I recently, after reading some posts by Edna Stern on this site, got her Schumann cd which is not so simple to do here in the US (hence my reference to the french amazon). I'll first give it a plug by saying it is an amazing cd and everyone who likes Schumann should get it. The origin of this post is her version of his Fantasy which is simply one of the best versions ever recorded. 
To get to the point of this post, I compared it with the masterful version of Claudio Arrau and was struck by the difference. Arrau's playing could be described as so much more masculine than Stern's which seems an extremely feminine version all of a sudden. But, I don't think masculine and feminine is the right distinction here. As you might have guessed from the title I want to distinguish two different kinds of piano playing, and music in general. One is the heroic, the other is the poetic. Arrau is clearly the heroic piano player - you simply can't be more heroic than him, while Stern is clearly the poetic.

Some examples then: I would say the Dinu Lipatti is perhaps the most poetic of piano players, while Richter and Arrau are extremely heroic, as is Ferruccio Busoni (from the one amazing disc by him I heard). But that you don't think it is technical gymnastics I'm talking about, though , I'd say that Cziffra, one of the most technically impressive pianist of this century, is also one of the most poetic of pianists.
I'm sure many would disagree with my description of these pianists but the point is more whether you agree with the distinction and not the specific names and what category they belong to.

But then not all pianists are divided by this category. I would tend to put Rachmaninov, who I consider the best pianist of the century, as heroic, but pianists like Rubinstein and maybe even Gilels I'm not sure about (I haven''t listened to them recently enough).
(And so you don't think women fall into the category of the poetic, I wouldn't consider Clara Haskill, Myra Hess, nor Argerich as poetic pianists).
Similarly as not all literature is either heroic or poetic but these are simply two kinds of literature I would say the same for pianists, and musicians in general.

The other point I wanted to make is how the performer creates the music as heroic or as poetic music. When hearing the fantasy played by Stern it is poetic, while by Arrau it is heroic. So can we say about (classical music) pieces whether they are heroic or poetic? Or can we simply speak of performers?