Who is the greatest living classical musician today?

[Mirror Image]

Since this is such an absurd question, my answer is Bugs Bunny. He's the greatest classical musician living today:

[Saul]

He's got to be one of these following schmucks...
http://www.youtube.com/v/psP0XgTI2VE&feature=search

[Mirror Image]

He's got to be one of these following schmucks...
http://www.youtube.com/v/psP0XgTI2VE&feature=search

LMAO....this is funny and at the same time pathetic, which gives a special quality.

[Daverz]

Peter Davison is the Mad Conductor (at about 1:10):
http://www.youtube.com/v/waPDoicrwzg

[Octo_Russ]

I would say Alfred Brendel, but since he's retired, i would go for Murray Perahia.

[Luke]

My vote, if I had to cast one, might go for Charles Rosen....

[mc ukrneal]

My vote, if I had to cast one, might go for Charles Rosen....

I like this choice. I like Alkan's suggestion of Barenboim as well. I am attracted to the idea of a musician who has also done other things as both of these two have.

[Henk]

Since this is such an absurd question, my answer is Bugs Bunny. He's the greatest classical musician living today:

You're right.

[karlhenning]

Daffy objected to certain persistent errors in his xylophone playing, however.

[jowcol]

Daffy objected to certain persistent errors in his xylophone playing, however.

And got his beak blown off as well.

[Sid]

I don't know about "greatest," but Argerich is up there with the best. I'm not paticularly keen on some of her playing, but she has done much in terms of teaching and mentoring the younger generation, which (I think) is more important in some ways...

[snyprrr]

Pogo!

[Brian]

I would say Alfred Brendel, but since he's retired, i would go for Murray Perahia.

He's still alive, and besides, in London this year he will be delivering a handful of lectures on the art of performance which I am keen to attend.

[Antoine Marchand]

Two octogenarian musicians: Gustav Leonhardt and Paul Badura-Skoda.

[Chaszz]

Since I am permanently addicted to Wagner, I put in Christian Thielemann, who is IMO the greatest Wagner conductor alive and worthy of comparison with the greatest ones of the past...

[mikkeljs]

Besides, the greatest living musician doesn't have to be a composer.  I'll go with jhar26's pick - Argerich.

Agreed. It´s definately a pianist. But which one, I have no clue. If Glenn Gould was still alive, I would have put him on top.

[zamyrabyrd]

If the thesis were not driven by ideology, the writers would own that this is deceptive 'documentation'.

If this point hasn't exhausted itself, I might add ideology has a lot to do with using "they" or "their" to avoid using "he" and "his" in fairly recent use. Otherwise the former is not a bad idea when referring to a collective noun that gets a singular verb.

Personally, I can't stand constantly tiptoeing through the tulips to avoid "offense" by the use of a masculine pronoun.  It also makes me laugh when hearing "humankind" as some virtue to include women as well when the derivation of "human" is from the Latin for "man".

ZB

[(poco) Sforzando]

My vote, if I had to cast one, might go for Charles Rosen....

That is a very interesting answer, especially as Rosen does not often make most Top Ten lists specifically for his pianism. (At age 80, his technique is very obviously deteriorating, and I don't think he "tried very hard" in his latest book, but his musical intelligence remains as acute as ever.)

Rosen's greatest strengths, in my opinion, are his continued deference of the canon of Western music, his inability to suffer fools gladly, his incredible wit,* and his phenomenal ability to examine passages from the canon in detail and to show how and why they are musically superior. When I'm feeling a bit less lazy, I'll scan the tribute Boulez wrote to Rosen in the recently published Festschrift celebrating his 80th birthday.

* Examples (paraphrasing from memory):
"When a critic complained that suppressing the music of Hans Pfitzner was the result of a terrible 'conspiracy,' all I could think of was, 'What a wonderful conspiracy that must be! Where can I sign up?'"

"Schoenberg said there was plenty of good music yet to be written in C major. The only trouble is, nobody has written any of it yet."

[Air]

Fischer-Dieskau
Pollini
Boulez
Argerich
Brendel