O Good God... I did not need to know all that. What damned luck. The Brahms 2nd Concerto by Kapell. You are right; the most tragic aspect has to be that there was so much light left. He would have made a very inspiring teacher as well. I would very much like to see a copy of his complete discography. I was listening to his Rach. rhapsody on a theme...; and by the 18th variation, there is just something so pure, very sad, but uplifting in his playing. What an artist.
If you wrote your diss. on him, you must know everything about the guy. Did you ever speak to people who met him ? (I ask only because there aren't that many anecdotes/or books on the guy, and it's stories like these which motivate one to practice more
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Kapell has always been an idol of mine since a teen, and one of the reasons I even considered going to Juilliard was the opportunity to work with Jerome Lowenthal (one of Kapell's main pupils). The dissertation was just a logical outgrowth of working with Lowenthal, and all the wonderful stories and experiences he conveyed during our time together. I also interviewed Gary Graffman and Kapell's widow, Anna-Lou DeHavenon for the purposes of research. Eugene Istomin was probably the closest to Kapell, but unfortunately, he passed away several years ago; Leon Fleisher, Jacob Lateiner, and Seymour Lipkin are three other pianists with whom he had contact, and Robert Mann (of the Juilliard quartet) was a close friend of Kapell's while they were students.
Here's an interesting story that Anna-Lou tells in wonderful detail regarding Kapell confronting a critic at a party:
"Despite this conscious distancing from Horowitz’s art, on one occasion Kapell almost got into a fistfight with a critic over a negative review of a Horowitz recital:
In 1953, after a Saturday night performance by Willy of the Brahms D minor Concerto, with Franco Autori conducting the New York Philharmonic, our friend, Eugene Istomin, asked us to go with him to a party hostessed by Emily Genauer, the film critic. With a repeat Philharmonic performance the next day in the offing Willy was reluctant, but we finally talked him into going for a short time. We entered a large apartment overlooking Central Park and shortly thereafter Willy, hearing a piano in the living room, left us. Suddenly I saw him coming back into the dining room where Istomin and I were standing. He headed quickly toward us, his face white and drawn, with Jay Harrison, the music critic, in close and hot pursuit.
It was immediately apparent that something had gone wrong and that they were about to come to blows. I asked Eugene to hold Willy because I was afraid that if he hit Harrison, he might kill him and also injure his hands. I placed myself in front of Willy and someone restrained Harrison. Let me add that Willy had a reputation for being a scrapper and had fantastic strength in his back, arms and hands. Anyway, we got on our coats and as we stood in the hall Autori kept saying to Willy, “Let me go back and take care of him.” I was trembling but Willy was very quiet and told Autori to forget it.
Afterwards I was told that Willy had gone into the living room where Harrison was playing the piano. Having just read an unfavorable Harrison review of a recent Horowitz recital, Willy confronted him with: “Who the hell do you think you are? You are nothing more than a fourth-rate wind player who got thrown out of Juilliard. How dare you write such a criticism about an artist of Horowitz’s stature?”
I imagine those comments did not sit well with Harrison."
koji