Now 82 years old, Gary Graffman stands as one of the most influential of all American pianists--even 30 years after he sustained an injury that derailed the trajectory of a marvelous international touring and recording career. With the digital reissue of wonderful Graffman recordings of Brahms, Liszt, Chopin, and Mendelssohn comes an opportunity to revisit his work as a superstar soloist, as a pedagogue, and as an innovator.
Born in 1928 to Russian Jewish immigrants, the pianist initially began studying violin with his father, a professional musician who had studied at the Imperial Conservatory in St. Petersburg with Leopold Auer. (In fact, Graffman's lineage of artistic ancestors stretches directly back to Felix Mendelssohn himself: Auer studied with the legendary violinist Joseph Joachim, who in turn was a protege of Mendelssohn.)
Soon enough, however, he found himself drawn to the piano, and he entered Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music at age 7 as a pianist. He studied at Curtis for the next ten years with Isabelle Vengerova. (Precisely 50 years later, he became the school's director, a position he held until 2006.) After graduating from Curtis, he studied with Vladimir Horowitz, and spent his summers with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music Festival.
Once Graffman launched his international career after winning the Leventritt Award in 1940, he spent the next three decades circling the globe as one of the most highly sought-after soloists. His discography for Columbia and RCA included recordings with the "Big Five" American orchestras (New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Cleveland) led by Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy, George Szell, and Zubin Mehta. His profound authority and musicianship at the keyboard is abundantly evident, along with a gigantic and magisterial artistic voice.
In the 1970s, however, Graffman began to experience a great deal of physical distress in his right hand; passages that he could formerly toss off with the greatest aplomb now eluded him altogether; as he recounted to the New York Times in 1981, he told his wife: ''Something's wrong. 'It's been wrong for a long time. And it's getting wronger and wronger.''
Triggered initially by a finger sprain, Graffman found himself gradually and terrifyingly unable to play with his right hand--a very serious issue which, unable to properly diagnose, several specialists asserted were rooted in psychological problems rather than a physical ailment--Graffman found himself suddenly limited to left-hand-only repertoire. (There is a surprising and somewhat gratifyingly sizeable amount of such work, in large part because of the commissions done by the wonderful pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in World War I; the repertoire includes a concerto by Ravel and another by Prokofiev as well as other substantial works by Britten, Strauss, Korngold, and Franz Schmidt. (This is also terrain that fellow pianist and Graffman's good friend Leon Fleisher, who was diagnosed with focal dystonia, also traversed before being eventually successfully treated with Botox injections.)
Graffman has also built significantly upon the Wittgenstein left-hand legacy, including commissions from William Bolcom (Gaea) and Ned Rorem (the Piano Concerto No. 4) as well as Richard Danielpour, Daron Hagen, and Luis Prado. In addition, millions of film fans know Graffman through his work on the Woody Allen film Manhattan.
Despite his injury, students have been able to benefit from Graffman insight. He first joined the faculty of his own alma mater, Curtis, in 1980, and became its director in 1986 (inheriting the position from such predecessors as Josef Hofmann, Efrem Zimbalist, and Rudolf Serkin). In 1995, he became Curtis' president. Graffman's own piano students could make up their own constellation of current classical music stars including, most famously now, Yuja Wang and Lang Lang. But he still remains a consummate musician, who even in recent years has given concerts of astonishing emotive power and physical vitality--and with a recorded legacy that continues to move and enlighten listeners.
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by Anastasia Tsioulcas
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