Glenn Gould

Glenn Herbert Gould
(25 de setembro de 1932; 4 de Outubro de 1982)

Foi um genial e renomado pianista canadense, conhecido especialmente por suas gravações de Johann Sebastian Bach. Suas gravações das Variações Goldberg são consideradas um marco na música ocidental do século XX. Gould abandonou as apresentações ao vivo em 1964, dedicando-se, desde então, apenas às gravações em estúdio, pelo resto de sua carreira, com um estilo de tocar muito peculiar, muitas vezes excêntrico.

Gould nasceu com o nome de Glenn Gold, em Toronto, Ontario. Sua família era protestante e mudou o seu nome logo após o seu nascimento, temendo que ele fosse confundido com um judeu, com isso, seu nome foi mudado de Gold para Gould para protegê-lo da onda de anti-semitismo que havia tomado o Canadá na década de 1930. Depois de aprender piano com sua mãe, cujo avô era um sobrinho de Edward Grieg, Gould matriculou-se no Royal Conservatory of Music em Toronto, quando tinha apenas 10 anos. Ali, estudou piano com Alberto Guerrero, órgão com Frederick C. Silvester, e teoria musical com Leo Smith.



Há uma teoria segundo a qual Glenn Gould sofria desde a infância de uma forma menor de autismo, a síndrome de Asperger. Ausência de empatia, desinteresse pelas relações humanas, algumas obsessões (como a hipocondria) fazem parte dessa síndrome.

Em 1945, fez sua primeira apresentação pública, tocando órgão, e no ano seguinte a sua primeira aparição com uma orquestra (a Toronto Symphony Orchestra), em uma performance do Concerto no. 4 para piano e orquestra, de Beethoven. Seu primeiro recital público seguiu-se em 1947 e sua primeira apresentação na rádio CBC aconteceu em 1950. Este foi o começo de uma longa associação com o rádio e com as gravações em disco em geral.
Em 1957, em plena era da Guerra Fria, Gould promoveu uma turnê pela União Soviética. Ele foi o primeiro cidadão do continente norte-americano a tocar ali depois da II Guerra Mundial.

No dia 10 de abril de 1964, Gould tocou em sua última apresentação pública, em Los Angeles, Califórnia, e pelo resto de sua vida se concentrou em outros interesses, como as gravações, escritas, transmissão de rádio e televisão, documentários e composição (ainda que tenha, de fato, produzido poucas composições).

Gould morreu em 1982, em Toronto, depois de sofrer um derrame. Seu corpo foi sepultado no cemitério Mount Pleasant, em Toronto.

Rudolf Serkin

(Hebrew: רודולף סרקין‎, Russian: Рудольф Сёркин, March 28, 1903 – May 8, 1991, Guilford, Vermont) was a Bohemian-born pianist.)


He was born in Eger, Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Cheb, Czech Republic) to a Russian-Jewish family.

Hailed as a child prodigy, Serkin was sent to Vienna at the age of 9, where he studied piano with Richard Robert and, later, composition with Joseph Marx making his public debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at 12. From 1918 to 1920 he studied composition with Arnold Schoenberg and participated actively in Schoenberg's Society for the Private Performance of Music. He began a regular concert career in 1920, living in Berlin with the German violinist Adolf Busch and his family, which included a then 3-year-old daughter Irene, whom Serkin would marry 15 years later. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Serkin performed throughout Europe both as soloist and with Busch and the Busch Quartet. With the rise of Hitler in Germany in 1933, Serkin and the Busches (who were not Jewish but who vehemently opposed the Nazi regime) left Berlin for Basel, Switzerland.

In 1933 Serkin made his first United States appearance at the Coolidge Festival in Washington, D.C., where he performed with Adolf Busch. In 1936 he launched his solo concert career in the U.S. with the New York Philharmonic under Arturo Toscanini. The critics raved, describing him as "an artist of unusual and impressive talents in possession of a crystalline technique, plenty of power, delicacy, and tonal purity." In 1937, Serkin played his first New York recital at Carnegie Hall.

Shortly after the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the Serkins and Busches emigrated to the United States, where Serkin taught several generations of pianists at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. From 1968 to 1976 he served as the Institute's Director. He lived with his growing family first in New York, then in Philadelphia, as well as on a dairy farm in rural Guilford, Vermont. In 1951, Serkin and Adolf Busch founded the Marlboro Music School and Festival near Brattleboro, Vermont with the goal of stimulating interest in and performance of chamber music in the United States. He made many recordings (primarily with Columbia) from the 1940s into the 1980s, including one at RCA Victor of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in 1944, with the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Toscanini. Serkin admired the music of Max Reger, which he discovered while working with Adolf Busch. In 1959, he became the first pianist in the United States to record Reger's Piano Concerto, Op. 114, with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Serkin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and in March 1972 celebrated his 100th appearance with the New York Philharmonic by playing Johannes Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1. The orchestra and board of directors also named Serkin an honorary member of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society, a distinction also conferred on Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, and Paul Hindemith. In 1986, he celebrated his 50th anniversary as a guest artist with the orchestra. He is also regarded as one of the primary interpreters of the music of Beethoven in the 20th century.

