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Eugene Istomin, 77, Pianist Known for German Repertory, Dies
October 11, 2003
By ALLAN KOZINN
Eugene Istomin, the American pianist who was as renowned for his
chamber music performances as he was for his individualistic, deeply
considered solo playing, died yesterday at his home in Washington. He was
77.
The cause was liver cancer, said a spokeswoman for the John F.
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Mr. Istomin was best known for his performances of the German and
Viennese Classical and Romantic repertory, and his recordings of Beethoven -
the piano sonatas, the violin sonatas with Isaac Stern and the piano trios
with Stern and the cellist Leonard Rose - have remained highly prized for
their graceful, fluid phrasing. Over the last 15 years, he was more likely
to appear in New York as a soloist in Mozart than in Beethoven, and there
too, he played in an expansive, full-bodied style, often contributing his
own cadenzas.
But if the Viennese repertory commanded most of his attention, Mr.
Istomin was also a superb Chopin pianist and an enthusiastic interpreter of
Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky. Contemporary music was part of his repertory
as well: Ned Rorem, Roger Sessions and Henri Dutilleux wrote music for him,
and he made a recording of some of Mr. Rorem's songs with the baritone
Donald Gramm.
Mr. Istomin maintained an active solo career, and he did so with a
flourish. In 1988, for example, when preparing for a tour of 30 cities, he
decided that instead of taking his chances with the pianos he encountered,
he would take his own - two of them - as well as a trusted piano technician.
He continued touring in this style through the mid-1990's.
Mr. Istomin was on the piano faculty of the Manhattan School of
Music and participated in Professional Training Workshops at Carnegie Hall.
In 1975 he married Marta Casals, the widow of Pablo Casals. The president of
the Manhattan School since 1992, she is his only survivor.
Mr. Istomin's early training was a balance of Russian and German
influences. He was born in New York on Nov. 26, 1925, to Russian immigrants,
and when he showed an affinity for the piano at age 6, his parents took him
to the Russian pianist Alexander Siloti, who had been a student of Liszt and
was a cousin of Rachmaninoff. Siloti oversaw Mr. Istomin's studies from a
slight remove: he had his daughter, Kyriena, provide most of his lessons.
But Siloti frequently played duets with the young Mr. Istomin, and arranged
for him to play for Rachmaninoff. Siloti also, however, advised Mr.
Istomin's parents not to let him begin his performing career while he was
still a child.
In addition to his lessons with the Silotis, Mr. Istomin studied at
the Mannes College of Music. In 1939, when he was 13, his father decided
that it was time for him to study with a teacher in the Germanic tradition
so that his training could include the kind of discipline that the more
overtly virtuosic Russian approach did not offer. That April, he was
accepted at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia as a student of Rudolf
Serkin. He also studied there with the Polish pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski.
In 1943 Mr. Istomin won two competitions that led to important
public debuts: the Philadelphia Orchestra Youth Award, which included a
performance with that orchestra, and the Leventritt Award, which included an
appearance with the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Istomin played both concerts
the same week, performing the Chopin Concerto in F minor in Philadelphia and
the Brahms Concerto in B flat in New York. Those performances were the start
of a career that by Mr. Istomin's calculation comprised more than 4,000
concerts around the world.
Mr. Istomin's involvement with chamber music began in the 1950's,
when he spent his summers at Pablo Casals's Prades Festival. He made
recordings of Beethoven and Schubert piano trios with Casals and the
violinist Alexander Schneider in Prades that are now considered classics.
But it was as a member of the Istomin-Stern-Rose Trio that he made
his most lasting mark on the chamber music world. The three musicians began
their association informally, reading through the piano trio repertory
privately in the 1950's, for their own amusement. In 1960 they decided to
tour together. Recordings followed, including their traversals of the
Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Brahms trios, as well as one of the
Mozart piano quartets with the violist Milton Katims. They continued
performing together, and touring annually, into the 1970's.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/11/obituaries/11ISTO.html?ex=1066861694&ei=1&
en=57e1ac1e560e7ab3
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Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
Paul Moor
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