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William Kapell

January 01, 1970

For other people with the same name, see William Capell (disambiguation).

William Kapell (September 20, 1922 – October 29, 1953) was an American pianist and recording artist, killed at the age of 31 in the crash of a commercial airliner returning from a concert tour in Australia.

Kapell in 1948.
Signed drawing of William Kapell by Manuel Rosenberg, 1926

Biography edit

William Kapell was born in New York City on September 20, 1922, and grew up in the eastside neighborhood of Yorkville, Manhattan, where his parents owned a Lexington Avenue bookstore.[1] His father was of Spanish-Russian Jewish ancestry and his mother of Polish descent.[2][3] Dorothea Anderson La Follette (the wife of Chester La Follette) met Kapell at the Third Street Music School and became his teacher, giving him lessons several times a week at her studio on West 64th Street.[4] Kapell later studied with Olga Samaroff, former wife of conductor Leopold Stokowski, at the Juilliard School.

Kapell won his first competition at the age of ten and received as a prize a turkey dinner with the pianist José Iturbi. In 1941, he won the Philadelphia Orchestra's youth competition as well as the prestigious Naumburg Award. The following year, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation sponsored the 19-year-old pianist's New York début, a recital which won him the Town Hall Award for the year's outstanding concert by a musician under 30. He was immediately signed to an exclusive recording contract with RCA Victor.[3]

Kapell achieved fame while in his early twenties, in part as a result of his performances of Aram Khachaturian's Piano Concerto in D-flat. His 1946 world premiere recording of the piece with Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra was a sell-out hit.[5] Eventually, he became so associated with the work that he was referred to in some circles as "Khachaturian Kapell." Besides his exciting pianism and stupendous technical gifts, Kapell's attractive appearance and mop of black hair helped make him a favorite with the public.[3]

By the late 1940s, Kapell had toured the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia to immense acclaim and was widely considered the most brilliant and audacious of his generation of young American pianists.[6] On May 18, 1948, he married Rebecca Anna Lou Melson, with whom he had two children. She was a fine pianist herself, having been a student of Sergei Tarnowsky, the teacher of Vladimir Horowitz.

Early on, there was a tendency to typecast Kapell as a performer of technically difficult repertoire. While his technique was exceptional, he was a deep and versatile musician, and was memorably impatient with what he considered shallow or sloppy music making. His own repertoire was very diverse, encompassing works from J. S. Bach to Aaron Copland, who so admired Kapell's performances of his Piano Sonata that he was writing a new work for him at the time of the pianist's death. Kapell practiced up to eight hours a day,[3] keeping track of his sessions with a notebook and clock. He also set aside time from his busy concert schedule to work with the musicians he most admired, including Artur Schnabel, Pablo Casals, and Rudolf Serkin. Kapell also approached Arthur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz (whose East 94th Street townhouse was diagonally across the street from the Kapells' apartment) for lessons, but they demurred. Horowitz later commented that there was nothing he could have taught Kapell.

From August to October 1953, Kapell toured Australia, playing 37 concerts in 14 weeks, appearing in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Bendigo, Shepparton, Albury, Horsham and finally in Geelong.[7]

Death and aftermath edit

Kapell played the final concert of his Australian tour in Geelong, Victoria, on October 22, 1953, a recital which included a performance of Chopin's "Funeral March" Sonata.[8] Days after the concert, he set off on his return flight to the United States, telling reporters at Mascot Airport he would never return to Australia because of the harsh comments from some Australian critics.[9] He was aboard BCPA Flight 304 when on the morning of October 29, 1953, the plane, descending to land in fog, struck the treetops and crashed on Kings Mountain, south of the San Francisco airport. Everyone on board died.[10][11] His friend, broadcaster Alistair Cooke, covered Kapell's death in his Letter from America on October 30, 1953. On November 2, Kapell's funeral took place at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York; interment followed at the Mount Ararat Cemetery near Farmingdale, New York.[12]

Famed musician Isaac Stern set up the William Kapell Memorial Fund to bring notable musicians to the United States for wider experience. The Australian violinist Ernest Llewellyn, a long-time friend of Stern's, was the inaugural recipient in 1955.[13]

The fascination with Kapell's playing has continued in the decades since his death. Pianists including Eugene Istomin, Gary Graffman, Leon Fleisher and Van Cliburn, and many others have acknowledged Kapell's influence. Fleisher stated that Kapell was "the greatest pianistic talent that this country has ever produced".[14] Kapell's widow, Anna Lou Dehavenon (1926–2012), undertook a career as an expert on homelessness in New York in part as a result, she said, of her own experience of suddenly becoming a single mother with no income. For the rest of her life she worked to keep her late husband's recordings before the public.

