TEN MORE PIANISTS

David C F Wright DMus

1. VAN CLIBURN

Van Cliburn was born Harvey Lavan Cliburn on 12 July1934 in Shreveport, Louisiana. His mother was anaccomplished pianist having studied with a pupil of Liszt,Arthur Friedheim. His father worked in the oil industryand the family moved to Kilgore in Texas.

It was at the age of twelve that the young man won acompetition which lead to his debut with the HoustonSymphony Orchestra. Five years later he enrolled at theJulliard School in New York and studied with RosinaLhevinne who majored on the Russian composers andtheir styles. Cliburn won the Leventritt Prize at the ageof twenty.

He entered the International Tchaikovsky Competition inMoscow in 1958 playing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concertono 1 and Rachmaninov Piano Concerto no 3. Khrushchevwas asked if it was right to award the prize to an Americanas it was the period of the Cold War. He agreed and thefact that Cliburn had a standing eight minute ovationspeaks for itself. He had a ticker-tape parade in New Yorkand Time magazine said that he was the Texan whoconquered Russia.

At Carnegie Hall he repeated his successful Moscow performances under Kiril Kondrashin. RCAVictor gave him an exclusive contract and his recording of the Tchaikovsky resulted in the first everplatinum record.

He recorded the Schumann and the Grieg, Rachmaninov 2, Beethoven 4 and 5 and Prokofiev 3.

In 1958 the Van Cliburn Piano Competition was launched with a cash price of ten thousand dollars to thewinner. The first competition was in the autumn of 1962 at the Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

Cliburn toured in the Interlochen centre for the arts for about eighteen years. He visited the SovietUnion on several occasions and met Khrushchev and Gromyko. In 1972 he recorded Brahms’ PianoConcerto no 2 with the Moscow Orchestra under Kondrashin. That same year, he played at the WhiteHouse for Nixon and Soviet visitors.

The death of his father in 1978 who was also his manager created problems and a potential withdrawalfrom public life.

However he played at the White House for Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev. He was invited to commencethe celebrations for the 100th year of Carnegie Hall and embarked on a tour of sixteen cities.

In 1998 his partner of seventeen years Thomas Zaremba, a mortician, named him in a law suit claimingto have rights to Cliburn’s income and assets and stating that he may have been exposed to HIV due toCliburn’s sexual activity. The claim failed.

On 27 August 2012 it was announced that Cliburn had advanced bone cancer and he received treatmentbut died at his home in Fort Worth on 27 February 2013. He was 78. He was a member of BroadwayBaptist Church where his funeral was held before interment.

He was truly fine pianist who put the music first unlike some who only wish to show off. His techniquewas second to none and he has a polished tone. Although it may not seem important to every one hewas a reliable pianist and his performances particularly with the great Fritz Reiner should be ineverybody’s collection.

© COPYRIGHT 1989 revised 2012

2. SAMSON FRANCOIS

Samson Francois died comparatively young due to his extravagant life style which robbed the worldof an excellent pianist. He had good looks and, like Chopin was vain.

Although French, he was born in Frankfurt on 18 May 1924 since his father worked at the FrenchConsulate. His name was chosen as it signifies strength. He discovered the piano at the age of two andwas fascinated by it. His first studied in Italy with Pietro Mascagni who encouraged the boy to makehis debut at the age of six. As his family moving about he studied in Belgrade with Cirilo Licarwinning a first prize. Licar introduced to him to the music of Bartok.

Francois studied at the Nice Conservatory and came to the notice of Alfred Cortot who recommendedthat he go to Paris to study with Yvonne Lefebure. He had some lessons with Cortot who found theyoung man to be impossible. In Paris he studied harmony with Nadia Boulanger and piano withMarguerite Long from 1938.

In 1943 he won the piano prize for the inaugural Marguerite Long - Jacques Thibaud Competition.

He married Josette Bahvsar and they had a son Maximillien in 1955.

As a pianist he was ultra-conservative in his choice of works to perform such as Schumann, Chopinand Debussy but he also played Ravel.

He was a jazz fan and claimed that this was a good influence on his playing classical music. That Icannot see but he composed a piano concerto and a few film scores.

