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Ignaz Friedman: Romantic Master Pianist

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If ever the written word alone can enable us to "hear" the piano playing of a great master, Allan Evans' biography of Ignaz Friedman is such a book.

Mr.Evans' achievement not only gives intimate insights into Friedman, his family, and his art, but also gives insights, not always flattering, into major artists of his time such as his teacher,Leschetizky, and Huberman, Rubinstein,Rosenthal,Hofmann,Mascagni, Sirota ,and others.Evans also provides a mini-biography of Friedman's extraordinary pupil Tiegerman, " the lost legend of Cairo."

Numerous concert reviews , and comments from some of Friedman's students , provide wonderful descriptions of his piano playing. Suggestions from his teachings should inform current artists.The detail of Friedman's preparation is astonishing.

Mr. Evans has also given us a front -row seat upon an Age not likely to return, and its transition to modernity.Thus, not only is this book a must for pianophiles, but also for historians,sociologists, and artists of all persuasions. Friedman's extensive World travel was a marvel itself, but also a testament to some of the economic difficulties and racial biases he encountered between the Wars. Discussions of the "old" and "new" Poland help clarify the cultural setting in which Friedman's art first grew.

I am inspired to add more Friedman to my collection.Hopefully Mr.Evans' label Arbiter Records will be able to publish improved versions.

I also reflect upon how poorly most of the recent Cliburn Competition performances compare. Hardly a new observation: " Friedman's most infamous charlantanisms have more in common with art and poetry than those young bravura players who, with their factory-made techniques, earn millions of dollars in America." Aladar Toth's ( husband of pianist Annie Fischer) review in Budapest's "Pesti Naplo", March23,1939 (copyright 2009,Allan Evans). Perhaps competitions will now add reading Mr.Evans' book to their required "works".

Fortunately for us, Evans has captured much about the man, his manner, his colleagues, his teaching,and his times, which would otherwise have vanished. The life of Friedman demonstrates values our current artistic and civil society would do well to emulate, Evans' achievement all that more relevant.

In Sydney, June 25,1927, Friedman's programme was in this order (copyright 2009 by Allan Evans,with permission):

Beethoven Sonata,Op.111
Scarlatti-Tausig Capriccio
Schumann "Papillons"; Symphonic Etudes
Chopin Waltz
Chopin Nocturne Op.62,#2; Impromptu Op.29;Scherzo Op.20
Gartner-Friedman Viennese Dance # 4
Szymanowski Prelude
Suk Minuet
Henselt-Godowsky Etude "If I Were a Bird"
Strauss-Godowsky "Fledermaus" Paraphrase
Encores Liszt: Liebestraume # 3 ; God Save the Queen

From 1946-47 student Patricia Rovik, in a 1988 interview (copyright 2009 by Allan Evans):

" He was a grand person.There was something of a mastery about him at the piano, a quietness; he was never grandiose and I always felt that he was communing with music, that he was a special gift to us from the God of Music himself. When he played the Revolutionary Etude one felt it it was an avalanche and any movable object would be removed from its path.He could be quite grand in the sonatas,too.I didn't hear him banging, in what was thought to be the tradition of the nineteenth century.There was a certain philosophical restfulness about him. He would make wonderful statements,especially with Chopin. I was just so in awe of the man and I still am to an extent after forty years. It was almost quite a breathless experience."

After completing this book, you also will be in awe of Friedman and Mr.Evans' achievement here. Highly reccomended not only as a detailed yet very readable, very humane biography ; and not only as a commentary on the art of pianism that can stand with efforts by Harold Schonberg, Arthur Schnabel , Joseph Horowitz, Charles Rosen ; but also more broadly as a re-creation of a lost Age.

Rugby

I cannot say how long I have waited for Mr. Evans book on Ignaz Friedman. Not only did it not dissapoint but I was literally overwhelmed by the years of painstaking work which clearly went into this book. Travelling literally over the globe as he discovered more and more human "connections" with Friedman and his family or musical disciples, the book is filled with enormous detail both about his family, ethnic background etc., not to mention a tremendous amount of information as to Friedman's musical style and even his teaching philosophy. It was especially interesting to learn more about his marvelously gifted and sadly all too unknown student Ignaz Tiegerman (be sure to purchase a copy of the excellent CD of Tiegerman's playing on ARBITER records), who as a contemporary of Horowitz, was considered the Russian pianist's equal when they were both young pianists performing in Europe.

The music world is indeed a small place. When I was teaching in Switzerland at the Zuerich Musikkonservatorium, a young boy came into my piano class whose father was Egyptian. Although the man was not a pianist, he loved music passionately and after talking one day, I discovered that his sister many years earlier was a pupil in Cairo of Tiegerman. Hanna spoke quite a bit about him to me.

My own first contact with Friedman's art came in my piano lessons years earlier at Juilliard, while a student of the great pedagogue Sascha Gorodnitzki. As I played Chopin Etudes to him at a lesson, we began discussing his teacher Josef Lhevinne whose own recordings of the Op. 25/6 Etude in thirds and Op. 25/10 Etude in Octaves among others were legendary and so inspirational to me. Imagine my surprise when expecting Mr. "G" to agree about the greatness of Lhevinne's performances (which he of course had the privilege of hearing many times live) but instead he spoke about Friedman's Etudes and Mazurkas played in Carnegie Hall and describing how those concerts had been the most memorable performances he knew of those works!

