Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Pianist

Leon Fleisher A Living Legend at 90

The appellation “Living Legend” has been perhaps too widely applied; but at the age of 90, pianist Leon Fleisher really is one. A former child prodigy, his is a direct line to Beethoven. He studied with Artur Schnabel, who studied with Theodor Leschetizky, who studied with Carl Czerny, who studied with the Master himself.

When he performed with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Monteux at the age of 16, Monteux called him “the pianistic find of the century.” Fleisher landed a recording contract with Columbia Records and began laying down benchmark recordings of Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Grieg and Rachmaninoff with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra.

Then everything changed.

Fleisher was diagnosed with focal dystonia in 1964. He gradually lost control of his right hand, and his career as a concert pianist was in jeopardy. His struggle with the affliction led to a period of soul-searching, and it forced him to diversify. He realized, as Schnabel had espoused, that music is music, regardless of the medium.

Fleisher began channeling his energy into teaching and conducting. He has been a venerable presence at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Fortunately, the left-hand piano repertoire is extensive, and Fleisher himself has added considerably to it, through commissioned works from contemporary composers or gifts from friends. His album, “All the Things You Are,” released a few years ago on Bridge Records, Inc., documents some of these. The album became a surprise hit, with The New Yorker’s Alex Ross lauding it as “one of his finest hours on record.”

Fleisher is an extraordinary artist and individual. Not only has he fought hard to regain control of his right hand – and done so, thanks to experimental treatments with, of all things, Botox – he is quite possibly the most gracious and generous interview subject I’ve ever encountered.

In honor of his milestone birthday, I’ve posted an unedited conversation we had four years ago for my radio program, “The Lost Chord.” In the version I whittled down for broadcast, selections were interspersed with performances from “All the Things You Are.” I realize there is a lot of extraneous material in the raw audio, but it’s all here for you to skim as you please:

Then I hope you’ll join me this afternoon for an assortment of Fleisher’s recordings, which will be among the featured offerings from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PLEASE NOTE: Bill McGlaughlin will also be saluting Fleisher on “Exploring Music,” all this week at 7 p.m. I have glanced through the playlists; repertoire will not be duplicated.

Happy birthday, Leon Fleisher!

July 23, 2018
Eleanor Sokoloff Turns 104

In very loose connection with an article I am writing about organist Gordon Turk, I happened to google yesterday Eleanor Sokoloff. Turk had studied piano with Sokoloff’s husband, Vladimir, at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Eleanor too is a pianist and pedagogue at Curtis. She began teaching there in 1936. Among her countless pupils were Lambert Orkis, Susan Starr, Hugh Sung, Leon McCawley, and Keith Jarrett. Eleanor has nothing at all to do with the article. I was just curious to see if she is still around and what she is up to. Oh, she is still around, all right. Today, Eleanor turns 104.

I recollect attending concerts at Curtis’ Field Hall, back in the 1980s, and the Sokoloffs were seemingly always in attendance. Vladimir had also served as a pianist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He died in 1997.

In 1995, I became Eleanor’s neighbor, when I opened a bookshop on 17th Street, below Latimer. My morning dog walks would take me past the Sokoloff residence, situated between the old Rittenhouse Medical Bookstore (since demolished) and I believe a former residence of Leopold Stokowski, which had been turned into an art gallery. Eleanor would frequently be standing at her front door, and she would always smile and give a friendly wave. When she wasn’t at the door, it meant she had a pupil, and music would flood the streets.

According to what I can find out about her on the internet, she continues to teach to this very day. Of course, in music there is really no involuntary “retirement,” and Curtis has a history of venerable pedagogues. The pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski taught there until a few weeks before his death in 1993. But Sokoloff has Horszowski beat. He hadn’t even reached 101.

Happy birthday, Eleanor. Long may ye reign.

Here’s a mesmerizing two-part interview with Sokoloff, conducted by Hugh Sung, when she was 100:

June 16, 2018
William Kapell: America’s Lost Piano Genius

Was William Kapell America’s greatest pianist? I realize that discounts a lot of our native talent, but if Leon Fleisher thinks so, then that’s good enough for me.

Kapell was killed in a plane crash in 1953 at the age of 31. Until then, his light burned very brightly indeed. In 1944, he was signed to an exclusive contract with RCA Victor. All of his recordings were pre-stereo and many were issued on 78s, but reencountering a number of these 70 years later confirms that the interpretations still sing, including some stunning Rachmaninoff and a classic account of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto.

Even so, by 1960, all of Kapell’s commercial recordings had gone out of print. With few exceptions – there was an LP reissue of some Beethoven and Prokofiev in the early ‘70s – Kapell’s reputation was kept alive mostly through bootlegs and unlicensed live recordings. In 1998, RCA finally did the right thing and reissued all of Kapell’s authorized recordings, making them accessible to a whole new generation of music lovers.

Sadly, for all the enjoyment these still give, the brilliance of Kapell’s recorded legacy inevitably causes one to wonder what might have been. 31 is awfully soon to have lost one so talented.

How good was he? Well, for one thing, he learned Richard Strauss’ “Burleske” in a week – by the command of Fritz Reiner, no less. You can find the complete story and listen to the live performance, not otherwise available, here:

Publish or Perish?

Join me this afternoon, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, for plenty more Strauss on his birthday, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: William Kapell with Leonard Bernstein in 1947, around the time he received Reiner’s order to perform Strauss

June 11, 2018
Peter Serkin at 70 A Piano Maverick

For some reason, I always equate Peter Serkin in my mind with Peter Fonda. Perhaps it’s because he’s like the Easy Rider of pianists. At one point, he even totally dropped out, moving to Mexico and not playing for a couple of years. When he returned, as often as not, he was a kind of countercultural champion of modernist works (he was one of the founders of the new music ensemble Tashi); but he is, after all, his father’s son (he was sired by legendary pianist Rudolf Serkin), so Bach and Beethoven have been just as important to him as an artist and as a person.

Hard to believe that Peter Serkin is 70 years-old today. We’ll honor him with several of his recordings, alongside those of the late violinist Ruggiero Ricci and composers Adolphe Adam, Ernest Bloch, Robert Farnon, and Leo Arnaud (he of Olympic fanfare fame).

I’ll be bearing the torch for great music and music-making, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

July 24, 2017
Jerome Lowenthal Celebrates 85 Years

Today is the 85th birthday of Philadelphia-born pianist Jerome Lowenthal. Now chair of the piano department at the Juilliard School, here he is in 1968 with Leopold Stokowski, rehearsing Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.”

And in a more recent interview:

https://www.livingtheclassicallife.com/26-jerome-lowenthal/2015/10/16/episode-26-jerome-lowenthal#comments-56207791e4b0b077de882b14=

February 11, 2017

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