On the concert stage in 1968 he had a heart attack and he died two years later on 22 October 1970. Hewas 46.

© COPYRIGHT 1996

3. JULIUS KATCHEN

Here is another superb pianist who died young at the age of 42.

He was simply magnificent at Brahms and Rachmaninov. His recordings of the Rhapsody on a themeon Paganini will take some beating.

He was born in Long Beach, New Jersey on 15 August 1926 and at the age of ten, he played Mozart’ssublime Piano Concerto no 20 in D minor. The conductor Eugene Ormandy heard of him and invitedhim to play with the Philadelphia Orchestra in New York.

Julius had studied music with his maternal grandparents who had the name of Svet who were immigrantsfrom Europe and had taught at the conservatories in Moscow and Warsaw. Such studies ceased whenJulius was fourteen where he studied at Haverford College successfully with a degree in philosophygraduating first in his class in 1946. To represent the USA he went to Paris at the first UNESCOFestival where he played Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto. In 1947 he toured Europe giving recitals inLondon, Paris, Salzburg, Venice, Rome and Naples. The students and friendships he encountered inParis decided him to live there.

He married Arlette Patoux of Le Vesinet, France in 1956.

In the 1960s, he recorded the Brahms’s trios with Josef Suk and Janos Starker in beautiful and definitiveperformances.

One cannot understand why Katchen took part in a two-day concert in London hosted by theRolling Stones.

His last public appearance was playing Ravel’s left hand concerto with the LSO on 12 December1968.

He succumbed to cancer and died at his home in Paris on 29 April 1969.

He and his wife collected netsuke, miniature sculptors which originated in Japan, and 195 pieces weresold at auctions for £1.2 million.

© COPYRIGHT 1972

4. MURRAY PERAHIA

Murray Perahia is a Sephardi Jew born in the Bronx, NewYork on 19 April 1947. His family came fromThessalonika, Greece and he would have spoken Judaeo-Spanish or Ladino. His family had moved to the USA in1935. He had begun to study the piano from the age offour, but his first teacher was not adequate.

His awakening to music came when he was 15 and hetook the subject seriously. Two years later, he enrolled atMannes College where his main teacher was MieczyslawHorszowski. He also studied during the summers withRudolph Serkin, Casals and Alexander Schneider andothers. Serkin made Perahia his assistant at the CurtisInstitute for a year and the young man won the YoungConcert Artists International Auditions and, in 1972, hewon first prize at the Leeds Piano Competition presidedover by the unusual Fanny Waterman.

In 1971, he worked with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pearsat the Aldeburgh Festival but, by far, the most importantfeature was working with Radu Lupu. However, Murraywas the co-artistic director of this festival from ‘1981 to1989 and many have said that these years could have beenput to better advantage although in the 1980s he workedwith Horowitz and they became close friends.

Perahia has made many recordings for Columbia, now Sony. He recorded all 27 Mozart piano concertosand, quite frankly, some performances, if not all, are choice.

In 1990 he suffered a cut to his right thumb which became septic. He was prescribed antibiotics whichdamaged both his health and his career which was also threatened by a bone problem with severeinflammation. This kept him away from the piano for several years and he undertook many operations.In these wilderness years, he found comfort in the works of Bach. When recovered, he recorded theGoldberg Variations and other works of Bach.

The year 2005 saw the reoccurrence of the hand problem and, on advice from his doctors, he withdrewfrom the concert platform but, in 2006 and 2007, he returned to give recitals in London, Germany andten cities in the USA. He continued his heavy workload in 2008 including a tour of Asia.

He has recorded Chopin etudes and the sonatas of Schubert and a more rewarding project of theBeethoven sonatas. He was admirable in chamber music with the Guarneri and Budapest string quartets.He has been a guest conductor with the Academy of St Martin’s in the Fields.

At the recommendation of Isaac Stern, Perahia was appointed president of the Jerusalem Music Centre.

There is a refinement and elegance in his playing but his choice of music may be a little too conservative.