Revered as a musician's musician, a father figure to a legion of younger players who came to the Marlboro School and Festival, and a pianist of enormous musical integrity, he toured all over the world and continued his solo career and recording activities until illness prevented further work in 1989. He died of cancer on May 8, 1991, aged 88, at home on his Guilford, Vermont farm.

He and Irene were the parents of seven children (one of whom died in infancy), including pianist Peter Serkin. They also had fifteen grandchildren. Irene Busch Serkin died in 1998.

Rudolf Serkin play Beethoven, Sonata No. 26 "Les Adieux".

Vladimir Horowitz

Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz (Hebrew: ולדימיר הורוביץ‎; Russian: Владимир Самойлович Горовиц, Vladimir Samojlovič Gorovits; Ukrainian: Володимир Самійлович Горовиць, Volodymyr Samiylovich Horovyts

(October 1, 1903 – November 5, 1989) was a Russian-American pianist.

In his prime, he was considered one of the most distinguished pianists of any age. His technique, use of tone color and the excitement of his playing are legendary. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.

orowitz said that he was born in Kiev in the Russian Empire(now the capital of Ukraine), but some sources have given Berdichev as his birthplace. His cousin Natasha Saitzoff, in a 1991 interview, stated that all four children were born in Kiev[5]; Horowitz's wife, Wanda Toscanini, however, gave credence to the Berdichev possibility. Rabbinical documents also support a Berdichev birth.

He was born in 1903, but in order to make Vladimir appear too young for military service so as not to risk damaging his hands, his father took a year off his son's age by claiming he was born in 1904. The 1904 date appeared in many reference works during the pianist's lifetime.

Horowitz received piano instruction from an early age, initially from his mother, who was herself a competent pianist. In 1912 he entered the Kiev Conservatory, where he was taught by Vladimir Puchalsky, Sergei Tarnowsky, and Felix Blumenfeld.

He left the conservatory in 1919 and performed Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor at his graduation. His first solo recital was performed in 1920.
His fame grew, and he soon began to tour Russia where he was often paid with bread, butter and chocolate rather than money, due to the country's economic hardships.
During the 1922-1923 season, he performed 23 concerts of eleven different programs in Leningrad alone. On January 2, 1926, Horowitz made his first appearance outside his home country, in Berlin. He later played in Paris, London and New York City. Horowitz was selected by Soviet authorities to represent Ukraine in the inaugural 1927 Chopin Piano Competition: however the pianist had decided to stay in the West and thus did not participate.
Horowitz settled in the United States in 1940, and became an American citizen in 1944.
Horowitz gave his U.S. debut on January 12, 1928, in Carnegie Hall. He played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 under the direction of Sir Thomas Beecham, who was also making his U.S. debut. Horowitz later commented that he and Beecham had divergent ideas regarding tempos, and that Beecham was conducting the score "from memory and he didn't know" the piece.[citation needed] Horowitz's success with the audience was phenomenal, and a solo recital was quickly scheduled. Olin Downes, writing for the New York Times, was critical about the metric tug of war between conductor and soloist, but Downes credited Horowitz with both a tremendous technique and a beautiful singing tone in the second movement. In this debut performance, Horowitz demonstrated a marked ability to excite his audience, an ability he preserved for his entire career. As Olin Downes commented, "it has been years since a pianist created such a furor with an audience in this city." In his review of the Horowitz's solo recital, Downes characterized the pianist's playing as showing "most if not all the traits of a great interpreter."

In 1933, he played for the first time with the conductor Arturo Toscanini in a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 The Emperor. Horowitz and Toscanini went on to perform together many times, on stage and in recordings.

Despite rapturous receptions at recitals, Horowitz became increasingly unsure of his abilities as a pianist. Several times, he withdrew from public performances - during 1936 to 1938, 1953 to 1965, 1969 to 1974, and 1983 to 1985. On several occasions, Horowitz had to be pushed onto the stage.[8] After his comeback in 1965 he gave solo recitals only rarely. He made his television debut on September 22, 1968, in a concert televised by CBS from Carnegie Hall.

In 1933, in a civil ceremony, Horowitz married Toscanini's daughter Wanda. Horowitz was Jewish and Wanda Catholic, but this was not an issue as neither was observant. As Wanda knew no Russian and Horowitz knew very little Italian, their primary language became French. They had one child, Sonia Toscanini Horowitz (1934-1975). It has never been determined whether her death, from a drug overdose, was accidental or a suicide.

Despite his marriage, there is evidence to suggest that Horowitz was gay, a claim which he denied . He is credited with the quote: "There are three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists".

Horowitz underwent psychological treatment in the 1950s in an attempt to alter his sexual orientation. In the early 1960s and again in the early 1970s, he underwent electroshock therapy for depression.

Vladimir Horowitz died on November 5, 1989 in New York of a heart attack. He was buried in the Toscanini family tomb in the Cimitero Monumentale, Milan, Italy.

Wikipédia.



Horowitz plays Rachmaninoff - Prelude in G# Minor.