Meeting great pianists.

[viking]

I totally agree Tom.  Its really strange, but just this year I have learned to be extremely efficient with the piano.  It is possible to do much when you are away from the piano.  Then, when you do practise, it is extremely efficient and time isn't wasted practising the same passage 1,000,000,000,000,000 times. 

[csy]

Does it count if I meet Menahem Pressler in my every lesson?   
Anyway... I have met several great artists like Zimerman, Brendel and Askkenazy.
They are all very nice indeed~!!!

[debussy symbolism]

Who wouldn't want to be nice. It's a sad though, but who wouldn't want to lose the public?

[thierry13]

Who wouldn't want to be nice. It's a sad though, but who wouldn't want to lose the public?

Wow ... I don't think performers are nice to us just to sell albums ! Do you really think everybody is THAT selfish ? I don't think so. Maybe SOME few performers are nice only to get more attention ... but not the majority.

[leahcim]

i'd be really curious to hear an explaination of the 'plans' of the parents of concert artists.  i think the plan was already established at birth, somehow, that music would be an important part of their education.

Parents that hope their kids are Mozart, all but one will fail.

You'll hear about the successful one.

A lot of parents seem to hope that their kids will be genius, or at least not as dumb as they are, which means they largely succeed - at least they succeed until the point where the kids do the same dumb thing with their kids

[leahcim]

Wow ... I don't think performers are nice to us just to sell albums ! Do you really think everybody is THAT selfish

Not to sell CDs, I wouldn't say because they won't meet that many people. On stage they can perform and then bow and smile at the end.

But most performers are not at all like their image and generally speaking if they meet someone they will have nothing in common with them. Why would they? It's like talking to someone random on the street. Worse, in any group we will quickly eliminate people, our performer may not have that luxury as the buffoon they'd normally ignore comes up to him and starts sweating and grovelling "I'm your number one fan..." "Is it true that you sleep in gloves?" "I play the piano too, you know" - "Err, really, how nice...<smile/grimace>"

That's moreso for acting I guess because the parts you play attract an audience that isn't attracted to you it's attracted to the characters you play e.g Science fiction, it's attractive to people who think they are jedi and try to learn klingon and aren't usually allowed out by themselves.  The actor has an ego that needs its own trailer and wouldn't pee on those care in the community sci fi fans, except for the PR value.

As a pianist meeting other pianists he/she may be more likely to meet someone who has something in common with though and to be frank they aren't that famous. Someone really famous will meet people anywhere they go, who just know who they are, even if they aren't really fans, whereas I think I'm the only person I know IRL that could even recognise or for that matter, name Hamelin if asked for a list of famous pianists. It's less likely he is going to be harassed everywhere he goes, at a concert no doubt, he's in a place where he is famous, but on a bus or train can probably be anonymous most of the time.

Nevertheless they wouldn't be human if they didn't meet people, some they like, some they don't, just like everyone does [except those people that work in offices that breeze around smiling at everyone and usually get the job of buying leaving cards, but they aren't human]

I guess telling the ones you don't like to £$"" off might be considered rude, whereas wandering up to the celebrity and talking to them is fine because they are public property, hence they have to be over polite just to be seen as polite.

e.g If they complain in a shop because the staff are incompetent, the service lousy, the goods faulty just like the rest of us, the story from the assistant is is a "Don't you know who I am" celeb with a big ego etc.

[pianowolfi]

He seems to be more interested in the pretty girl than you old chap.

Thal

   

She became the girlfriend of his son Alex during that academy. So no wonder he was looking a bit more accurately 

I Thought I would add a short addendum to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byAbTAAMw14


Isn't that the great love?

[jpowell]

I met Hamelin because he had come to hear me play a concert. Fortunately I only found out he was in the audience AFTERWARDS or else I might have suffered an attack of nerves in the interval.

[cmg]

My Forum post was directly beneath the Forum post of the esteemed pianist Jonathan Powell. 

I think that constitutes a meeting of sorts!   

[thalberg]

Murray Perahia gave a master class at my school, and afterward I met him and shook his hand.  He was very serious and direct in the master class, and everything he said was very rich in content.  He always spoke with a straight face and a lot of focus.  When I approached him, he said he thought he knew me.  But I said this was my first time meeting him, and when I asked for his autograph (stupid) I immediately lost his attention, though he politely signed my score.

I met Krystian Zimmerman after a concert.  My friends encouraged me to approach him though I did not want to.  You see, I had not attended the concert and could therefore not comment on the performance--I had simply driven my friends to and from the concert as a favor.  Because I was not dressed for the event and could not say much, Zimmerman pretty much ignored me when I tried to talk to him.  I remember being sort of surprised at how small he was.  At least compared to me.

[amelialw]

I met the international concert pianist Lee Kum Seng when I auditioned at the music school. He knows who my teacher is so I guess he wanted to listen to me play.

It was such an amazing experience, I got to play on one of those steinway grands that they have at those huge concert halls.

[cmg]

Close encounters of the third kind:

John Browning:  I was kid in prep school and my job was to be his campus host.  Backstage at his recital like a good valet.  He rushed offstage when the first half ended (all Scarlatti), grabbed me by the shoulders and said, "Well, the best part is over."  He went on to play Chopin and Liszt in the second half.  Played in his master class.