© COPYRIGHT 1992 revised 2012

5. ARTURO BENEDETTI MICHELANGELI

Here is am astounding pianist held in the highest esteem and rightly so.

He was born in Brescia, Italy on 5 January 1920 and began music lessons at the age of three with theviolin. At the age of four he studied at the Instituto Musicale Venturi under Paolo Chimeri. Later, andfor a short while, he studied medicine at the behest of his father. In 1938 he entered the MilanConservatory studying piano with Giovanni Anfossi and violin with Renzo Francesconi. Michelangelientered the Ysaye International Festival in Brussels where he came seventh. Gilels won first prize. Ayear later Michelangeli won first prize in the Geneva International Competition where Cortot claimedhim as a new Liszt. The presiding judge was Paderewski.

In 1941 to 1943 he was in the Italian Air Force and later joined the anti-fascist partisan movement andwas taken prisoner by occupying German forces but managed to escape.

Michelangeli grow up seeking perfection in all that he played and, as a result, he had a comparativelysmall repertoire and therefore concentrated on specific works. He set standards which have not beenequalled let alone surpassed for the music of Ravel such as the G major Piano Concerto and Gaspardde la Nuit. His performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no 4 is legendary and, although I amnot espoused to the piano works of Debussy, his recordings of Debussy is something of a benchmarkbut some have said it lacked atmosphere.

Many have commented on his accuracy at the keyboard and said there was not even a smudge, and,while he was brilliant at Schumann and Beethoven for example, he could be demonic in other works.He also brought to attention the works of the Catalan composer Federico Mompou.

As a composer he arranged 19 Italian folk songs for SATB.

He was magnificent teacher and among his pupils were Marta Agerich and Maurizo Pollini.

Giulia Linda Guidetti became his wife on 20 September 1943 and she later became a pupil and was avalued counsellor and secretary. But they seldom appeared in public and so most people thought thatMichelangeli was not married. From about 1970, although still married, he had a lover in Marie-JoseDubois, twenty years his junior, and she took over the secretarial work and was his agent.

In 1960 he played Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto at the Vatican for the Pope. It has been said that atone time he considered being a priest. He toured Russia in 1965 and, in 1968, went into voluntaryexile in Switzerland, bitterly angered that the Italian government had impounded his pianos because acompany in which he had been a partner had gone bankrupt.

Apparently, he did not enjoy giving concerts and was very interested in the mechanics of the pianoand often insisted his own Steinway piano accompanied him to concerts. He would say,’ I receivegood applause but half an hour later I am alone again.’

His last concert was in Hamburg on 7 May 1993 and consisted of Debussy.

He endured a long illness and died in Lugano, Switzerland on 7 May 1993. He was 73.

He was a deeply private man who, perhaps, sometimes distorted the truth. He was a hypochondriacand seldom understood but, as a pianist, has few equals.

© COPYRIGHT 1995

6. RAFAEL OROZCO

He is otherwise known as Rafael Orozco Flores and arguably the finest Spanish pianist we know.

As far as I am concerned, I have heard some of his recordings of music that I do not particularly likebut his playing is so communicative that I have had to listen.

He also died young at the age of 50, and some insensitive contributors to various internet sites wrotedisparagingly about the alleged circumstances of his death. Opinions and points of view arecontroversial; facts are not.

He was born into a musical family of Cordoba on 24 January 1946 and studied with Jose Cubiles andAlex Weissenberg as well as Maria Curcio who was the last pupil of Artur Schnabel whom Schnabelclaimed was his favourite pupil.

Orozco won the Leeds Piano Competition in 1966 when he was nineteen in which he played Brahms’sPiano Concerto no 1.

He coped well with fame and always gave credit to his manager, Terry Harrison.

He had a substantial repertoire including Schubert, Liszt, Falla, Rachmaninov, and Albeniz whosedifficult and complicated music he excelled in. Following his performance with the music of Albenizbefore me I am aghast at his amazing brilliance.

His recordings of the Rachmaninov concertos are not only superb but very powerful and movingwithout being slushy. These are not just performances but enduring experiences.

