Who are the piano GOATs (Greatest of All Time)?

Plastic pink flamingo lawn ornaments—art or kitsch?

That was the argument my brother-in-law started over 20 years ago, one that has become an ongoing family joke. He stated that if he considered them art, then they were art. Others argued that there are standards to what is or isn’t art and that mass-produced plastic pink flamingos didn’t meet any of them.

Ridiculous? Yes, but it illustrates an important point. When it comes to artistic taste, who gets to decide what is or isn’t worthy? This argument isn’t confined to the visual arts—it has been played out in music for centuries, perhaps most colorfully by Robert Schumann who created (and wrote about) a music society he named Davidsbündler (the League of David). It’s purpose? To defend the musicians Schumann found acceptable from those he labeled musical “Philistines.”

We may no longer use the same names, but because we listen to music through our own biases, we all—even the most open-eared of us—have our own“League of David” and “Philistine” composers and performers. Every article listing the “greatest pianists of all time,” every argument over who plays X composer the best—all are manifestations of this way of thinking. These lists can be helpful and interesting, but they become decidedly unhelpful when what are essentially personal opinions become something we argue about. It seems that anytime someone makes a “best of” list public, others take issue with it, something Frances Wilson of The Cross-Eyed Pianist recently discovered (and wrote about) when she published her own list and found herself judged harshly by readers who didn’t agree with her.

All the “best of” arguments have, at their root, this fundamental question: who gets to decide who’s worthy and who isn’t? Even if we fall back on the opinions of the experts, we have to remember that musical tastes change over time. Most of the pianists of the first half of the 20th century, for instance, took many more liberties with the musical score than more contemporary pianists who have been trained in the school of “the composer’s intention.” Composers and musical forms also fall in and out of favor. In his book The War on Music: Reclaiming the Twentieth Century author John Mauceri traces why what he names the “institutional avant-garde” dominated the last century and makes a compelling case for recognizing the brilliance of film scores. Does that mean that the film scores Mauceri extolls are musical art now that critics hear them differently, or were mid-century critics correct to dismiss them?

Eventually we have to look beyond others’ opinions, listen to recordings of many pianists, and ask ourselves how we judge what we hear. Notes, timing, technique, beautiful tone—these things are a given. Beyond that, what elevates one elite pianist over another? This is where informed personal biases enter the discussion. These biases have been created, influenced, and shaped by the opinions of teachers, experts, and, of course, our life experiences. In this thicket of opinions, it can be helpful to ask oneself what personal biases influence an expert’s choices, and it’s essential to acknowledge how much our own biases inform our convictions.

It is my opinion that the only true guides to discovering our favorite GOAT pianists are our ears and our hearts, and when we listen to someone play a favorite piece, we’re tasked with keeping both as open as possible. We listen for how the performer does or does not offer new ideas and worlds to us through the music. We listen beyond the question of right or wrong. Most importantly, as we listen, we ask the most essential question: Does it move me?

‘Cause there’s one constant on everyone’s “best of” list and it’s this: GOAT pianists elicit an emotional response. We can be dazzled by flashy notes and pianistic pyrotechnics, but the performances we listen to more than once are ones that move us deeply—ones that open our hearts and minds, and give us a bigger world. These pianists communicate at a level deeper than performance styles and connect us with what it means to be human. It doesn’t matter if our personal GOATs don’t agree with other people’s favorites. What matters is that these players invite us into a sound world that gives us both the universe and a deeper connection with ourselves.

Photo by Jürgen Scheeff, courtesy of UpSplash