A piece written on July 2, 2019.
This essay reflects on great pianists such as Ashkenazy, Pollini, Richter, and Glenn Gould, weaving together the author’s own concert memories and a renewed encounter through YouTube.
It speaks of the overwhelming power of Ashkenazy’s playing emerging from his unexpectedly small stature, the shock of rediscovering Richter’s greatness, and the intuitive sense of an unexpected kinship between Richter and Gould, while affirming that these artists are among humanity’s treasures from the twentieth into the twenty-first century.

2019-07-02
I was also surprised by how unexpectedly small he was when he appeared on stage, back in the days when I would always go to hear them whenever they came to Osaka,
One of the very finest pianists I have ever heard is Ashkenazy… In terms of generation, it is fair to say that he stands shoulder to shoulder with Pollini.
Back in the days when I would always go to hear them whenever they came to Osaka, I was also surprised by how unexpectedly small he was when he appeared on stage, but needless to say, the moment he began to play, I was captivated by his piano.
Today, for the first time in a truly long while, I listened to him again… that is one of the blessings of YouTube… First I listened to Chopin, and next, without hesitation, I chose Rachmaninoff.
What follows is a blog I discovered afterward while searching for the Prelude, Op.23 No.4 in D major.
After that, I encountered once again, for the first time in a very long while, the astonishing greatness of Richter’s playing, one of the great masters of the earlier generation before Pollini, Ashkenazy, and Argerich, alongside figures such as Michelangeli.
This is entirely my own personal intuition, but I instantly felt, quite unexpectedly, that there is something in common, somewhere at a profound level, between Glenn Gould and Richter.
It goes without saying that all of these people are treasures of humanity of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.