Immediately I rushed over to the Performing Arts Division of the New York Public Library and filling out my cards requesting the 78 recordings to be played by remote playback booths in the research carrels. When I first heard the Revolutionary Etude, I thought I had literally died and gone to heaven, pianistically speaking! A pupil of Friedman aptly describes these performances in Evan's book better than I could. The Mazurkas however in Friedman's hands were a the greatest revelation to me. Never had I heard these played so compellingly as they truly were meant to be played with unusually strong and powerfully rhythmic gestures and dynamics far beyond anything I had thought possible (nor up to that point musically appropriate0. Read Eigeldinger's excellent book on "Chopin as Teacher and Pianist". There the first-person recollections of Chopin's playing of Mazurkas and other works by his pupils and renowned musicians such as Carl Reinecke confirm this tradition of specifically how Chopin played his music. The discussion of Chopin's playing was the same tradition which Friedman clearly followed and passed on to the next generation. It is only sad for me when people now hear Friedman's playing and label it "mannered", or "anachronistic" Such short-sighted comments are purely ignorance on the part of those who fail to understand the earlier traditions of playing that came before our time.

This book is a revelation on many levels. At one point, Evans shares how Tiegerman treated the opening D-flat arpeggio which opens as a transition from the first into the second section of Chopin's Fantasy-Impromptu, Op. 66. Asking his pupils to emphasize the low opening D-flat for musical emphasis and continuity into the beautiful melodic theme which follows, Tiegerman quoted Leschetitzky's term of "tonal rubato" for playing this passage. I have always instinctively played this passage myself with a deliberate prolongation of the bass note, slowly transitioning into the appropriate tempo before the entrance new melody in the right hand and yet I can't count how many times I have heard young pianists ignorantly plow through this transitional passage with no slackening in tempo simply because the composer didn't notate the score with a change of tempo here. Could that Chopin simply thought it unnecessary to indicate the "obvious" here. I have devoted many years of my professional career to studying and carefully re-evaluating the rubato and "pacing" of my phrasing and more and more, I realize that it is must in all cases be related to the harmonic implications of the particular phrase. I would perhaps modestly add one more word to Leschetitzky's phrase by coining it "harmonic tonal rubato".

Listen to recordings of Rachmaninoff playing Rachmaninoff or works by other composers. Today when one hears his playing or the early recordings of Hofmann or Paderewski, their interpretations seem excessive in terms of rubato and overall phrasing and dynamics. Yet can audiences have been wrong when these pianists were considered the greatest performing artists of their time? I think it is not a matter of just taste but rather a sign of the inevitable change in musical traditions that change interpretively generation to generation. We are fortunate to have recordings of these great artists and for that I am ever grateful. As a performing artist, these great musical traditions have permanently changed the way I play approach a score. Imagine what many people would think if they could hear actual gramophone recordings of Liszt or Chopin themselves? I am quite sure many in our contemporary audiences would find their playing interpretively inappropriate today as well.

I can not adequately thank Mr. Evans enough for finally making this labor of love available to all of us as well as his other many recordings both on the Arbiter label as well as the earlier (now out of print but excellent boxed LP set of the Complete Friedman recordings on Danacord). Thank goodness there continues to be people dedicated to the great artists of the past: Harold Schoenberg, Jon Samuels (executive producer of the excellent RCA reissues of William Kapell), Gregor Benko and the International Piano Achives at the University of Maryland, to name only a few. Great traditions are something we should not ignore or ridicule, but rather study and try to learn from. This newest biography of Ignaz Friedman by Allen Evans is a case in point. I cannot recommend this book more highly to anyone seriously interested in the rich musical and pianistic culture from the end of the 19th Century into the early decades of the 20th century. Bravo!

Broad and deep in its evident erudition, this everything-but-the-kitchen-sink biography of IF is probably the best we can hope for, unless some previously-unknown trove of documents emerges. If you care about Golden Age pianism, you need to read this book.

Ignaz Friedman: Romantic Master Pianist
Allan Evans, in his beautiful style, and deep understanding of the piano and its performers, offers us the story of one of the greatest pianists that ever lived. Many priceless tips and quotes from other great pianists are included. Included is a chapter devoted to a Friedman pupil, another great pianist of the 20th century, Ignace Tiegerman. Tiegerman was considered to be Friedman's most talented student.
A unique and regretfully internationally underated pianist during his lifetime although in very high esteem by his peers, Tiegerman was brought back to life, by Allan Evans, through a few of his recordings, (Arbiter records) and through extensive interviews with his students, amongst whom I was fortunate to have been included.

I was very grateful to discover preserved in the book, Tiegerman's golden tips, or 'tricks' as he called them, exactly as I had recounted them to Mr. Evans through many interviews. They are undeniably precious, very exciting and open new ideas and pathways to piano interpretation.

I tried the sample on my Kindle and liked it so much that I purchased the hardbound edition because I wanted to see the full story (Appendices, footnotes, index, pics, etc.)and use it in the future as a reference.

The Kindle is great for books that are "one time reads", but Evans' detailed research and references could not be fully appreciated on a Kindle. Ignaz has an enjoyable piano style and I never would have been able to enjoy him if Evan's had not rediscovered him and Naxos had not released Friedman's recordings on CDs. These recordings were made in the late 1920s and early 1930s and cleaned up so that their quality is quite good considering that the recordings were made with relatively primitive equipment.

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Anyone who is interest in the history of the great pianists, would enjoy this book. It also includes his recordings and repertoire.

I read many many biographies,especially of musicians.This one was a very difficult,bland, and to me,boring read.Reminded me of reading text books in high school which weren't well constructed..