William Kapell

William Kapell - Chopin Sonata 2 in B-flat Minor, Op.35

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• published: 05 Oct 2012
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This sonata was recorded from a broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on October 22, 1953. The recital, in Geelong, was Mr. Kapell's last. Recorded on acetate, the sonata was not transferred to tape until many years later. Extensive restoration has not eliminated all the defects of the acetate recording; however, it has made it possible to perceive the musical qualities of this historic performance. Mr. Kapell was killed in a plane crash on October 29, 1953, returning from this extended tour in Australia. The following article by Claudia Cassidy appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 21, 1954 Sometimes one question answers another, much as you wish it were not true. For months now, those to whom William Kapell’s playing meant something so deeply personal they cannot contemplate its loss have been writing to ask if we can look forward to its like again. And a man who tells me I wrote this asks me to repeat it: “The gods are good to the public. They make endless variations on a similar theme, and they furnish brilliant replacements. But they understand artists. When it comes to the real thing, they never make more than one of a kind.” Perhaps I did write that. In essence I know it is true. I know it is true that we will not hear a Kapell again. He was one of a kind, special. But because of him, as of every artist who leaves an imprint on those who listen, music will be richer, who bereft. In what amounted to about 10 years of public performance he crowded the treasures of a lifetime. Many of us – I had not even suspected how many – loved his playing best of all. We who listen deeply are always seeking, and in him we found what we sought. He was 30 when last played here, not quite a year ago. Remembering that last music, the Brahms, the Chopin, The Prokofieff, the Schubert, what do you think of this: “Conceive to yourself the treasures of poetry and passion that this young genius poured into them, the melodic grace of them, the humor and fantasy, the unleashed furies, the somber dreams! He is alone on his tightrope; below is the gaping crowd awaiting the false step. The imminence of the night that is about to descend on him increases the fury of creation in him. And it increases love. He is a man possessed with love.” Romain Rolland wrote that of Beethoven at 30, just before deafness struck him down. No, there are never two of a kind, but there are endless variations on a similar theme. Those who knew Beethoven as pianist spoke of his “poetic fury.” We heard that in Kapell’s Chopin, in the rapturous flood of the Sonata in B Minor, the monumental outpouring of the B-Flat Minor. Perhaps that is why the pianists who move us most deeply so often look sad. Kapell from the start hurried to the piano, turned his head a little away from the audience for his own listening and was at home the instant his fingers touched the keys. A great performance drained him, yet encircled him beyond telling. I once asked him how it felt to play such music, and he said, “It made me feel useful.” So I find myself remembering the hooded sadness of Rachmaninoff’s face over the spacious sweep of his playing. I think of the searching melancholy that was Paderewski’s pale face in this chosen dusk, the Paderewski who at 70 still played with the white fire of lightning. I remember the rue of Schnabel, who once told me, “Only a few people like me – but fortunately the few are numerous.” No, it is not a gay life, this world of the supreme artist who is of necessity unique. It is lonely and perilous, exposed in a way the man in the mob can never comprehend. Every such artist must at times wonder if it is worth the struggle, but in his heart he knows he has no choice. I doubt if he would change if he could, once he glimpses his mountaintop through the mist of that struggle and knows what it holds in air and view. So I look at the letters that never stop coming, and all I can offer is the hope of another variation on a similar theme, a brilliant replacement not too far in the distance, coming our way. I repeat, as I must, that when it comes to the real thing, the gods never make more than one of a kind. That is just to the artist. That is good to the public – well, I may have thought so once. Now I am not so sure.