Word: pianistics
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Having refined the French for the past eight years as Charles de Gaulle's Minister of Cultural Affairs, Andre Malraux is now exporting-in the very domestic form of his wife, Madeleine Malraux. A onetime concert pianist who has been playing only for friends since her husband entered government in 1945, Mme. Malraux will give a concert of 17th and 20th century French compositions next month at the University of Texas...
...Pianist Peter Serkin, musical nirvana is being scrooched up in a recording studio retaping and re-retaping portions of some concerto. Like Glenn Gould, Serkin, 19, is one of the new strain of virtuosos who play beautiful music but in few other ways resemble the traditional concert soloist. He is totally indifferent to audiences, abhors the personality cult, is convinced that performers get in the way of the music, and that the only way to play is in the quiet privacy of the recording studio, where perfection is the only reality. "Listening to music," he says, "should be the most...
...Peter is Pianist Rudolf Serkin's son, but he is out to make it on his own. Since he likes to eat, he does force himself to play a public concert now and then. His recent recital at Manhattan's Philharmonic Hall was, typically, a study in reluctance. Even his posture seemed vaguely discontented. Creeping up on the piano keyboard, he curled his bulky 6-ft. 1-in. frame into a question mark, repeatedly dipped his head as if he were literally going to play the music...
Unbearable Teas. At first glance, Serkin looks more like a folk-rocker than he does like a concert pianist. His hair is modishly shaggy, his dress casually disheveled, his talk typically teen. "It's difficult to be an American these days," he sighs, "especially a young one. There's a whole generation running things who lived through the most terrible times in history-wars, the bomb, tensions, heading for disaster. I think everybody's pressing down on us-on the young people-as a substitute for solving problems, as a release from tensions...
...that rewarded the children with a nickel if they could sing a pitch-perfect F sharp first thing each morning, Peter's future was certainly predictable.* "I first thought of being a composer," he says. "Then I thought about conducting. Then, gradually, I became resigned to being a pianist." At the age of eleven, he entered Philadelphia's Curtis Institute and studied with his father in a "depersonalized relationship." He made his formal debut at twelve, five years later began concertizing abroad-and hated every minute of it. "All those tea parties," he shudders, "the interviews, the bouncing...