He gave recitals on five continents and played concert works with the world’s greatest orchestras.He performed at many prestigious festivals at Osaka, Prague, Berlin, Santander, Edinburgh, Spoletoand Aldeburgh.

He was the pianist in Ken Russell’s film The Music Makers based on the life of Tchaikovsky.

Cordoba awarded him the Gold Medal of the city and the title of Hijo Predilecto (Favourite Son).

He died in Rome, where he was living, on 25 April 1996. The Conservatorio Superior de MusicaRafael Orozco in Cordoba is named in his honour.

He had a formidable command of the piano, pianistic refinement, colour, sensitivity, balance, judiciouspedalling, excellent control, elegance and musical intelligence.

One recalls the electrifying savage glitter of his Prokofiev Second Concerto and the polyphony ofRachmaninov 3.

He was a likeable and delightful person who listened to people and was never judgmental. Many otherpianists do not have these graces.

His final concerts were in Japan in November 1995.

© COPYRIGHT 1997

7. DINO CIANI

Dino Ciani was an Italian pianist whom Cortot describedas ‘miraculously gifted…one of the most remarkableexamples of the rarest talents one could hope to find’.

He was born in Fiume, which is now Rijeka in Croatia,and studied in Genoa with Martha Del Vecchio. At theconservatory in Rome, he was awarded his diploma whenhe was only 14. From 1958 to 1962, he attended advancedcourses with Alfred Cortot in Paris and at other venuessuch as Lausanne and Siena. Ciani admired Cortot deeply.

It was in Budapest in 1961 that Ciani won second prizeat the Liszt-Bartok Competition and his career took off.He performed in France and various venues in the USA.His debut at Teatro alla Scala was with Beethoven’s PianoConcerto no 4 in 1968 with Claudio Abbado. That year,and with the same conductor, he played the demandingPiano Concerto no 5 by Prokofiev an underrated workwhich deserves more attention and his performance is thebest advocate for this impressive work. His performancesof Beethoven’s Choral Fantasie, Bartok’s SecondConcerto and the D minor Concerto of Mozart are stillremembered with genuine enthusiasm.

For a young man his repertoire was wide. He was the first to record the piano sonatas of Weber. Herecorded all the sonatas of Beethoven, the Debussy Preludes and the major solo works of Schumannand Bartok. He worked with many well-known conductors. He accompanied the baritone ClaudioDesderi in Schubert’s Winterreise. His last concert was in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no3 withCarlo Maria Guilin conducting.

On 24 March 1974 he was killed in a car crash in Rome. He was 32.

A Dino Ciani Piano Competition was created in hismemory in 1975 and is held at the Teatro alla Scala.Famous pianists have appeared on the juries such asAgerich, Magaloff, Pollini, Berman, Firkusny andCiccolini.

Since 2007 there has been a Dino Ciani festival in Cortinad’Ampezzo.

Not only was his death a tragedy so is the fact that somany people do not know of this remarkable pianist.

© COPYRIGHT 1977

8. EMIL GILELS

Emil Grigoryevich Gilels was born in Odessa, then part of the Russian empire on 19 October 1918 toa Jewish family that had no musical abilities although they did have a piano. Emil began studying thepiano at the age of seven with Yakov Tkach who was very strict and majored on scales and studies butit was beneficial.

Gilels made his debut at the age of 1 in June 1929 with a solo recital of Scarlatti, Beethoven, Schumannand Chopin. He entered Odessa Conservatory and his main tutor was Berta Reingbald. He also studiedharmony and other theoretical subjects with Mykola Vilinsky. He moved to Moscow in 1935 andstudied with Heinrich Neuhas, who had been a pupil of Godowsky.

In 1938 Gilels was awarded first prize in the 1938 Ysaye International festival in Brussels playingBrahms’s Handel variations and the Liszt-Busoni variations on Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. Thissuccess resulted in a scheduled American visit to the 1939 New York world’s Fair but this tour wascancelled due to the outbreak of World War II. Instead Gilels entertained Soviet troops on the frontlineand in the open air.

He formed a piano trio with Leonid Kogan (violin) and Mstislav Rostropovich. Kogan was Gilelsbrother in law.

