A pianist
Zimerman isn't perfect? oh my! I remember reading that Rachmaninoff, who gave precious few piano lessons or advice, said each "phrase must be convincing." So I would ask, is Zimerman convincing? Most of the time, perhpas 99% of the time I'd say absolutely! Some time ago I started building a "pianist birthday" calendar and as I was researching discovered that many great pianist were pretty much self taught. Before that I had assumed that all great pianists had descended through the line of Beethoven/Liszt/Julliard or other great music schools. Not necessarily so! This brings me to wonder if the majority of pianist think, act, perform similarly, or is it something other than schooling and could piano playing be a varied and different as oil painting? After all what a pianist does should be art, and as my old piano teacher use to say, "what are you saying?", and then "Listen, use your ears!" I hear people criticize "wrong notes" but remember that in the classical period, pianists were "required" to make parts of it up, and "artistic changes" were highly valued! How the sentiment seems to shift like a pendulum. Now that I've meandered all over the place, what brought me here was a curiosity as to whether or not all great concert pianists had/have large hands? My teacher, after many years of study told me that I would never make a living on the concert stage because of my small hands (barely able to to reach a 9th). Off the top of my head I only know of one pianist that had small hands: Alicia de Lorrocha. Are there others, and is it true that large hands give the pianist a decided advantage?