"Genius
will always be recognized."
Mankind is willing to believe this adagio. But how many geniuses are
lost, how many talents do not reach their full potentials and were not
even forgotten, because they never came to fame? We do not know.
What we know is that a genius is not specifically a being who is praised
by millions and whose creativity is well marketed by a multinational.
Simon Barere was
a genius.
Since his untimely death, his name surfaces from time to time in every
decade with a few phonographic releases of historic performances, and
is subsequently forgotten.
To the majority of music lovers of today Barere's name is quite new,
notwithstanding his geniality. Simon Barere put a spell over his audience
through his mastery of the keyboard, his insight in the score, and the
ability to convey this by the display of a great variety of tensions
and of gradations in dynamics, while keeping the image perfectly clear,
as if the recreation of the composer's work was almost non physical,
an abstraction, an entity on its own, a celestial body, like a moon
which rotates around the planet to which it belongs. This is especially
true for his performance of Franz Liszt's B minor Piano Sonata,
recorded in Carnegie Hall in 1947.
When Simon Barere
had suddenly collapsed while performing the first bars of Grieg's Piano
Concerto in Carnegie Hall with the Philiadelphia Orchestra conducted
by Eugene Ormandy, on April 2, 1951, and died backstage, the world had
lost an extraordinary musician, interpreter and teacher, who was not
always recognized as such because of restrictions. Many times he had
to keep his family alive by playing in cinema's and restaurants instead
of being celebrated in the concert halls of the world's music capitals.
Simon Barere was
born in Odessa on September 1, 1896 in a large family. (His actual name
was Barer but when in England an 'e' was added to avoid mispronunciation.)
As a phenomenally gifted boy of 11 he was admitted to the Odessa
Imperial Music Academy. After his father had died he supported his
mother and his sisters. At sixteen, when his mother had died, Simon
went to St. Petersburg to study at the Conservatory. Its director
from 1905 till 1912 was symphonist Alexander Glazunov.
There was a natural affinity between the sensuous and passionate Glazunov
and the young, more reserved, yet strong Barere. As Barere's nature
seemed to focus on precise detail in the first place, Glazunov's influence
apparently was to let him see the greater concept also. Glazunov wholeheartedly
protected the young talent against the anti-Semitic regulations in the
Russia of the Czars.
In St. Petersburg Barere studied for two years with pedagogue Annette
Essipoff (1851-1914) until her death. From then on Felix Blumenfeld
was his teacher with whom he could share the same taste. Blumenfeld
certainly taught him not only to keep his strength, precision and virtuosity,
but also not to neglect refined feeling and to show vulnerability in
the performance. (Blumenfeld was the teacher of such remarkable performers
as Wladimir Horowitz, Heinrich Niehaus, and another strong
- and greatly underestimated and ignored - personality: Maria Grinberg.)
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Simon
Barere
Picture edited and restored by
R.A.B., taken from the back of Remington R-199-85
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After graduation
Barere returned to Kiev and started off as a professor at the Kiev
Conservatory. After Lenin's death in 1924 liberalism made place
for the restrictions of Stalin's regime and this made it even more difficult
to build a career as a pianist. Despite the difficulties, Simon Barere
moved to Riga in 1928 to become a cultural ambassador for the Baltic
countries. There his wife, pianist Helen Vlashek, and his son
Boris, finally joined him. Now they were able to escape to Berlin,
in the early nineteen thirties. Here too he could not establish himself
as a serious performer because of the growing fascist climate in Germany.
Fortune changed his life when he traveled to Great Britain to perform.
In 1934 he made his concert debut with Thomas Beecham (as did
Edward Kilenyi in the same period) and he was contracted by His Master's
Voice to record solo pieces (released in the USA on the Victor label).
The HMV recordings have been released on CD on the APR label.
Two years later Barere came to the US and made his debut in Carnegie
Hall on November 9, 1936, and immediately was recognized as one
of the authoritative pianists of the period. He knew Rachmaninoff, Wladimir
Horowitz and Leopold Godowsky. He settled in the US for good in 1939.
After the Second
World War Simon Barere gave several recitals in Carnegie Hall in 1946,
1947 and 1948. The performances of 1947 were released by Don Gabor on
the Remington label (R-199-85). He recorded in March 1951 in
the studio for Remington, released on R-199-17 and R-199-35.
More sessions had been planned, but fate decided otherwise.
Despite the fact
that Barere was never offered a big contract - Victor released only
four shellac discs - these Remingtons are a testimony of his extraordinary
art, thanks also to the efforts of his son Boris Barere.
There are recordings of solo pieces by Liszt, Chopin, Beethoven,
Scriabin, Bach, Blumenfeld. There is also a recording of Liszt's
1st Piano Concerto. And there even exists a recording of Rachmaninoff's
Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 18, with Dutch born Antonia Brico
conducting. The APR release originally stated that the date of recording
and the names of orchestra and conductor of the Rachmaninoff Concerto
are unknown. However, when I viewed the documentary film, made in 1974
by folk singer Judy Collins (in cooperation with Jill Godmilow)
about her teacher Antonia
Brico (1902-1989), "Antonia:
A Portrait of the Woman (1974)", I noticed that a disc
is shown of a recording of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.2 Op.18.
Printed on the label, typed with a typewriter, is the name of Simon
Barere as soloist and as date of recording 1942 is mentioned
(the last season Antonia Brico conducted the Women's Symphony Orchestra
in New York before leaving for Denver).
