Anyone interested in this piano giant besides me?

I heard him play twice and spoke to him at the Central Park tennis courts in NYC. He was very pleasant and down to earth. I think some of his programs of 20 or 30 years ago were monstrously difficult. I remember actually thinking they were misprints!

I last year him play at Mannes a few years ago. Some Chopin and Schumann maybe. For one of his encores someone yelled out "Alborada del Gracioso". For some reason he decided to play it(could it have been planned?)and was not too successful dealing with its difficulties. How could someone play that unless they had preprared it recently?

From what I've heard, Abbey Simon has pretty much the whole piano repertoire prepared and ready to go, and I've heard stories of him showing up to the concert hall still unsure of what the program would be. (And still giving a remarkable performance.)

I love Abbey Simon. To think of the enormous physical difficulties he has overcome and realize he is still performing. He is also one of the few pianists alive today with a direct link to some of the true greats, having studied with both Joseph Hoffman and Godowsky!

My teacher studied with him and has only the highest respect for him as a teacher, performer and human being. Along with Anievas', his is my favorite recording of the Chopin Etudes.

What?? How could a pianist play tennis?? Isn't it damaging to the hand?

What makes you think so? Why would anyone do something that would damage ther hand?

There was an old Dick Cavett interview with Micha Dichter. Dichter said once he had a concert in the evening, and he played tennis a lot that day. As a result, he lost the feel of an octave up until the beginning of the concert.

What makes you think so? Why would anyone do something that would damage ther hand? [/QB][/QUOTE]
Because what else was he doing on Tennis Courts? Ballboy? :rolleyes:

Awadagin Pratt took lessons in both piano and tennis very seriously as a young boy until he reached a point where he was so good at both that he needed to make a professional commitment to one or the other (so I read in some interview). He also has lifted weights seriously (but obviously as an amateur) at least some of the time since becoming a professional pianist.

I always roll my eyes when I hear people talking about how pianists must be so careful with their hands. As long as you aren't straining your tendons excessively, I don't see any danger in doing physical things with your hands. The only difficulty I find with doing both hard physical exercise (usually running and lifting in my case) is that when your muscles are fatigued from exercise it's hard to sit at the piano for long periods of time. I also think that you use some of the same reserve of mental concentration doing endurance sports as practicing the piano, so that makes practicing a little harder too. But actual damage? Not likely unless you are being really aggressive and not listening to your body.

To contribute to the original topic, Abbey Simon is one of my "grand teachers" as well, and I admire his playing quite a bit. I don't know if I'll ever come across a "perfect" rendition of the Chopin Ballades (I have ~12 sets), but his is my favorite so far. I also admire his championing of obscure late-romantic stuff.

I have met him and worked on a few projects with him, he is a very kind man IMO. He told me how a few years ago he was in Paris and involved in a car collision, his hands were crushed. Now he has had to re-learn some of the rep, he can no longer stretch an octave on white keys, but on black keys it is not as bad. Of course this has caused him some difficulty in playing. In his recitals at the University of Houston he has been using a Yamaha piano that makes gorgeous sonorities IMO

joe salerno

MarkH, I did not know that, I guess you should do it with a trainer, still if I were a pro I would not take a risk.

Abbey Simon's recording of Chopin's G minor Ballad was one of the driest things I'd ever heard. No match whatsoever for Rubinstein or Ashkenazy.

Sorry gentlemen...

Does anyone have any other thoughts on Abbey Simon's recordings? I have his two-CD set of Chopin's Opp. 2, 11, 13, 14, 21 and 22, which I like very much—and the convenience of having all of Chopin's works for piano and orchestra in one place is unmatched.

One of our regular contributors studied with Simon. I hope he sees this thread and will offer some comments.

Steven

Which can also be accomplished via Garrick Ohlsson.

But I will respectfully bow out here, I have never met Abbey Simon, I have never heard him play, I just have his recordings to go by. I'm obviously missing something, and far be it for me to judge a pianist with a million times my talent.

Okay? Fair enough. Yet nothing I've ever heard him play remotely matches other recordings in my library. He's a 'house' pianist, he delivers the goods in grand style, all is well, but the competition is simply too devastatingly intense.

I don't know about the hand, but the pianist/composer Alec Rowley collapsed and died in the middle of a game of tennis.

A good friend of mine, who is in his mid-sixties, still plays the piano wonderfully well and also participates in county tennis matches.

I believe that Gershwin was a keen tennis-player.

As for Abbey Simon, I heard him some years back in London and own a number of his recordings...a superb pianist.

