Word: pianists
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Many a first-rate pianist has taken up conducting as a career. For Leonard Bernstein, the late George Szell and Daniel Barenboim, it was largely a matter of having a large and effusive talent-or sheer ambition-that simply had to spread into other fields. When Pianist Leon Fleisher took the podium last week at Manhattan's Philharmonic Hall, however, it was a case of dire necessity. Though he was once the foremost pianist of his generation, his right hand has been partly crippled since 1965, and he is trying to establish himself in a new career...
...York debut showed that the conducting ranks can well profit by Fleisher's misfortune as a pianist. He had all the right instincts, and plenty of natural talent to communicate them. Leading the New York Chamber Orchestra in a program of Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, he demonstrated a smooth, supple rhythmic sense and ideas about the music that were definitely his own. As New York Times Music Critic Harold Schonberg put it: "Some conductors have worked for years on less...
Envy of His Fellows. In his heyday, 1952 to 1964, Fleisher had a mastery of the classic and romantic repertory that made him the envy of fellow pianists. No pianist can overwhelm an audience at every performance, but more nights than not, a rare spark seemed to pass between Fleisher and his listeners. It was not the kind of spark that stemmed from mere dramatics or showmanship. What he had was the kind of flame that was ignited by rubbing the smallest phrase just so, and then building from there. "It was like making a happening," he recalls. "When...
...Toreadors suddenly becomes Deutschland über Alles as crowds roar "Sieg Heil!" Then Spiro Agnew denounces effete snobs-and the band plays Stars and Stripes Forever. It is as devastating as a knee in the groin. Children shrill the Gypsy Song, break into a tapdance and a pianist plays an ornate set of embellishments on the first phrase of the Habañera; he knows all the tricks but cannot remember the melody. The Card Song is swallowed by a monstrous Dies Irae, and everything ignites into a Moog-synthesized musical holocaust. The montage of electronic sound forms a requiem...
Died. Jimmy Conzelman, 72, pianist, actor, author, raconteur, but most of all one of pro football's earliest and best-loved coaches, who stunned the sports world by guiding the underdog Cardinals, then of Chicago, to a championship in 1947, the first and only time they have hit the jackpot during 36 years in the National Football League; in St. Louis...