# Lost and found: special musicians who are somehow not performing anymore



## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Do you know of a special favourite musician that somehow faded away from the stage or only seldom returns to perform on stage?

Share your memories with us about that concert long ago, alert us if someone pops up in any concert agenda.

Back in the eighties, I once bought tickets for the second concert by Carlos Kleiber in Amsterdam, which was cancelled. More recently, I lost track of Ivo Pogorelich, who however performed a few years ago nearby (but I missed him).

I think you must have a special talent for surviving traveling around the world, mostly alone, as a soloist. Therefor, it is understandable that some of the best musicians just don't like this. Let's shine a light on them here!


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Among the most obvious candidates is Naida Cole, who largely gave up her career as a pianist, to go into medicine. She's now an anesthesiologist.

I was thinking about Cho-liang Lin yesterday. 20-30 years ago, he recorded several really superb discs for Sony (then CBS). He teaches and still plays, but his career now seems centered around chamber music.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Nelson Freire. A long time ago (at least 40-50) he made a sensational recording of the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto. It was on Columbia with Rudolf Kempe. It still is one of the best. Then he sort of disappeared, at least from the recording studio. It is gratifying to see him making more recordings in recent years. One of the greats who unfortunately stayed out the limelight.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Of course retirement ends many a career. I lament the loss of Alfred Brendel on the performance (and recording) stage. I know the man made a lot of recordings, but I will always be open for "one more".

The problem is, of course, the human element. Fingers age, minds lose their command of the score, and sometimes the artist is simply unable to physically communicate the essence of the music as he perceives it should sound. And should we settle for a lesser product? Artists do us a service when they have the courage to say "No, we should not." And to end it.

So I continue to enjoy my Alfred Brendel records (of which I have quite many) and secretly wish that somehow more will come to the fore, whether they be older recordings or something new. But … I do not want Brendel, one of our greatest artists of musical performance and interpretation, to ever compromise for the sake of quantity over quality. Neither should any of us.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Ervin NyiregyháziSeveral public appearances in 1972 and 1973 led to studio recordings made, in 1974 and 1978, under the auspices of the International Piano Archives and the Ford Foundation. Some of these recordings were released, between 1977 and 1979, on albums on the Desmar and Columbia Masterworks labels, which briefly brought Nyiregyházi back into public view.[SUP][12][/SUP] An all-Liszt double album won Stereo Review's 1978 Record of the Year award.[SUP][13][/SUP]
Critical reaction to the recordings was sharply divided, with some claiming to hear an authentic 19th-Century pianist (Harold C. Schonberg wrote that "some critics wonder if Franz Liszt had been reincarnated"[SUP][14][/SUP]). Others denounced Nyiregyhazi's "incredibly slipshod" technique, "ridiculously amateurish" fortissimo playing [SUP][15][/SUP] "glacial tempos and total dissociation from contemporary performance styles. But Romantic revivalists were enthralled."[SUP][16][/SUP] In 1978, he was offered return concerts at Carnegie Hall, but he declined. Recitals in Japan in 1980 and 1982 constituted his last public appearances.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

mbhaub said:


> Nelson Freire. A long time ago (at least 40-50) he made a sensational recording of the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto. It was on Columbia with Rudolf Kempe. It still is one of the best. Then he sort of disappeared, at least from the recording studio. It is gratifying to see him making more recordings in recent years. One of the greats who unfortunately stayed out the limelight.


Nelson Freire actually performed Beethoven's 5th concerto last november here in Amsterdam. I unfortunately didn't attend. And indeed, he is out of the limelight. I think the music scene is a commercial marketplace, where luck is an important factor as to who gets to record new music and therefor gets attention.

It is not enough to play excellent, there has to be a nice story or a pretty picture too, at least so it seems


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