SAM GOODYEAR

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ART BEAT


Vladimir Horowitz suffered from such agonizing stage fright that he stopped playing in public for 20 years.
Gioacchino Rossini interrupted his prolific composing career for 30 years before picking up his pen again.
“Writer’s block” has been known to afflict countless authors.
Let’s face it, artists don’t necessarily have an easy time of it. By their very nature, they are outside the conventional box, and since each artist is “one of a kind” – there aren’t two Mozarts or two van Goghs, for example – the solitariness of their calling places burdens on them that are not always easy.
It is always good news when a Horowitz or a Rossini returns to the scene, and such is the cause for celebration of a recital to be given at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 1, at Grace Episcopal Church in Cherry Valley.
Agustin Anievas, born in New York City of Spanish-Mexican parents, had by age 8 performed at the Pan American Union in Washington, D.C., and at Mexico City’s Palace of Fine Arts, the youngest performer ever to achieve such a distinction.
Trained at the Juilliard School of music under the tutelage of Adele Marcus, he has played all over the world, starting with Carnegie Hall (where everybody else is trying to get to) and winning the first Dimitri Mitropoulos Competition along the way.
He spent 25 years as chairman and professor of piano at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, all of which adds up to a rich and rewarding life in art.
Then, after bypass surgery, he stepped aside for a bit. For five years, to be exact. But make no mistake, he didn’t sit at home brooding.
He launched into another form of artistic expression, namely photography, finding that considerations such as patience, composition, and the search for the correct tonalities were not unlike his approach to learning a piece of music.
He had kept his hand in musically by serving as judge at piano competitions all over the globe, and it was on hearing a young entrant’s performance of Bach’s famous “Chaconne” that he was inspired to resume his place in the public eye.
His big return appearance will take place at the Newport (R.I.) Music Festival on July 26, when he will appear at The Breakers, the famed Vanderbilt “cottage.”
But after such a hiatus it is advisable to ease back into the limelight rather than plunge in headlong, and we are lucky that he will be “warming up” to his come-back with a preliminary recital of the Newport program at Grace Church.
His choices are unabashedly romantic: some Schubert impromptus, some Chopin waltzes (as well as the Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise), and Liszt’s Sonata in b Minor.
A few months ago we waxed lyrical about the acoustics at Grace Church.
The lustrous wood of the interior provides not only visual warmth, it generously reflects all the sound waves it receives. Mr. Anievas will have just the venue needed for his recital, and we are indeed fortunate to have such an important event to add to our increasingly crowded calendar of events.

Sam Goodyear’s column on the arts in and around Otsego County appears weekly.

Labels: 062708, Art Beat, Glimmerglass, Sam Goodyear