Best Pianist Ever

 The Times yesterday, in marking 125 years of Wigmore Hall, published the 'ten greatest classical pianists', as chosen by an invited list of some current acknowledged stars. My contribution is not worth having but, as Portsmouth's answer to the musical question that nobody asked, I must pass a Sunday afternoon by putting in my tuppence worth. Me commenting on pianists is somewhat less appropriate than having an American tell me about cricket or a bricklayer advising me on poetry but one never can tell and one mustn't stereotype these people.

The Times panel surprised me somewhat by making Sergei Rachmaninov no. 1. He came with the sort of physical advantages that put him already ahead of most others, all other things being equal. There's no way I could have won a Tour de France up against the heart rates, lung capacity and other attributes of the likes of Miguel Indurain. And, a perennial second in the sports day sprint races at school, I wasn't Usain Bolt either.

Rach had such big hands he wrote music that was beyond others. Claudio Abbado had to help out Yuja Wang with a note she couldn't reach with her lesser spread. But he was a force of nature, too. The Times list goes 2. Richter, 3. Horowitz, 4. Radu Lupu, with Martha Argerich at 8 the only one still living. No Gilels, Gould, Arrau, Brendel, Ogden, etc, etc. but one could presumably make a list of fifty and still miss some.

On the basis of her Bach and Shostakovich, going in with my preferred repertoire, I'd be voting for Tatiana Nikolayeva. I spent formative years with two Mozart concertos played by Barenboim. I've always liked Mitsuko Uchida and hearing a Mozart Sonata, no. 5, the other day means her set of those will be ordered soon. In the flesh I've seen Steven Kovacevich, Emmanuel Ax, Isata Kanneh-Mason and local stars Angelina Kopyrina, who never fails to take the roof off, and Béla Hartmann. I'd have to have Angelina in any top 10 of mine.

I wouldn't be having Glenn Gould. While technical perfection would never be an important consideration for me, I'm not sure how far I'd go with innovative interpretation either. I'm listening more to the composer than what the performer does with their music so I will be all across Tatiana  whose 40-disc box-set has all the right pieces in it and, come a suitable windfall, all £100's worth of it will be given a home here.  

As ever, with such list-making, it's an unhealthy obsession and yet insists on being done from time to time as soon as one concedes that one thing is better than another. If Bach is a better composer than Piazolla then it figures that they can all be put in order of superiority. But aged maybe 13 or 14 and applying devoutly communist principles to anything I could think of, I took all the teams out of my football league ladder because none should be put above any other. Teams should play nicely, pass to each other and socialize pleasantly at half time and afterwards.

Which is, of course, even more ridiculous because it would abnegate the whole point of football. By now, I'd gladly accept that but not the abnegation of music because if we did that it would follow that I'd be just as likely to appear at the Menuhin Room, singing pop songs out of tune, as any proper musician doing something they are good at and all the great work that has gone into building the series would be demolished at a stroke.