Memoirs of a Piano Pedagogue
George Kochevitsky 1902-1993
Description:... Considered by some the greatest piano pedagogue of our time, Kochevitsky wasn't widely acknowledged as such in his lifetime. When he was introduced to photographer Albert Squillace in 1986 as a potential portfolio subject, it was because of the character in his face, not for any recognition of his life's work. Squillace, met an expatriate Russian with a somewhat sketchy command of English, living in a studio apartment dominated by two grand pianos on the upper west side of Manhattan. Only after several photographic sittings did Kochevistky open up and, unprompted, begin to talk about his former life in Russia. It was an astonishing, if disjointed account: a comfortable, middle-class childhood with idyllic summers at the family's summer estate; three years imprisonment in a concentration camp when the Bolsheviks came to power; intensive classical piano studies at the musical conservatories in Moscow and Leningrad; forced performances as part of a traveling troupe of "artistes" sent in boxcars thousand of miles across Russia to entertain enslaved workers on the trans-Siberian railroad; loving references to his mother, to whom he felt he owed everything (and fond memories of their beloved cat, Sabakin); more hardship, deprivation and starvation through another world war and then life in Berlin as a displaced person before eventual emigration to America. Squillace, fascinated, asked if it would be possible to interview his portfolio subject to fill in the gaps on the many incidents that had been barely touched on. It was more than possible: The eighty-three-year-old Kochevitsky jumped at the chance, only too willing to finally take what he considered his rightful place in the spotlight. Over the next three years, in a series of interviews filling thirty-five 90-minute cassette tapes, the full story of the Russian's life was captured in detail. The tales of life in Russia that had so intrigued Squillace were elaborated upon with many new ones added, and his struggle to establish himself in America as a piano pedagogue and author emerged as well. Never able to reconcile himself to what he considered the lax standards of music schools in his adopted country, he often alienated those in positions of authority and pursued his own singular way, going from teaching piano to children for fifty cents a lesson to writing _The Art of Piano Playing: A Scientific Approach_, which has remained in print since publication in 1967. Here in _Memoirs of a Piano Pedagogue_--a book its protagonist did not live to see--in his own words and inimitable style, is the engaging and inspirational autobiography of George Alexandrovich Kochevitsky, survivor, teacher, raconteur and piano pedagogue extraordinaire.
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