All just my personal opinion
Dmitri Shostakovich, Preludes & Fugues op.87: comparison, recordings by Tatiana Nikolayeva (1962), Boris Petrushansky (1992/92), Vladimir Ashkenazy (1998), Konstantin Scherbakov (1999), and Alexander Melnikov (2009)
Piano Recital by Konstantin Scherbakov at Zurich Tonhalle, 2015-12-12 — Beethoven: Piano Sonata in C♯ minor, op.27/2, “Moonlight” / Variations with Fugue in E♭ major, op.35, “Eroica”; Liszt: Transcription of L.v.Beethoven’s Symphony No.3 in E♭ major, op.55, “Eroica”
… while for the past two decades the artist is mostly pictured with an earnest, maybe “Beehovenian” / titanic, somewhat closed facial expression, in the concert (which he presented with a mostly relaxed, yet controlled body language) his face hinted at a wealth of emotions — and his playing struck me as a prime example of the “big Russian Piano School” …
Igor Levit was born 1987 in Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky); in 1995 his family moved to Germany; he grew up with the piano (his mother is a pianist whose teacher had once studied with Heinrich Neuhaus), did his musical studies at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover and finished with the best notes ever given by that institution. Aged 17, he was the youngest participant at the International Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv, in 2005; he won the second prize, plus several special awards, such as the special prize for chamber music, and the audience award…
Godowsky (1870 – 1938), The Complete Studies on Chopin’s Etudes — Carlo Grante (2000) / Marc-André Hamelin (1999)