William Kapell
William Kapell (born September 20, 1922 in New York City , † October 29, 1953 in a plane crash over Half Moon Bay (city, California) ) was an American pianist .
The early deceased was considered America's greatest hope for a pianist, ahead of Van Cliburn and the Canadian Glenn Gould .
After studying at the prestigious Juilliard School in his hometown of New York, he won both the Philadelphia Orchestra Prize and the Naumburg Foundation Prize in 1942 and made his debut in New York shortly afterwards. In the same year he performed Aram Khachaturian's piano concerto , which in the following years would become his "parade horse" - so much so that he was jokingly called "Khachaturian Kapell".
But Kapell was anything but a specialist. In his short career he spanned his repertoire from Johann Sebastian Bach to Sergei Prokofjew and demonstrated not only his spectacular technique in a wide variety of works, but above all a completely modern approach to interpretation, which does not equate romanticism with sentimentality, which is especially the piano concertos by Sergei Rachmaninoff got excellent.
His star-like appearance and his happy marriage to Rebecca Anna Lou Melson, which resulted in two children, made him a born front-page idol. His recordings, u. a. with Antal Doráti , Dimitri Mitropoulos and Leopold Stokowski , however, show Kapell as a serious artist who would certainly have made a European breakthrough had he lived longer.
Aaron Copland said of him: "His unique passion for the art, which we both loved, was downright terrifying, even for a composer like me."
The University of Maryland International Piano Competition was renamed the William Kapell International Piano Competition in 1986 in honor of William Kapell .
literature
- Mirko Weber: Again with feeling! Last recordings by the late American pianist William Kapell. Zeit-Online, October 10, 2008, accessed July 21, 2018 .
- Jonathan Summers (Naxos): William Kapell. Accessed July 21, 2018 (English).
- Michael Kimmelman: The Undefeated. In: The New York Review Of Books, Volume 52, Number 5. March 24, 2005, accessed July 21, 2018 .
- Michael Kimmelman: William Kapell: A Larger, Truer Vision of a Passionate Modern. New York Times, October 11, 1998, accessed July 21, 2018 .
- Tim Page: William Kapell's Piano Benchmark. Washington Post, September 27, 1998, accessed July 21, 2018 .
- Claudia Cassidy: In Memory of William Kapell, Who Left Us Richer in Music. Chicago Tribune, October 30, 1953, accessed July 21, 2018 .
- Virgil Thompson: On William Kapell. New York Herald-Tribune, October 1953, accessed July 21, 2018 .
Web links
- William Kapell Recital (YouTube). Accessed July 21, 2018 (English).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kapell, William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American pianist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 20, 1922 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 29, 1953 |
| Place of death | Half Moon Bay (City, California) |