I don't know gang. This is one of those dopey topics that is all over the map. How do you respond to some that are commenting about recordings,others public performances and some pedagogically as well. There is no pleasing everyone. In undergrad I bought a bunch of his recordings. I really liked the Schumann Fantasy and Carnaval along with the Chopin Scherzi, and still believe them to be wonderful recordings. I feel the same way about his Ravel. As to his opinion of recordings in general, he joked about how every pianist wanted the recording document to be virtually perfect and to that end most recordings unless done live were subject to endless editing sometimes note by note. As to orchestra recordings, he once opined that "I can either get a great orchestra, or a great conductor, but not usually at the same time!" I heard him live with the Houston Symphony playing the Schumann Concerto and it was sublime. The conductor was an aging Efrem Kurtz. I also heard him perform the Rachmaninoff 1st with the New York Phil. and Kostelanatz conducting and it was wonderful.

I met Abbey 30 years ago in grad school. He was a wonderful teacher and taskmaster always at the service of the score. He could be cutting at times, but I always thought that he had my best interest at heart (it was also the beginning of irritable bowel syndrome so go figure). Actually I was just overjoyed that I had the opportunity to study with him for the time that I did. It raised my standards for everything that I do in this life. I regard it as my "trip to the mountain" if you will. Very humbling, but very necessary. I had many teachers up until being a student of his, some for long periods of time others way too short. He taught me to play the piano. He also taught me how to learn music. Virtually every piece that I studied prior to his tutelage I do not recall readily. Every piece learned with him and subsequently is learned for life and will return to my fingers within a few days. Nothing was left to chance.

His repertoire is indeed extensive. When I was a student, he was wrapping up the complete Chopin, and was supposed to begin recording the complete Beethoven. I believe that the project never got off the ground because VOX ran into some financial difficulties. He remarked that there were plenty of younger pianists with bigger repertoires. I think he singled out Barenboim among others at the time.

As to physical activities other than piano, he used to be VERY active, regularly playing tennis or maybe raquette ball at the time. It was almost a daily occurrence.

The anecdote from "Plover" is likely accurate. I once questioned him about Gaspard and he told me that he learned it at a young age and it fit his hand perfectly and offered him no technical challenges. Hmmm.... As a little aside here, I might add that Argerich's rendition of Gaspard is pretty "dry" to me, though I guess that she can play it faster than anyone on earth.

Sadly, this year I may miss his recital which is destined to be another knuckle-buster with the Bach Toccata in C minor, Clementi Sonata in F minor, Beethoven "Les adieux", Chopin Waltz in A flat, Waltz in F minor and Ballade in F minor followed by selections from Miroirs including Noctuelles, Oiseaux triste and Alborado del grazioso.

I think that though he may not be everyone's favorite pianist, he has had a long and very successful career as a pianist and teacher. Let's not forget he's in his mid 80's and is still vibrant and active. Any of us should have been so lucky to have the talent and still the mind to recall what is usually a program that will likely take 1.5 hours plus encores.

Wonderful post, John. And thanks for sharing your experience as a student with Mr. Simon.

edited

For the Dutch radio 4, I wrote an article about him.
You can still download his 1954 Grieg pianoconcerto
from the links that are on that page...

Rolf

Oops, forgot to paste the link:

http://www.radio4.nl/page/artikel/5597/

Scroll down and you see the links to the mp3 files

rolf

LOL. That's very entertaining. Thanks for sharing. He's a very iconoclastic pianist in many ways. I like the idea of a serious artist who can also rip-it up. But I know what you mean. I like lots of sports, but I've gotten many jammed fingers from basketball too. Dangerous stuff.

I'm an extremely serious tennis player. I've played since I was able to hold the racquet basically. Tennis is a big and probably big part of my life than music, although I use both so I will not have the chance to get bored or burn out... and hey! Rachmaninoff beats video games any day

I have a stress fracture in a section of my spine which has caused me to take three months off of tennis. I should be back in Feb, but this has caused me to get 1-2 more hours of piano in a day, which I can't complain about.

I read something once that alot of musicians play tennis... why some ask? I read that the rhythm of the game and the sounds of the ball hitting court and racquet can attract those keen to music. Any thoughts? And sorry to hijack your thread

Matt

Did anyone catch Abbey's recital last week at the International Piano Festival in Houston?

Yeah. It was awesome.

I should be OK playing tennis while also practicing the piano rigorously.

But try playing tennis for a year w/o touching the piano. It will take you 3 years to get back to your former form.

Ok, one month necrophilia aside, I'm slipping in to say that Simon's recording of Ravel's complete solo piano works received this positive review. I myself haven't heard him (either live or in recording), but hopefully I will someday . . .

And whatever happened to the poster who started this thread? Did he give himself the boot?

Yeah, I have that CD and I think its really good. Also, I really like his recordings of the complete Rachmaninov concerti.

I have his complete Chopin Etude.