This is beautiful in so many ways.
L.A. Times: Krystian Zimerman’s shocking Disney Hall debut
Poland’s Krystian Zimerman, widely regarded as one of the finest pianists in the world, created a furor Sunday night in his debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall when he announced this would be his last performance in America because of the nation’s military policies overseas.
Before playing the final work on his recital, Karol Szymanowski’s “Variations on a Polish Folk Theme,” Zimerman sat silently at the piano for a moment, almost began to play, but then turned to the audience. In a quiet but angry voice that did not project well, he indicated that he could no longer play in a country whose military wants to control the whole world.
“Get your hands off of my country,” he said. He also made reference to the U.S. military detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
About 30 or 40 people in the audience walked out, some shouting obscenities. “Yes,” he answered, “some people when they hear the word military start marching.”
Others remained but booed or yelled for him to shut up and play the piano. But many more cheered. Zimerman responded by saying that America has far finer things to export than the military, and he thanked those who support democracy.
For the first half of the recital, Zimerman had played a Bach Partita and Beethoven’s last piano sonata, Opus 111, with firm determination. After intermission he made a last minute substitution, exchanging late Brahms works for a 1953 sonata by Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz. The Szymanowski variations, which closed the program, was played with an astonishing ferocity that brought nothing but tumultuous cheers. There was no encore.
The pianist was not available after the concert for further comment.
Zimerman has had problems in the United States in recent years. He travels with his own Steinway piano, which he has altered himself. But shortly after 9/11, the instrument was confiscated at JFK Airport when he landed in New York to give a recital at Carnegie Hall. Thinking the glue smelled funny, the TSA decided to take no chances and destroyed the instrument. Since then he has shipped his pianos in parts, which he reassembles by hand after he lands. He also drives the truck himself when he carries his instrument from city to city over land, as he did after playing a recital in Berkeley on Friday.
Krystian Zimerman, I love you even more than I did before.
Mr. Cabral was a vagabond, born poor in 1937 in the provincial city of La Plata after his father abandoned a large family. At the age of 9, he began hitchhiking alone up the length of Argentina to beg for a job for his mother.
He did odd jobs and was illiterate until he got some education in a reformatory as a teenager. He eventually picked up a guitar, singing in the manner of his idol, Argentine folklorist Atahualpa Yupanqui.
Mr. Cabral began singing for tourists in the beach resort of Mar del Plata, and by 1970 became internationally known through his song “No soy de aqui ni alla” — “I’m Not From Here Nor There” — which was recorded hundreds of times in many languages.
By the time Argentina fell under military rule in 1976, Mr. Cabral was clearly identified as a protest singer, and so he fled for his life to Mexico, where he kept recording, writing books and giving concerts.
He lost his wife and a 1-year-old daughter in a plane crash in 1978.
His concerts were a mix of philosophy and folklore, spoken-word poems and music reflecting his roots in the gaucho culture of rural Argentina. He identified himself as an anarchist at times, professing a spirituality unchained to any particular religion. On stage, he celebrated the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa, the humanism of Walt Whitman and the observations of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
”Facundo Cabral was our last troubadour. As much a philosopher-poet as a singer, he was a living testament to the search for what unites us in culture and society,” said Argentine singer Isabel de Sebastian. ”After his concerts, you’d feel that our life in common was richer, more mysterious, more profound.”
RIP Facundo Cabral, 74.
“Well, I am not just a sceptic but a pessimist. I therefore expect things to get worse; I am getting older. But at the same time I like being a pessimist, because I like to be pleasantly surprised. I shall therefore keep an open mind. I shall continue playing as long as my fingers make that possible, as long as my constitution can manage it, as long as my memory functions, as long as my ears hear….” - Alfred Brendel
