Tag: pianist
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George Walker: A Snapshot
George Theophilus Walker (1922-2018) led a life of many “firsts.” In 1945, his list of achievements included becoming the first black student to receive the artist diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music; the first black instrumentalist to give a recital at the New York Town Hall and the first black soloist to play with…
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Marcelle Meyer: L’art de toucher le piano
Originally published in the Piano Tuners Association Newsletter, August 2021. https://pianotuner.org.uk In the early 1940s, the French pianist Marcelle Meyer (1897-1958) gave a performance of Mozart’s Concerto in A Major K. 488 with the Berlin Chamber Orchestra, who were then visiting Paris. Her contemporaries regarded her appointment with a German symphony orchestra, during the height…
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Gould, Guerrero and the Legacy of Finger Tapping
“One does not play the piano with one’s fingers, one plays the piano with one’s mind” —Glenn Gould Glenn Gould’s obituary in the New York Times was full of veiled superlatives. Edward Rothstein described the deceased as an ‘always unorthodox pianist’ who chose ‘isolation over society…and idiosyncratic reinterpretations over respect for musical “authenticity.”’ By then,…
Edward Campbell-rowntree 