I am very sorry to learn that André Watts has died. Watts was a familiar presence in Philadelphia for decades. Indeed, he was the soloist on the first Philadelphia Orchestra concert I ever saw, playing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2, at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Fairmount Park, on July 16, 1984, with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting.
An army brat born in Nuremberg, Germany, to a Hungarian mother (a pianist) and an African American father (a non-commissioned officer), Watts moved to Philadelphia with his family at the age of 8. Prior to that, he had studied violin in Europe. His mom gave him his first piano lessons.
Like most children, he disliked practicing. She captured his imagination by telling him about the young Franz Liszt and what he was able to achieve by applying himself and practicing faithfully.
Watts would continue to find inspiration in Liszt throughout his career. He was a great champion of the composer. In fact, it was as soloist in Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 that he rocketed to fame after a performance with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein, televised as part of one the orchestra’s Young People’s Concerts, in January 1963. Watts was 16-years-old.
Later in the month, Glenn Gould fell ill, and Watts was invited back to play the Liszt concerto on an actual subscription concert. The performance generated such electricity that the hardboiled musicians of the Philharmonic joined the audience in a standing ovation. The performance was recorded and released on Columbia Masterworks, the thrill of the occasion preserved for posterity, as “The Exciting Debut of André Watts.”
Watts studied at the Philadelphia Musical Academy (now part of the University of the Arts), and then at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore under Leon Fleisher. In the meantime, his dance card was filling up fast. By 1969, his concerts were being booked three years in advance. He signed an exclusive recording contract with Columbia on his 21st birthday.
Alas, in more recent years, Watts suffered his share of health difficulties. In 2002, he underwent emergency surgery for a subdural hematoma. In 2004, a ruptured disc affected the use of his left hand. In 2019, he underwent surgery for further nerve damage.
An inveterate cigar smoker, he was diagnosed with (possibly unrelated?) prostate cancer in 2016. The cancer went into remission in 2017, but would return to claim him.
Despite his medical setbacks, Watts continued to perform. Personal illness did nothing to dampen his passion for playing in public, but the pandemic threw up some pretty steep barriers.
For certain, with half a century of performances and recordings behind him, and a National Medal of the Arts, among other honors, Watts had nothing more to prove. But he was determined to do what he loved for as long as he possibly could.
In an interview, he claimed that early on, what he really wanted to be was a writer. For Watts, communication with an audience – storytelling, if you will – was key.
He will be missed. R.I.P.
Introduced by Leonard Bernstein, then playing the stuffing out of Liszt
Visiting “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood”
Playing Mendelssohn with John Williams and the Boston Pops
Rachmaninoff in New York
Liszt’s etude after Paganini’s “La Campanella”