Although the tape
recorder had already been on display in Europe in 1935 during the World
Fair in Berlin, its existence and qualities only became known in the
US in 1946 after Jack T. Mullin (when on assignment in Germany) had
sent two machines home. It was Ampex who started to copy the "Magnetophon"
as the Germans called the machine. It was going to be the new medium
and made the Long Playing record possible. But Boris Barere recorded
his father's live performances in Carnegie Hall on 78 RPM acetates,
as was the medium used at the time. Making those recordings was not
an easy task as the next disc to be engraved had to be started at the
right moment so no note was lost.
The recording of
the Liszt's B minor Sonata was made on November 11, 1947. This
recording and the one of the Funerailles were released by Don
Gabor in 1952 on Remington R-199-85 to commemorate the pianist
on the occasion of the first anniversary of his death. The Lp has the
usual Remington anomalies but also shows that the performances were
originally recorded on acetates and that the transfers are extremely
well done. They fully convey the atmosphere of the live performance
and have the sound quality of a direct to disc recording with an intense,
dramatic and full piano tone.
On the back of the cover are extracts from reviews of several critics
and some quotations from Olin Downes' article in The New York Times
of April 3, 1951, the day after Barere had died.
In 1973 this performance
was released on Turnabout THS 65001, the H standing for "historic".
On Varèse-Sarabande VC 81045, Tom Null released "The Legendary
Pianist Simon Barere" with live recordings made in Carnegie Hall,
the program of Remington R-199-17, and he added two Scriabin Etudes,
Preludes and Polka by Rachmaninoff, Toccata and Traumenwirren by Schumann
and Balakirev's Islamey, pieces which had not been published before
because Don Gabor selected the best performances to release on the Remington
Lp.
Simon
Barere as pictured in a "MUSIC FOR MILLIONS" listing on the
back of a Remington Record.
Picture edited and restored by R.A.B., taken from the back of Remington
R-199-85
The program on
Remington R-199-17 contains pieces by Liszt (Faust Waltz, Liebestraum
and Gnomenreigen) and Chopin (Balade No. 1 and Scherzo No. 3). These
recordings were made in 1950 and are of a far higher sound quality as
a tape recorder was used. They were probably made in the Mastertone
Studios in New York City, rented by Don Gabor and George
Curtiss. Although
some of Barere's Carnegie Hall performances are most captivating, the
studio gave the pianist a setting for better concentration and the possibility
of splicing. The performance of the Faust Waltz is considered
to be one of the finest ever done of the piece, and is actually better
than Barere's earlier Carnegie Hall version. Later this recording was
issued on Turnabout 65001.
Remington R-199-35
is another memorial album with Don Juan Fantasy (Mozart-Liszt), Etude
de concert (Liszt), Sonetto del Petrarca (Liszt), Valse oublié
(Liszt) and Campanella (Paganini-Liszt). Also from tape recordings made
in 1950 by Remington.
Balakirev's Islamey,
Rachmaninoff's Preludes Nos. 5, 12 and Polka, and Blumenfeld's Etude
for the Left Hand, Schumann's Toccata, Traumenswirren, and Liszt's Rhapsodie
Espagnole, can be found on Remington R-199-141 (release in July
1953). These are also live recordings made in Carnegie Hall. These selections
can also be found on the APR label.
Barere's interpretation
of the Liszt Sonata shows virtuosity, but never for the sake
of displaying a superior technique as in several other recordings. There
is no sentimentality. His sense for phrasing, for dynamics, for building
up and releasing tension have a sincerity which leads the listener to
the heart of the music, to the core of what human existence is all about.
Right from the day Remington R-199-85 was released, Barere's
performance of the Liszt Sonata was recognized as the best interpretation
that was available on disc.
Harold C. Schoenberg of The New
York Times wrote:
"...it has that combination of excitement and bravura that
Barere invariably brought to his Liszt (...). In time to come
this disc will be a collector's item."
Noel
Strauss wrote:
"More completely satisfying readings of the pieces by Liszt
presented are hardly imaginable. The "Funerailles"
of that master was not only a tour de force of living octaves,
but thrilling in its dramatic forcefulness and deeply affecting
in its moments of sensitive lyricism."
Warren
DeMotte's evaluation in The Long Playing Record Guide reads:
"Barere plays with magnificent drive, poetic imagination,
and sincere conviction."
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Thanks to the efforts
of APR, to day everybody can hear the recordings of Simon Barere. But
if you are a collector and you also encounter a good pressing of a Remington
release, you should not hesitate to take it home.
In 1989 Appian
Publications and Recordings (APR) transferred the old acetates to CD.
As remastering techniques have vastly improved of late, new transfers
have been prepared of Barere's performances. The
1947 Carnegie Hall recital with the Liszt Sonata has been prepared by
Brian Crimp: "Simon Barere, His celebrated live recordings at Carnegie
Hall, Volume Three: 11th November 1947". The program also includes
Renaissance - Pastorale, Gigue & Tambourin (Godowsky), Ballade No. 1
and Impromptu No.1 (Chopin), Etude for the left hand (Blumenfeld), Islamey
(Balakirev) and encores by Scriabin (Etude in D sharp minor, Op.8/12),
Rachmaninoff (Polka de W.R.), Schumann (Traumens Wirren) and Weber (Perpetuum
mobile from Piano Sonata No. 1).
As a music lover
one depends very much on the taste of the technician. Does he go for
an extremely clean transfer with a cold piano tone or does he want to
convey the atmosphere by not cleaning up the signal too drastically
and preserving a more natural sound with inevitably some distortion?
The technician's choice makes a great difference to the listener's perception,
while conveying more or less the nature of the performance.
Rudolf A. Bruil
- March 2001