Shura Cherkassky:  spent an evening with him in NYC.  Very gnome-like and sweet beyond words.  A friend of mine, a rather famous pianist who shall not be named, met us and got totally loaded.  Shura was performing the Schumann Concerto that next week in Miami.  My pianist friend said, "Ah, the ****ing Schumann Concerto!" then fell against the table, knocking the candle over, catching the table cloth on fire.  Shura howled.  Said he never had more fun in NYC!

Van Cliburn:  I was a kid in my hometown down south and Cliburn played the Rach 2 with a local pick-up orchestra.  He stayed with family friends who had two beautiful Steinway grands in their livingroom.  Cliburn was kind, patient and never condescending to this kid who asked him the dumbest questions.  Totally nice man.

Gina Bachauer:  yes, I am that old.  Was a kid, then, too.  She played in my hometown.  The Brahms Second.  I was allowed to go to the rehearsal to meet her.  (Friend of my mom's was the orchestra manager.)  She was adorable.  She asked me if I played and then handed me her score and said:  "Now please follow along and let me know if I make any mistakes."  Seriously.  I think I fainted.

Jacob Lateiner:  student days and played in his master class.  Great, great gentleman and a wonderful teacher.  His recital was amazing.  First and last Beethoven sonatas in the first half.  Brahms Paganini (both books) in the second.  One of the greatest recitals I've ever heard.  Played the Liszt "Benediction de Dieu dans la Solitude" for him in master class.  He was very kind to me.

Martha Argerich:  Twice.  Both in MYC.  First time, backstage, and she blew me off.  Second time, it was in a hotel in Manhattan after a Carnegie Hall gig playing Beethoven 2nd.  Friends of mine were friends of hers.  We went to the hotel bar where she was holding court with a bunch of very rich South American groupies.  She ignored all of us until an hour later, then came over, like Queen Mary, and sat by my friend (well-known pianist who got loaded in earlier item on Cherkassky) and proceeded to ignore the rest of us.  I had a ticket later that evening to hear Maureen Forrester sing the Durufle Requiem at a church downtown at 10 pm.   So, I stood up, got in her face, and took her hand.  "Miss Argerich," I said to her.  "My name is (blank) and I just wanted to say hello."  Her hand was like a dead fish and she looked as if I had just flashed her.  Have to forgive her, though.  Those were the days before she had her personality bypass surgery reversed.

Horowitz:  this isn't my meeting, but a friend's in NYC.  He saw this distinguished man coming out of a gay bar on Christopher Street, known as Boots and Saddles.  (New Yorkers, however, traditionally referred to it as "Bras and Girdles.")  My friend actually recognized only Horowitz's companion, a young agent from Columbia Artists, who was an acquaintace of his.  Running up to them, he realized he was face to face with Horowitz.  He freaked and said, "Oh my God, Mr. Horowitz, I love your playing!"  Horowitz brushed him off like he was an annoying fly:  "Fine, fine," he muttered, and darted off.          

[zheer]

Horowitz:  this isn't my meeting, but a friend's in NYC.  He saw this distinguished man coming out of a gay bar on Christopher Street, known as Boots and Saddles.  (New Yorkers, however, traditionally referred to it as "Bras and Girdles.")  My friend actually recognized only Horowitz's companion, a young agent from Columbia Artists, who was an acquaintace of his.  Running up to them, he realized he was face to face with Horowitz.  He freaked and said, "Oh my God, Mr. Horowitz, I love your playing!"  Horowitz brushed him off like he was an annoying fly:  "Fine, fine," he muttered, and darted off.          

  A gay bar, what did his wife think of that.

[leahcim]

Martha Argerich:  Twice.  Both in MYC.  First time, backstage, and she blew me off.

That's quite an introduction. Was she trying to get backstage?

[ahinton]

I met Hamelin because he had come to hear me play a concert. Fortunately I only found out he was in the audience AFTERWARDS or else I might have suffered an attack of nerves in the interval.

That would have been an entirely unnecessary attack, let me assure you (and everyone else here)! I was there too, remember, so I know that you were giving a most wonderful performance of a work that Hamelin has never played and will never play. What I happened to get in the interval of Opus Clavicembalisticum on that unforgettable occasion was an earful of Hamelin's well-nigh stupefied praise for your achievement in this work (he was talking to someone else rather than directly to me, but I overheard his remarks easily).

Best,

Alistair

[dmc]

A gay bar, what did his wife think of that.

Horowitz's homosexuality was pretty much an open secret (at least within the music circles) when he was alive.  Its discussed in his biography and Wanda was well aware of it so she wouldn't have been surprised.

[dmc]

I visited Chopin's grave in Paris.  Does that count ?....

[Kassaa]

I visited Chopin's grave in Paris.  Does that count ?....

me too, even have a rather awkward picture of myself with the grave, didn't know whether to laugh or to look seriously.

[leahcim]

  A gay bar, what did his wife think of that.

She liked the spritzers.

[knabe31]

I met Arthur Rubenstien backstage after a concert in Buffalo, NY when I was 14 (1967). Shook  his hand and got his autograph. Told him I was taking lessons at the Eastman school. He said "great school and that I should practice everyday!!!!!"