Virtuosi: A Defense and a (Sometimes Erotic) Celebration of Great Pianists Review

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Virtuosi: A Defense and a (Sometimes Erotic) Celebration of Great Pianists ReviewI can't remember being so disappointed in, well, *any* book, at least in a very long time. "Disappointed" was a deliberate word choice, as Mitchell writes quite well and, in my opinion, has excellent taste in what makes which pianists great (for example, he rightly -- again in my opinion -- claims that, in Beethoven at least, it is Pollini, not Brendel and the like, who is the true intellectual... and he LOVES Argerich, as well as Rubinstein and Pogorelich. Anyone who 'gets' the greatness of artists as diametrically opposed in nearly every way as Pogorelich and Rubinstein, while realizing the treacly preachiness of Brendel, knows what's what.) But the book concerns itself more with the author's subjective responses to concerts he's attended and autobiographical events than with pianism, or virtuosity, in general, and screams out for the patient pen of a (Teutonic?) editor. The book is SO over the top with irrelevant snippets that it's literally maddening to read. There is no 'linearity' to it: each chapter is like a little cloud of anecdote. The photos in the middle bear very little relation to anything I could find in the text (A photo of the late, great Hazel Harrison and six-year-old wunderkind Adelina Germain? Interesting, yes, BUT WHY? There is no sustained discussion of either in the text, merely a mention here and there.)
What was especially galling was the CONSTANT AND RIDICULOUS non sequiturs.... It's fair to say that the book is more than a bit concerned with the topic and some of its observations, even if true, have no place in what purports to be an objective study of any phenomenon. And the 'dish' factor is through the roof: I've NEVER read a book on a musical topic so brimming with unadulterated gossip.
While I appreciate titillating details as much as the next person, it's disconcerting, AGAIN AND AGAIN, to be reading a passage discussing a particular performance style, and then confront several paragraphs of polemical invective, gossip, or both regarding someone's bedroom activities. An amazing example is Pachmann, supposedly a sterling example of "the flamboyant homosexual", who managed to be married and have two children. Of course, what he WAS was gay; the notion that he was simply open to experimentation, or was prone to casual affairs, gets no airing. And besides: WHO CARES? It's really galling to think that someone could have conducted their lives with a patina of privacy and it gets dug up for utterly dubious reasons. Oh, wait: NOT dubious, but to increase sales.
I approached this book with high hopes, and did manage to learn some new things from it. But MAN, its editor needs to find a new line of work. [I apologize if this appears to be in any way antagonistic to particular erotic (a word in the book's title) orientations. It is most fervently NOT that that I object to, but its remarkably non-systematic deployment in such a study. The book, in the end, is about its author, who -- and perhaps this is the saddest part -- is a terrific writer with fine taste who *could* have produced something of far greater value.]Virtuosi: A Defense and a (Sometimes Erotic) Celebration of Great Pianists Overview

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