Do you know that to play one bar of living music is more difficult than to play nicely entire music literature? It is not a “technical” matter. Even not a “spiritual” or “intellectual”. It is other dimensional physical understanding of living texture and ability to create living space. Especially between the tones. It is the most difficult task in creating great music.

Interesting, but from “big artists” whom I met only Richter was understanding the difference between “great playing” any instrument and “living music”. Nobody else.

PS
“Music specialists”, journalists, critics around the glob complaining that “serious (classical) music has become crushingly boring”. That is precisely because nobody even cares in our days about creating living space in music making. While it is a huge school which seems nobody knows in our days. Often musicians substituting living music with a great deal of enthusiasm and physical force combining with good technical skills (Berlin philharmonic for example), but still – it has nothing to do with secrets of creating live music. Such an orchestras as B.Ph. almost can’t produce a living tone as they are robotic technicians and nothing else. Unfortunately audiences have no idea how far the active and aggressive musical noise they produce from real living music.