Who is your favorite pianist?

Question:

Who is your favorite pianist?

Please be an angel and tell me why.

Also, have you any favorite pianists from the past?

Vladimir Horowitz? I heard some of his recordings recently and
was absolutely spaced from it ...wow! What a pianist! Oh,, I am supposed to be more specific ... his style ... and his sense of underplay which gives such drama to the music .... the personality that does not intrude ...... and not the least to say the instruments he chose to play.. the one I heard him playing had a unusual amount of beauty in the treble, which as you know, can be remarkably bland and therefore disappointing to the pianist as well as the listener .... I really don't know enough to say, but I think I detect his savoring of old Russian tradition... certain chords rolled at points I, with my (very short) American training would not even know to look for ... and various other points of expression which made me sniff they were so beautiful .... Montserrat Caballe did that to me once ... her voice!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Sergei Rachmaninoff, without a doubt. Granted, I've never actually heard HIM play, seeing as he's been dead for quite a while, but his concertos are absolutely fantastic.

His compositions are unique because he had Marfan's syndrome, which made him very tall and skinny, but it also made his fingers very long, allowing him to compose pieces that some people physically could not play. According to rumor/legend he had a finger span of 13 white keys.