Word: accompanist
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...Special Soul. Trained for a piano virtuoso's career, Moore originally thought that an accompanist was "a sort of caddie who carried the violinist's fiddle." But when he was 24, he accompanied Tenor John Coates, became fascinated by the challenge of fitting music to text, and soon decided that accompanists "have an infinitely richer life than the soloist." Today he adds: "Even if I had the technique and virtuosity of Horowitz or Rubinstein, I would prefer to do what I am doing...
...good accompanists seem to share Moore's enthusiasm, documented wittily if somewhat defensively in his 1944 book, The Unashamed Accompanist. England's Ivor Newton explains his passion for accompanying as resulting from "a phobia about being alone." Italy's Giorgio Favoretto is less interested in togetherness than in "uniting the arts of poetry and music," while France's Janopoulo confesses to lacking the "special soul and the kind of conviction that passes across the footlights." Whatever its appeal, accompanying has attracted first-rate pianists, among them the U.S.'s Paul Ulanowsky and Franz Rupp, England...
Like a Surgeon. Although an accompanist should be a partner, he is also, says Ulanowsky, likely to function as "part policeman and part nursemaid." (But, adds Soprano Erika Koth cryptically: "An accompanist is no lover.") Even as incendiary a singer as Maria Callas scrupulously follows the advice of her pianist, Italy's Antonio Tonini, in questions of interpretation. "Tonini pleases me," says she, "because he is an implacable torturer who makes me repeat the same phrase 20 or more times. He has always been for me like an expert surgeon who digs around in one's innards until...
Heard But Not Noticed. The U.S., many critics feel, is now producing the best accompanists in the world. "Pianists here are getting better and better," says Rupp. "I'm sure we all play better than Liszt." Nevertheless, most of the accompanists agree that their art is still low-rated in the U.S., while the situation is changing in Europe. English programs often avoid the word "accompanist" entirely, substituting the more palatable word "piano." In Paris the old program phrase "accompanied by" is replaced by the phrase "with the collaboration...
...even these status signs are not likely to turn the accompanist into a box-office draw. Like it or not, admits Accompanist Craxton, "The greatest moment of an accompanist must always be when the soloist turns to him and says: 'You were wonderful tonight. I didn't know you were there...