Word: szeryng
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...almost too much for one Pole in the audience. He rushed backstage, burst into Rubinstein's dressing room, and began hugging and kissing the startled pianist, exclaiming in Polish: "That was the greatest thing I ever heard!" When the kissing stopped, he introduced himself as Henryk Szeryng, a 32-year-old music teacher at the National University of Mexico. Intrigued at finding a countryman so far from home, Rubinstein inquired: "Do you play at all?" Yes, his compatriot admitted, "I love to play the violin." Rubinstein forthwith invited the violinist to his hotel room for an impromptu audition. Recalls...
...Rubinstein was so impressed, in fact, that he asked Szeryng (pronounced Sharing) to make a record album with him, later induced Impresario Sol Hurok to book him for a 20-concert tour of the U.S. A modest man, Szeryng was hesitant to take the leap from the academic world to the concert stage, finally decided: "If this great master has this sort of confidence in me, why shouldn't I?" Since then, he has established himself as one of the world's top-ranking violinists, just as Rubinstein had said he would...
This summer, following tours of Russia, the U.S. and Japan, the short, thickset Szeryng has been cutting a wide swath on the music-festival circuit in Europe. At the end of the five-week-long Salzburg Festival, one critic declared Szeryng the "Hahn im Korb" (German equivalent for "cock of the walk") among all the soloists who had appeared...
...always, he seemed to toss it all off as if it were the easiest thing in the world. There is also something refreshing about his obvious delight in playing. Not for him is the agonized look that seems to be the accepted expression for most great violinists; instead, Szeryng is apt to look enraptured, and often smiles contentedly as he plays a favorite passage...
...which the adagio percolates a single theme, refining it in major and minor statements. The minor key takes over in the excited cross-rhythms of the rondo finale, where "all hell breaks loose," says Lees happily. Lees's music is devilishly hard to play. After performing it, Szeryng pronounced the concerto "the most difficult piece I've ever tackled...