Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Celebrated concert pianist.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21Favourite
Well, as you probably know, I grew up hearing all the great, great pianists of the century ... And I always had really two gods, you might say. Hoffmann was one of them.
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
I have very special reason for playing this, because besides it being Stokovsky in the Philadelphia Orchestra, it is Marcel Tabuto, with whom I had the great, great privilege of studying for about four years. I think undoubtedly he's the greatest musician I have ever known.
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini
I have the ... impression that I had never heard sonorities of such intensity and such ... beautiful, magnificent sound. For that reason I love the recording because it brings back memories of ... I guess I must have been, I don't know, seventeen, eighteen years of age when that happened.
a work which I loved ever since the first time I heard Heifitz play it. And of course Heifitz was the one that played the World Premiere.
Tristan und Isolde (Symphonic Synthesis)
Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
I have always been a great Wagnerian. And I think of all the Wagnerian music dramas. Some of the most. Inspired and beautiful music that Wagner wrote is in Trissan and Isolde.
Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream (transcribed by Rachmaninoff)
to me one of the really. amazing and great performances of any work. by one of the real giants of the twentieth century, Beno Moisevich. whom I knew rather well. and I admired greatly, naturally.
I feel that if I'm going to be in a desert island I have to have a little amusement. I must have something that ... makes me smile and makes me laugh.
this last record I am sure is the last thing anyone knowing anything about me would expect me to choose. But I think it's one of the most amazing pieces of recording and performance that I have ever heard.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:35How well could you endure loneliness?
I think I wouldn't do too badly. I am not allergic to solitude.
Presenter asks
4:03How old were you when you started [piano lessons]?
she thought I was too young to start before I was about six and a half, seven. But ever since I was an infant, of course, I was always beside the piano when she was practising.
Presenter asks
4:59Why Philadelphia rather than any other American college?
Well, there was a woman in Havana who had a typical nineteenth century salon ... and I played on several of those ... At one of those a sister in law of hers was visiting her ... She sent her a clipping from a newspaper about the Curtis Institute of Music had been founded just two years before, Joseph Hoffman, director ... So Amelia just took it upon herself to write to Curtis Institute of Music and ask for a catalogue and an entrance audition. And that's how I happened to go to Philadelphia.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Miguel de Cervantes
I think that the wisdom of Sancho Panza, when he starts rattling off one proverb after the other, the logic of his reasoning to me shows such superb wisdom, I think I would need something like that in a desert island.
The luxury
I think I would probably get More enjoyment out of taking one of my cameras with me than anything else.
Who was in the audience at that time [when you played Carnegie Hall at sixteen]?
I played the first movement of the Tchaikovsky concerto, and it being a private concert, it was an invited audience, and naturally, you know, Joseph Hoffman invited all his colleagues that happened to be in the city at that time. And his colleagues happened to be Rachmaninoff, uh Horowitz, uh, Heifetz, Misha Elman, Godovsky and uh Ephraim Zimbalis, Alma Gluk, who was uh married to him at that time.
Presenter asks
14:10What happened to you when World War Two broke out?
When World War Two broke out I was ... back at the Curtis ... As a citizen of a co-belligerent nation, naturally, I was. eligible for the draft in the United States ... My oldest brother, who was an army career man ... happened to see President Batista, and Batista asked him ... Oh, how is your brother George? And my brother said, Oh, he's fine, he's ... just expecting to be drafted ... Well, you know, Batista just hit the ceiling ... tell him that I order him return Cuba immediately ... So through the Cuban consul ... they went to see General Hershey ... And they gave me permission to go to Cuba to enlist in the Cuban army.
Presenter asks
23:31Did you know Rachmaninoff?
I met Rachmainoff only on two occasions ... Kodoski grabbed my arm and said, There is someone here I want you to meet. And I recall this tall gentleman, whom of course I recognized immediately as Rachmaninoff ... I recall just shaking Rahmayanov's hand, of course. You know, I don't remember anything else. I was so Odd. And then the second time ... Rachmaninoff played a recital at the Sal Playelle. And I had the temerity of going backstage ... oh, he was so very ... simple and ask me what I was doing and was I playing and so on.
“I have never particularly been very fond of practising.”
“I studied conducting with no aspirations of becoming a conductor. I really was rather curious about conducting. I wanted to find out what conducting was all about and what it entailed and what was required. and of course has been a great help to me in playing with orchestras, because I understand perfectly what the conductor is doing or is trying to do.”
“I think that the wisdom of Sancho Panza, when he starts rattling off one proverb after the other, the logic of his reasoning to me shows such superb wisdom, I think I would need something like that in a desert island.”