Virtuosi: A Defense and a (Sometimes Erotic) Celebration of Great Pianists. (Book Reviews).

Virtuosi: A Defense and a (Sometimes Erotic) Celebration of Great Pianists. Mark Mitchell. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. [x, 193 p. ISBN 0-253-33757-7. $24.95.]

This is a bizarrely heterogeneous book--partly an autobiography, partly a series of concert reviews, partly a random history of piano playing, and partly a homosexual tract. If that were not enough, it is also, according to the description on the dust jacket, "an investigation into the nature of genius," although I must admit that I fail to see quite how it fulfills that particular ambition. This is undoubtedly a puzzling volume to appear under the imprint of a university press, even if the coy phrase "sometimes erotic" had not been inserted smirkingly into the title. Mark Mitchell's approach is willfully subjective, and he would surely not claim the intention of academic rigor. One of his reasons for writing, again according to the dust jacket, is that "for centuries, the artistic merit of performers with superior technique has almost ipso facto been denied"; he argues, on the contrary, that "no musician can reach the summit of his art if he is restrained by materials, or unreceptive to pleasure, amplitude a nd dazzlement." On a basic level this is almost a truism--any performer needs at least enough technique to communicate his interpretative ideas--but it is certainly true that some outstanding virtuosos have been criticized for sacrificing a coherent overview of a piece on the altar of mechanical dexterity (none more so than Vladimir Horowitz, for example). Mitchell, however, inflates the importance of this issue, and tries partly to justify his book, by giving the Impression that criticism of virtuosos is almost universal and that nearly every virtuoso is thus criticized. This is far from true. He also responds to subjective criticism of certain of his favored performers and performance styles with equally subjective belittling of pianists, such as Artur Schnabel and Alfred Brendel, whom he regards as being in an opposing camp.

All of this is written fluently and ...