I just learned that the Brazilian pianist, Nelson Freire, died yesterday, too young at 77.
Freire suffered multiple fractures in his right arm from a street fall in 2019. He fell on his shoulder, when trying to protect his hands. The accident led to an intricate, four-hour surgery, believed to have been successful. However, not long after, the COVID-19 pandemic prohibited international travel and public performance.
I never saw Freire in concert, but his recordings are very special indeed. And there is much to savor on YouTube. His repertoire was broad, though he seemed most at home with the Romantics – Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, and Chopin – from whose works he mined much poetry. He enjoyed a long artistic partnership and lifelong friendship with Martha Argerich, born in neighboring Argentina.
With his lack of concern for publicity and self-promotion, Freire must have made his handlers a little crazy. In interviews, he could be modest to a fault. He was always an artist who expressed himself most eloquently through his musicmaking. R.I.P.
Freire playing Chopin’s “Barcarolle” in recital in 2009
Sight-reading Liszt’s arrangement of Schumann’s “Widmung” (“Dedication”) for Argerich on a “dirty piano”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyqdxK_7oJk
Playing Schumann’s “Fantasy in C” in 1983
As a sprout, at 21 years-old, in 1965!
With Argerich in “La Valse” in 1984