He was awarded the Stalin prize in 1946.

Fariset Hutsistova was his second wife from 1947. She had been a student at the Moscow Conservatory.They had a daughter, Elena and family life was happy. Elena was a good pianist.

In 1952 he became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory and chairman of the InternationalTchaikovsky Competition at the inaugural event in 1958 which was won by Van Cliburn.

Gilels toured the soviet Bloc countries of Eastern Europe and was one of the first Soviet artists allowedto travel and perform in the West as was David Oistrakh. Emil’s American debut was in 1955 playingTchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no 1 in Philadelphia with Eugene Ormandy. His British debut was alsoa success. His Salzburg debut was in 1969 with a solo recital of Weber, Mozart and Beethoven followedby a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no 3 with the Vienna Philharmonic under GeorgeSzell.

This fine Russians pianist had a wide repertoire from the Baroque to Prokofiev. In fact, he premieredProkofiev’s Sonata no 8 on 30 December 1944 at the Moscow Conservatory. He was superb withRachmaninov and Liszt. He was admired for his no-nonsense approach and golden tone; he made the

composer the star, not himself.

He did admit that he had to play works by two Russian composers whose music he said was foul.

He suffered a heart attack in 1981 after a recital at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and his healthdeclined thereafter. He died during a medical check up in Moscow 14 October 1985, a few daysbefore his 69th birthday.

Sviatoslav Richter said that Gilels was killed accidentally when he was injected with a wrong drug.The Danish composer Karl Aage Rasmussen, who wrote a biography of Richter, denies this and putsit down to an unpleasant rumour. While I do not wish to be judgmental Richter was often unwise inwhat he said.

© COPYRIGHT 1990

9. BYRON JANIS

Byron Janis is undoubtedly one of American’s finestpianists. He was born Byron Yanks, which an abridgedversion of his name Yankilevich, his parents beingRussian-Polish Jews.

He was born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania on 24 March1928 and had his first piano lesson at the age of four withAbraham Litow who had studied at the LeningradConservatory. He was offered a place at Carnegie TechUniversity in Pittsburgh by Selmar Janson, but his motherinsisted that he went to New York where he studied at theJulliard School with Josef and Rosina Lhevinne. Hisschooling owed much to the influence of bothRachmaninov and Cortot.

In 1952, he lost sensation in a finger because of an accidentbut, nevertheless, he still made his debut playing thesecond concerto of Rachmaninov in New York. When hewas 16, Horowitz heard him play the same concerto with the Pittsburgh SO conducted by the 15 yearold Lorin Maazel who took him as a pupil. Janis was with Horowitz for four years and they becameclose friends.

Janis was chosen to be the first American to visit the Soviet Union, the first of his many worldwide tours.In 1967, he discovered unknown manuscripts of Chopin and consequently appeared on the front of theNew York Times which he did several times later. He made an edition of the Chopin waltzes.

As is an American custom, he was honoured by several US presidents such as the State Dinner in 1984at the White House with Ronald Reagan. By now he was suffering from severe arthritis which hadbeen a threat for about ten years. He underwent surgery on his hands.

Fortunately, he recovered to perform and make recordings.

He was showered with many honours and his recordings with Mercury were very successful.

In 2008, he was written into the Congressional Record of both the Senate and the House ofRepresentatives in which he was acknowledged as a musician, a diplomat and an inspiration. The

Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute presented Janis with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Themayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, gave him a letter of honour for his remarkable 69 years,tremendous talent which had thrilled audiences throughout the world and his consistent presence onNew York’s performing arts stage.

Janis was the first pianist to receive the Voice Education Research Award for his contribution to thedevelopment of the voice in music. He was the fist member of VSA (Very Special Arts) InternationalYoung Soloists Award which, among other things, supports disabled people in the arts.

His first wife was June Dickson-Wright, sister of Clarissa Dickson-Wright and they had a son, Stefan.They were divorced in 1985. He remarried on 11 April 1966 to the painter Maria Cooper, the daughterof the actor Gary Cooper.

