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ARTICLES
CLAVIER MAGAZINE - OCTOBER 2005
MY FATHER, SIMON BARERE
by Jacques Leiser
Pianist
Simon Barere was a genius whose mastery of the keyboard cast a spell
over audiences. He had the ability to convey his insights about a score
with a variety of nuances, while keeping the musical image clean
and clear. He was an extraordinary musician, interpreter, and
teacher.
Barere was born in Odessa on September
1, 1896 and by age 16 studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
Alexander Glazunov, the director of the conservatory, befriended
the young Barere and protected him, as well as Horowitz, Heifetz,
Milstein, Zimbalist, and others, from the anti-semitic regulations
in Russia. Barere studied with Annette Essipova (1851-1914)
and later with Felix Blumenfeld (1863-1931), who taught Vladimir
Horowitz and Heinrich Neuhaus.
After
graduation he was a professor at the Kiev Conservatory.
Although Barere was becoming a legend in Russia, the Stalin regime
made it impossible for him to develop a career as a pianist
abroad. Barere took his wife and son Boris to Berlin in the early
1930s, but the growing fascist climate in Germany and the adoption
of the Nürenberg Laws in 1933 also curtailed his career. His life
changed when he performed in Great Britain and signed a contract
with HMV to record solo pieces. Later these were sold in the United
States on the Victor label. His debut performance was in 1934 with
Thomas Beecham, and two years later he first performed in the United
States in Carnegie Hall.
Critics and colleagues,
including Rachmaninoff, Hofmann, Godowsky, and Lhévinne among
others, soon regarded him as one of the great pianists of
the century. Barere appeared 22 times at Carnegie Hall, and
between 1936 and 1951 he performed 16 recitals there. He toured
Australia, New Zealand and South America, and performed as soloist
with the New York, Edinburgh, Berlin, London, Boston, Cincinnati,
Chicago, and other orchestras. Barere acquired an outstanding
reputation, especially in New York, and was close to international
recognition when he died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage
on stage at Carnegie Hall at age 54, while performing Grieg’s
Piano Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene
Ormandy.
The scarcity of information about Simon
Barere and his career haunted me ever since I had the privilege of
hearing his magical Carnegie Hall recital performance in 1947. It
was hard to accept that such a magnificent artist could so quickly
fade from memory. After one Carnegie Hall recital, Noel Straus, a
critic for The New York Times, said Barere had left the
audience enthralled by his overwhelming artistry, and years later
Harold Schoenberg, also of The New York Times, wrote that Barere
had "one of the fabulous mechanisms of all time."
I
decided to track down Boris Barere, the 83-year-old son of Simon
Barere, who was also a pianist and piano teacher, to interview him
about his father. As it turned out, no one had thought to do this
before. In February 2005 I traveled to New York from California to
talk to this gentleman, who shared some memories of his father
with me.
"I was born in a musical family," said
Boris Barere. "My father and mother played the piano, and
musicians frequently visited our home. My father and Godowsky were
close friends who had tea together and of course played the piano
together. Felix Blumenfeld introduced him to
Godowsky’s transcriptions, such as Johann Strauss’s Fledermaus,
and works of Lully, Rameau, and Corelli, which Godowsky
transcribed.
"My father once played for passengers
on a ship traveling from Europe to America and saw Rachmaninoff
walking on deck. ‘Mr. Rachmaninoff, I knew you were on board this ship,
but I was afraid to approach you,’ he said. Rachmaninoff asked, ‘Why?
Am I so frightening?’ They became friendly after this meeting." Boris
Barere remembers that his father often complained that practicing made
him play worse. "He was a natural at the keyboard; things went well as
long as he played rapidly and naturally, without trying to improve. He
wanted to remain inspired and did not want to risk getting bored.
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The
life and career of Simon Barere is illuminated in an
audio interview with his son, Boris Barere, conducted by
impresario and piano expert Jacques Leiser.
The result: a wealth
of information about Barere as well as first hand recollections and
anecdotes of the greatest musicians of the time who knew him and
visited him at Barere's homes. This is no sentimental family memoir it
is a deeply informative, highly colorful and uncommonly entertaining
cameo of a unique figure in piano history as well as some of the most
famous piano legends in memory. Interspersed are some of Simon Barere's
most extraordinary recordings both from the studio and privately
taken in the concert hall, made available by the APR company that has
reissued on CD all known audio documents of Barere.
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