Chopin's Prophet

The Life of Pianist Vladimir de Pachmann

Edward Blickstein, Gregor Benko

• Publisher: Scarecrow Press
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9780810884977
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Classical Music

Vladimir de Pachmann was perhaps history's most notorious pianist. Widely regarded as the greatest player of Chopin's works, Pachmann embedded comedic elements—be it fiddling with his piano bench or flirting with the audience—within his classic piano recitals to alleviate his own anxiety over performing. But this wunderkind, whose admirers included Franz Liszt and music critic James Gibbons Huneker (who cheekily nicknamed Pachmann the "Chopinzee"), would by the turn of the century find his antics on the concert stage scorned by critics and out of fashion with listeners, burying his pianistic legacy.

In Chopin's Prophet: The Life of Pianist Vladimir de Pachmann, the first biography ever of this remarkable figure, Edward Blickstein and Gregor Benko explore the private and public lives of this master pianist, surveying his achievements within the context of contemporary critical opinion and preserving his legacy as one of the last great Romantic pianists of his time. Chopin's Prophet paints a colorful portrait of classical piano performance and celebrity at the turn of the 20th century while also documenting Pachmann's attraction to men, which ultimately ended his marriage but was overlooked by his audiences. As the authors illustrate, Pachmann lived in a radically different world of music making, one in which eccentric personality and behavior fit into a much more flexible, and sometimes mysterious, musical community, one where standards were set not by certified experts with degrees but by the musicians themselves. Detailing the evolution of concert piano playing style from the era of Chopin until World War I, Chopin's Prophet tells the fantastic and true story of an artist of and after his time.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Colored Pebbles and Madame Slepouchkine, 1848–1868
• Chapter 2: The Awakening, 1868–1879
• Chapter 3: The Struggle to Find His Own Voice
• Chapter 4: Alone on a Mountaintop, Early 1880s
• Chapter 5: Paris to London on a Bridge of Applause, 1882–1883 and Later
• Chapter 6: Pachmania, 1884–1885
• Chapter 7: Bearded and a Father, 1885–1888
• Chapter 8: Chronicle of the Chopinzee, Part One: American Debut, 1890
• Chapter 9: Chronicle of the Chopinzee, Part Two: An Immortal Epithet is Born, 1891
• Chapter 10: Chronicle of the Chopinzee, Part Three: Friends and Foes, 1891–1892
• Chapter 11: Chronicle of the Chopinzee, Part Four: Sobering Reality, 1893
• Chapter 12: Berlin Days, 1894–1899
• Chapter 13: Vlady and Lepp: The Chopinzee and the Buddah
• Chapter 14: The Voluptuary
• Chapter 15: VladyFlappers and Floppers, 1899–1900
• Chapter 16: The World’s Greatest Pianist, 1899–1900
• Chapter 17: Ruckus in a Rathskeller, 1899–1900
• Chapter 18: A Symbol for the Symbolists, 1900–1904
• Chapter 19: Captured by Baldwin, 1904–1905
• Chapter 20: CESCO, December 1905 to June 1907
• Chapter 21: The First Farewell, 1907–1908: The American Tour
• Chapter 22: Peripatetic Pachmann, 1908–1911
• Chapter 23: The Last of the Chopinzee, 1911–1912
• Chapter 24: The Summer before the Storm, 1912–1914
• Chapter 25: I’m Given My Work, and I Must Play, 1914–1918
• Chapter 26: Villa Gioia, 1918–1920
• Chapter 27: England’s Favorite, 1920–1923
• Chapter 28: Melted in America: The First Season, 1923–1924
• Chapter 29: Melted in America: The Second Season, 1924–1925
• Chapter 30: The Man of a Thousand Farewells, 1925–1928
• Chapter 31: A Relic from the Past, 1928–1954
• Chapter 32: Pachmann’s Vision of Chopin and its Relevancy for the Twenty-first Century
• Notes
• Bibliography