszt Gondoliera, Canzone and Tarantella from Venezia e Napoli

I'm not going to go into great detail about each piece because Kissin's playing was just so great on all of them that I'd be repeating myself. Suffice it to say, that his trills, his rapid-fire octaves, lightning-speed arpeggios, dynamics, tone shadings, and well...everything else was perfect! Almost inhuman - like he's really a god or something. His fingers, the way they trickle up and down the keyboard (which happens a lot in Liszt's music) is unbelievable. So delicate, and the way he can control the dynamics through everything...well...I just can't describe it. I'm still floating....

One interesting tidbit - during the Sonata In B Minor, a string flew out of the piano. I've never seen that happen live before. What is strange, is that it was not during one of the loud, powerful parts of the sonata, but during one of the softer parts. All of a sudden this 'thing' flew up and onto the stage and at first I thought I was seeing things. But nope, it was a string. Guess it was just that string's time to go. A technician replaced the string during intermission.

Another thing - an incident happened last time Kissin played in Chicago where someone's cell phone starting ringing as Kissin was playing. The embarrassed knucklehead was sitting on the stage (overflow seating) and right in front and near Kissin. Well, it happened again today! Only difference is that today's knucklehead was on stage but in the second row so we couldn't see him/her.

Almost forgot the encores...he played three of them. I did not recognize the first one. The second one I did recognize and I'm singing it my head right now, but darn if I can remember what it is. It has to be either Schubert of Schumann, but I think it must be an arrangement by Liszt because there were a lot more notes in it. Actually, I think it was two or three pieces tied together...oh, oh, oh....I know it....argh...whatever it was, it was very nice...like better than the originals. The third piece was the ever-popular Liebestraum which was a beautiful way to end things...like it gave everyone a chance to catch their breath.

Well, that's about it. I think I am now going to go and practice arpeggios for the next two years without stopping. And for the fashionistas out there - Kissin dressed in a classic black tuxedo, complete with long tales. Very formal.

Sorry to Kissin-lovers here, but I was recently very disappointed at his playing. I follow the Verbier Festival on the internet every year and nearly every year he comes to play. But what I heard was (for years) highly polished but neither inspiring nor inspired performances. Strangly only the halfs of each recitals (from the two recitals by him there) were published on the web (does it mean that the rest of them were even worse?), and even though therefore each published recital was very short, I couldn't listen to them to the end with patience. What he played I cannot completly remember, in any case I heard the most boring rendition of Schumann's Fantasie-Stücke op.12 from him.
But I admit there are bunch of excellent playing of him on YT.

This is exactly what renowned critics have been writing over the years. With all his formidable technical prowess, he seems artistically dull at times.

I admit there have been one or two recordings of his that I was not crazy about but I just can't help it, I think he's one of the greatest players out there! Maybe he also just likes Chicago because he always plays his heart out when he's here.