Edwin Fischer plays Bach Fantasy & Fugue in A minor, BWV 904

Edwin Fischer (1886 - 1960) ~~~ "Edwin Fischer: Remembering My Teacher" by Alfred Brendel What is piano-playing of genius? Playing which is at once correct and bold. Its correctness tells us: that is how it was to be. Its boldness presents us with a surprising and overwhelming realization: what we had thought impossible becomes true. Correctness can be attained by the expert. But boldness presupposes the gift of projection, which draws the audience into the orbit of one's personality. The personal, 'impossible' element in Edwin Fischer was twofold: his playing sprang from a childlike nature, yet, if the signs were favourable, it also possessed all the wisdom of the experienced master. The childlike characteristics were his sincerity and spontaneity, his ready sense of wonder, constantly rediscovered, his joy in playing, clowning, daring -- with what breathless gusto he sometimes romped through a Mozart Allegro! The master in Fischer was proclaimed by his gift for emotional differentiation, by the beauty of his tone and its extreme refinements, by his vision as well as by his grasp of the grand design. Child and master formed a perfect union in Fischer's happiest achievements; there was nothing to pull them apart... ~~~