Janis has written his autobiography Chopin and Beyond: My extraordinary Life in Music and theParanormal. There is a DVD, the Byron Janis Story.

He has a fine technique and all his recordings are highly recommended. His recording with AntalDorati of Rachmaninov 3 is a must for all music lovers.

I do feel, however, that Byron Janis is elevated to be being a true American rather than a classical pianist

© COPYRIGHT renewed 2012

10. MAURIZIO POLLINI

To my mind, Pollini is the best type of classical pianist.He is not typecast and confined to particular styles ofmusic and does not live in the world of the usual repertoire.I have heard him in a massive work for piano, othersoloists and orchestra by Luigi Nono, a more ofexcruciating difficulty which I cannot imagine anyonecould play. I remember someone saying that ImogenCooper could not play this and so is Pollini a better pianistthan she is? I have to say that what she is good at, she isgood, no doubt. But takes a phenomenal pianist to playsome works entrusted to Pollini and therefore elevateshim to the highest standard. It also shows that he is notprejudicial against composers who are different as somesoloists are. And there are composers who say that theydo not play some works because they do not like thembut, in reality, it is often the case that the music is beyondtheir capabilities.

Pollini was born in Milan on 5 January 1942 and his fatherwas the architect Gino Pollini who brought Modernistarchitecture to Italy.

Maurizio studied the piano with Carlo Lonati up to the age of 13 and then with Carlo Vidusso until hewas 18. He was awarded his diploma in music from the Milan Conservatory and won the Ettore PianoCompetition in Seregno in 1959 and the Chopin prize in Warsaw in 1960. Artur Rubinstein, the seniorjudge said that this boy can play the piano better than any of us.

Pollini recorded Chopin’s First Concert for EMI with Paul Kletzski and some of Chopin’s etudes. The

Philharmonia offered Pollini a series of concerts but it seems that Pollini may not have been ready forthis. Instead he undertook lessons with Michelangeli and some said that as a result Pollini’s playingbecame cold.

By the start of the 1960s Pollini limited himself to performances and concentrated on learning newrepertoire. He was for almost two decades a left-wing political activist which did him no good. WithNono he worked on such works as Como una ola fuerza y la in 1972, the work mentioned at thebeginning of this vignette. Luciano Cruz was a leader of the Chilean Revolutionary Front and wasassassinated. Pollini worked with the great conductor Claudio Abbado in a series of concerts forstudents and workers in an attempt to build a new library since art should be for everybody.

I believe that politics and music do not match and, in fact, can hinder a musician’s career as it did withAlan Bush with his left-wing politics. That is only an opinion.

On the tercentenary of Bach he performed the complete Well-tempered Clavier. This was in 1985.Two years late he played all the Beethoven sonatas in New York with the Vienna Philharmonic underAbbado. In 1993-4 he gave the Beethoven cycle in Berlin and Munich and later, again in New York,London, Paris, Vienna and Milan. The Salzburg Festival of 1995 had the Progetti Pollini a series ofconcerts with the old and the new. In 2000-2001 there was the perspectives Maurizio Pollini at CarnegieHall and in 2010-11 at the Royal festival hall the Pollini project with music from Bach to Stockhausen.

Pollini has a child Daniele, born 1978, who is a pianist.

Maurizio has recorded modern masterpieces such as Stravinsky Petrouchka pieces, Prokofiev Sonatano 7. While I am not a devotee of Chopin his playing of this composer is highly commendable. It isnot sentimental, slushy or effeminate as it is with other pianists.

He has a wide repertoire and is not restricted or typecast. There are the standards and Schoenberg,Webern, Boulez, Nono, Stockhausen, Manzoni, Sciarrino, Varese and Maderna.

Only a truly great pianist can accomplish all this.

In 1996 he received the Ernst von Siemens Music prize. In 2001 for the Diabelli Variations the DiapasonD’or. In 2007 the Grammy Award for the best instrumental soloist, the Praemuim Imperiale in 2010and the Gramophone Hall of Fame 2012.

He has conducted opera and orchestral music and stupidly been accused of emotional conservatism.

© COPYRIGHT DAVID C F WRIGHT DMUS, various dates.

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