When described that way, it almost makes me want to play a Liberace album. Almost.
This link works:
Levant was terrific both as a pianist and wit and was considered Gershwin’s greatest interpreter of his time.
My favorite line from a talk show:
Host: How do you keep physically fit?
Levant: Sometimes I trip and fall into a coma.
Liberace was a fine pianist and a great showman. IMO, with more training, he had the potential to be a good working concert pianist, but he would have needed a lot more toning and experience in that rarefied world to be great on the classical concert circuit.
I don’t think Liberace had what it takes to have reached the heights of today’s top virtuosos, like Marc-André Hamelin, Hélène Grimaud, Daniil Trifonov, and Yuja Wang. But, he was very successful in the entertainment world he chose, and probably made more money and recognition than any of them.
Liberace was a talented child prodigy, but Yuja Wang was a working concert virtuoso by age 8. Yuja is now at the top of her game and only improving with age. She is a true phenom.
Sometimes the differences are small between a top piano entertainer and a top concert piano virtuoso, and you may prefer one over the other, but they are different. I prefer pure musicians. Here’s a good comparison between Evgeny Kissin (a pure musician) and Lang Lang (a talented entertainer). It doesn’t hurt to be on the autism spectrum either.
Exactly. This is why I have zero judgment for someone like Eddie Murphy, who was taking $15 million a movie to make movies like Norbit and Pluto Nash.
Why not? You get the money.
He was responsible for one of my all-time favorite one-liners:
“I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin”.
ETA: And another, on learning that Milton Berle had converted from Judaism to Christianity:
“Our loss is their loss”.
My impression of Liberace is that he got to be a very good pianist, and then he kept practicing until he could make it look easy. He could play something and turn to the audience, flash that TV-ready smile, and not a hair out of place. I tend to think of Lawrence Welk and Celine Dion as being part of that same esthetic; skilled, but their performance style is to make it look easy.
Well, then by those parameters, everybody singing the National Anthem at any major sports event that is not lip syncing is crappy because I honestly can’t say as I have ever heard one of them actually singing the American National Anthem the way the damned composer wrote the blasted thing. [Sorry, if you “want to make it your own” then do a halftime show of your own music, thanks.]
Why I never dis talent from commercials, tv shows and films - they pay the mortgage, put food on the table and kids through school.
I can definitely support Eddie Murphy getting back to better movies, but he really kind of has after a long, long string of big bucks for crappy films. He’s slowed down the terrible trash and begun going back to movies like Dolemite, You People(which he thought would be good), Coming 2 America(which he thought would be good), and other movies and projects he wanted to be in.
He’s even, I guess, doing Beverly Hills Cop 4, which I’m sure is paying a lot…but I bet he probably wants it to be better than that third one.
Take Nicolas Cage. Is he a good actor? Absolutely. Did he do a long, long series of trash movies to pay off tax debt(or something like that)? Yes, he did. He’s done now and my understanding is that he will focus on movies like Pig, Renfield, and Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Movies he wants to be in.