Lost Genius by Kevin Bazzana

Author:Kevin Bazzana
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press

His two weeks’ work on A Song to Remember allowed him to put a $500 down payment on a house for himself and his fifth wife, Olga, on Wesley Avenue, just south of the Memorial Coliseum, and to pay for furniture, an ice box, and a piano - though he would soon have to sell the piano to finance their divorce. These movies did nothing for his career, however. In fact, the film and concert work he did during the war - including the Mr. X concert of 1946 - was a kind of last hurrah professionally.61 In the 1950s, he stopped teaching piano, and gave only

Nyiregyházi sporting the black silk hood he wore in his Mr. X concert in Los Angeles, May 13, 1946. With him is the impresario Irwin Parnes. (Reproduced from Irwin Parnes Takes the “Bull by the Horns,” by Joy and Irwin Parnes.)

a few sporadic public performances - concerts for women’s clubs and Jewish groups, a free recital for The Humanists in a school auditorium, some benefit concerts on behalf of a black congressional candidate.62 A recital for the Hungarian community in Patriotic Hall, on July 27, 1957, was apparently his last public appearance for more than fifteen years.

He claimed that the “debacle” of his career did not crush his spirits, that he faced it philosophically. “Of course financial trouble is never welcome,” he said in 1978. “But I never regarded concertizing as a glorious occupation. I always preferred music as a way of life, not as a profession.” (He liked to call himself “a talented amateur.”) He always thought of himself as a great man, and longed for others to agree, but he was not so concerned to be renowned as a great pianist. “I am first a human being, second a philosopher and composer, thirdly a pianist,” he said. His anxiety about performing in public had only increased as the fortunes of his career had waned and criticism of his playing had mounted, and he knew that he could never reconcile his artistic tastes and ideals with the demands of the musical marketplace. No wonder he expressed so little regret about abandoning the whole business of being a professional pianist, which he had always associated with life under his mother’s thumb. But he did not abandon music. He continued to work privately, contentedly, and prolifically, without compromise, in the sphere of music that gave him the most satisfaction: composition.

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