Karl Miller ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
>I remember reading in one of Levant's books about a concert when Enesco
>was guest conductor. As the story goes...the concert was to include a
>Beethoven Symphony and during the rehearsal Enesco said to the orchestra
>something like..."you know this piece better than I do." They didn't
>rehearse it. Levant goes on to say that he thought it was a wonderful
>performance.
Which was saying something, as Enesco had a legendary memory.
Speaking of which, a favourite passage from Abram Chasins' Speaking of
Pianists, regarding Sir Donald Tovey:
He knew by heart practically every significant composition from
the sixteenth century through the nineteenth. If this sounds like
a sophomoric exaggeration, read Mary Grierson's biography of Tovey
[right Abram, I'll nip down to Walden Books right now], wherein she
relates that Professor Newall of Cambridge once asked Tovey how long
it would take him to play from memory everything he knew, playing
eight hours a day. Tovey answered: "Oh, about four weeks." Then
thinking it over, he corrected himself and added: "No, I think it
would take eight weeks, seven at least."
Pablo Casals said: "never did I mention one work of the symphonic,
operatic, choral, chamber-music, or solo literature which Tovey didn't
sit right down and illustrate flawlessly from memory at the piano,
starting at the exact point under discussion." When I mentioned Tovey
to Georges Enesco, he crossed himself.
Deryk Barker
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