Andres SEGOVIA remembered polish pianist, composer, music teacher Ignaz FRIEDMAN

Andres Segovia talks with Nina Walder about polish pianist, composer, music teacher Ignaz FRIEDMAN

Pianist’s granddaughter Nina Walder interviewed Andres Segovia.

Andres Segovia • Ignaz Friedman • and Artur Rubinstein in Argentina!
https://arbiterrecords.org/andres-seg...


In Argentina, Friedman toured with Andres Segovia, who was eleven years younger: the two were fast friends. Segovia recalled:

“ [Friedman’s itinerary] was fuller than mine because it encompassed Brazil and Chile and I was simply engaged for Buenos Aires, other large towns and in Uruguay only Montevideo. So he went twice to Chile, twice to Brazil. I had to go to Mendoza and knew that Friedman was going to play there, not a public concert, but a private one in the most exclusive casino in Mendoza. I attended his concert at this special aristocratic club. Naturally the public gathered there was not musical, an audience of rich people who had nothing to do with music and I remember something very funny. During the concert he noticed immediately that they were not musical. At the end of a variation on a theme of Paganini [La Campanella] he fell asleep during the trill to attract the attention of the audience. There was a colonel wearing many decorations which were later abandoned as they hadn’t had any wars in Argentina and this colonel slapped Friedman’s shoulder and said ‘What did you play- is it Mozart or yours?’ Can you imagine! Friedman answered ‘LISZT’: the colonel said ‘Ah!’ and disappeared.

“The next day we took the train to Buenos Aires and we passed through a desert which created a dust, such a fine dust that entered through the window’s cracks and one had to ask always for a damp towel from the conductor to line the windows. When we arrived I saw placards for [Artur] Rubinstein’s concert. So I tell Friedman ‘We are going tonight.’ Friedman refused but then accepted. The impresario Quesada reserved a loge that faced Rubinstein. He started with a Chopin Nocturne. Then, as Friedman was preparing himself to suffer the Chopin, Rubinstein suddenly saw Friedman and completely lost his nerves and played in a very nervous way. Ignaz took my arm, saying ‘this is not right, this is not so!’ and I said ‘It’s not me who’s playing.’ Then came works of Albeniz. Albeniz wrote his music in a terribly difficult way. Sometimes [Rubinstein] simplified or played it wrong and it was I then who took Friedman’s arm saying ‘It is not so!’ Afterwards we went to see him and Friedman said ‘Artur, good, very good, especially Albeniz.’ Then when I came, ‘Artur, good, very good, especially Chopin.’”