Just to make me feel better about my own disasters:, I wonder if you guys witnessed any major memory lapse by big names in recitals or concerti? I am not talking about a few bum notes or skipped bars here but major meltdowns/train wrecks:
The most excruciating one I remember is by MJ Pires in Strasbourg in the late1990s. About 3 minutes into the last movement of Mozart’s K. 488, she just stopped, without even attempting to patch things up. The conductor was JE Gardiner and when he realised that she was lost, he decided to start the movement all over. Pires seemed to have composed herself but she froze once again in the very same place .Gardiner continued playing the rest of the movement with Pires’ hands in her lap, clearly completely “out of it” by then. Some people at the back of the hall started booing very loudly about half way through…When the orchestra played the last note, Pires literally ran off the stage without any interaction whatsoever with Gardiner. It was a truly mortifying experience:cold_face:
It’s pretty poor form to boo an artist, no matter what happened. These people clearly don’t know what it’s like to be a performer, and how difficult it is to put yourself out there. Most if not all great artists who play by memory have lapses at one point or another, sometimes disastrous ones, as have been captured from Rudy, Berezovsky, Weissenberg, Gavrilov etc. I can’t think of a time when Horowitz had one, but apart from that everyone else did.
I’m in total agreement! I felt so bad for Pires who was clearly distressed by then but when the loud yobs at the back started booing, the whole thing turned into a complete shambles and even if she was trying to gather her thoughts, there was no way that was going to happen, given the racket in the hall…
Ho was lucid for bits and pieces amounting to about 50% of the 1983 Japan concert, and I’ll take that musicmaking over just about anyone even if the rest of it is sad. Some of what he does in Carnaval is brilliant, and for those parts he outdoes even Rachmaninoff in imagination, and the octave etude is an incredible attack against the challenges posed by the score, like Horowitz resented that Chopin was trying to trip him up in his doped up state.
The only music stopping one I remember was Swedish pianist Stefan Lindgren in the Alkan concerto about 20 years ago. He completely lost his way in the middle of the first movement, but eventually managed to continue and played the rest probably better than he ever has. Interestingly the recital was broadcast a week later, where the lapse was no where to be found…
I’ve also heard Sokolov improvise his way through a Chopin Prelude, and Mustonen faking passages in the Brahms-1 out of sheer exhaustion. Can’t recall any others, but there are several super embarrassing ones on record with Richter, Bolet, Wild, Weissenberg, Arrau, Rubinstein etc. I think it happens just about any musician at some point in their careers.
, I wonder if you guys witnessed any major memory lapse by big names in recitals or concerti? I am not talking about a few bum notes or skipped bars here but major meltdowns/train wrecks:
