Word: backhaus
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Died. Wilhelm Backhaus, 85, German patriarch of concert pianists and the century's foremost interpreter of Beethoven; of a heart attack; in Villach, Austria. When Backhaus was eight, the noted pianist-composer Arthur Nikisch wrote to him that "whoever plays the great Bach so well when so young will surely make his way later on." The assessment was overly modest. In a career spanning three generations, Backhaus won acclaim for his masterful interpretations of virtually all the great composers. But his deepest dedication was to Beethoven, whose sonatas he played with great clarity of style and breadth of emotion...
INTERNATIONAL PIANO FESTIVAL (Everest) provides an opportunity for piano lovers to hear and compare the styles of several virtuosos-Arrau, Backhaus, Brailowsky, Casadesus, Janis and Kempff-in a single benefit concert for the U.N. Commission for World Refugees. The program hitches together the warhorses of the piano repertory, but they are played with freshness and excitement. Standouts are Wilhelm Backhaus' definitive "Moonlight" Sonata, Byron Janis' unabashedly grand performance of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, and Wilhelm Kempff's crystalline playing of Schubert's Impromptu in G Major...
BEETHOVEN: SONATAS NO. 12 AND 18 (London). Wilhelm Backhaus, 80, has spent a lifetime studying and restudying Beethoven. He is now rerecording some of the sonatas, with a technique that is still formidable, an interpretation that is firm, majestic and less personal than that of Artur Schnabel, his late great contemporary. Only in the Funeral March of the 12th is Backhaus disappointing; he seems to be impatient, even bored...
Rubinstein, whom his friend Thomas Mann called "that civilized man," is a product of the same Europe that Mann knew, a Europe that also nurtured such pianists as Benno Moiseiwitsch and Wilhelm Backhaus. Indeed, Rubinstein could have stepped out of a Mann novel. His enthusiasm for food, wines, cigars, paintings and fine editions is legendary, and his cultural interests extend far beyond his music. He reads omnivorously in eight languages, hobnobs more with writers than he does with musicians, occasionally regrets that he did not follow a youthful urge to become a novelist. His piano playing seems the consequence...
Beethoven: The Five Piano Concertos (Wilhelm Backhaus, piano; Vienna Philharmonic, under Schmidt-Isserstedt: London, 4 LPs). The 76-year-old pianist in a series of grand performances that are lithe, elastic and incisive...