It's a blessing, also a curse.

　　Dvorak's Piano Concerto is always underrated, because of its "pianistic ineffectiveness". It is said that Dvorak didn't instill enough tonal complexity to the piano part for it to demonstrate its harmonic texture. Piano in this piano concero is more or less subordinate to the orchestra. Even Richter himself deemed this piece a failure for piano. So Kurtz rewrote part of it to add more briliance to the piano solo.
　　
　　Despite all those criticism, I still think it's a beautiful piece. For instance, the piano arpeggios in the first movement actually reminded me of my favourtie part of Beethoven's Emperor: the descending arpeggios in the first movement, like a spontaneous jump but a determined and fearless free fall. Also the very lyrical piano solo in the opening part of the second movement. But, most of all, I don't why, when I listen to this piece repetitively, the feeling of loss is deafening.

　　The most precious part is Kleiber's tweaking of the orchestra's sound, of course. It only takes comparisons to appreciate how briliant he is. It must be a blessing, at the same time a curse, to have that degree of sensitivity and imagination as to sound. He must already have the whole piece resounding in his mind before he stands in front of the orchestra. It must be a birds-eye view from 30,000 feet in the air, a chief commander's understanding of the whole picture: e.g. where and how should the oboe comes in. It must also be a close-up, a world examined under microlenses: e.g. whether the oboe shall tiptoe in or stride forward, left foot first or right first.
　　
　　So it's always unfulfiling to him no matter how perfect the finish product sounds to our ears. For instance, after one of Kleiber's concert, Richter went to the back stage to congratulate him. Richter actually wrote about it in his personal diary: "I fear that as long as I live I shall never hear another Tristan like this one", pianist Sviatoslav Richter noted in his diary in Bayreuth in the summer of 1976. "This was the real thing. Carlos Kleiber brought the music to boiling point and kept it there throughout the evening." Richter met Kleiber afterwards: "He seemed rather depressed and displeased with himself. I told him what I thought and he suddenly leapt into the air with joy, like a child: 'So, it was really good?' Such a titan, and so unsure of himself."
　　
　　Richter is the same. Self-doubt is the constant companion, no matter how unearthly genius they are to me.
　　
　　Maybe insensitivity and mediocrity is a blessing, after all.