Kapell's estate sued BCPA, Qantas (which had taken over BCPA in 1954), and BOAC (which was alleged to have sold Kapell the ticket).[15] In 1964, more than ten years after the crash, Kapell's widow and two children were awarded US$924,396 in damages.[16] The award was overturned on appeal in 1965.[17]

Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival edit

In 1986, the University of Maryland's piano competition was renamed the William Kapell International Piano Competition in Kapell's honor. It became quadrennial in 1998 and is currently held at the university's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.[18]

Recordings edit

See also: William Kapell discography

In 1944, Kapell signed an exclusive recording contract with RCA Victor. Many of his recordings were originally issued as 78RPM records. Some were issued on LP, but by 1960, all of Kapell's commercial recordings were out of print. In 1962, RCA Victor reissued the Kappell/Koussevitzky recording of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto. Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 were reissued on the RCA Victrola label in 1970. For decades, pirated copies of the Kappell's commercial RCA Victor recordings and unlicensed recordings of "live" performances circulated among collectors.

In the 1980s, RCA Victor issued two compact discs of Kapell's recordings, including the Khatchaturian and Prokofiev Third Piano Concertos, and an all-Chopin disc.

A 9 CD set released by RCA Victor in 1998 contains Kapell's complete authorized recordings, including renditions of Chopin's mazurkas and sonatas as well as concertos by Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and Khatchaturian. It also has many lesser-known items, some of them first releases, including Shostakovich preludes, Scarlatti sonatas, and the Copland Piano Sonata. The set sold remarkably well throughout the world and brought Kapell's work to a new audience.

VAI 1027 contains broadcast recordings of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 and the Khatchaturian Piano Concerto. Arbiter 108 features part of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3 and the Shostakovich Concerto No. 1, and it includes Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, which also appears in the RCA Victor set, as well as on VAI 1048, the last from an Australian recital of July 21, 1953.

In 2004, a number of broadcast recordings made during William Kapell's last Australian tour were returned to his family.[19] RCA Victor issued these recordings in 2008 under the title Kapell Rediscovered. Included are several previously unknown performances of "God Save the Queen", Debussy's Suite bergamasque, Chopin's Barcarolle, Op. 60, and Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20, and Prokofiev's Sonata No. 7, Op. 83.[20] In 2013, RCA issued a new 11 CD set of Kappell's complete recordings, including the broadcast recordings from the final Australian tour.

References edit

Notes

  1. ^ Downes 2013, p. 15.
  2. ^ William Kapell 2008-07-04 at the Wayback Machine at Naxos.com
  3. ^ a b c d Tim Page, "William Kapell's Piano Benchmark", The Washington Post, September 27, 1998 (at williamkapell.com).
  4. ^ Downes 2013, p. 18.
  5. ^ . ArkivMusic. Archived from the original on August 23, 2018.
  6. ^ Jean-Pierre Thiollet, 88 notes pour piano solo, "Solo nec plus ultra", Neva Editions, 2015, p. 51. ISBN 978 2 3505 5192 0.
  7. ^ Jed Distler. "Review: William Kapell Rediscovered: The Australian Broadcasts". Classics Today. Retrieved July 12, 2021.
  8. ^ McBeath, John (February 16, 2013). "Last notes of a prodigy". The Australian.
  9. ^ Downes 2013, p. 115.
  10. ^ "19 Killed In B.C.P.A. Crash in U.S.A." The Sydney Morning Herald. Australian Associated Press. October 31, 1953. p. 1. Retrieved October 8, 2023 – via Trove.
  11. ^ "Kapell: Truly American Craftsman Of Music", obituary in The Sydney Morning Herald, October 31, 1953, p. 2. Retrieved 2012-08-17
  12. ^ Downes 2013, p. 16.
  13. ^ W. L. Hoffmann, "Lest we forget Isaac Stern", The Canberra Times, October 24, 2001.
  14. ^ Dubal, David. Reflections from the Keyboard, ISBN 0-8256-7211-2
  15. ^ "$7M Suit Filed Against Three Airlines". News in Brief. The Times. No. 54372. London. January 30, 1959. col C, p. 10.
  16. ^ "$924,396 for Pianist's Widow". News. The Times. No. 55923. London. January 31, 1964. col G, p. 12.
  17. ^ Edward Ranzal (June 10, 1965). "Kapell's kin lose $924,396 award; Appeals Court Throws Out Damages for 1953 Death of Pianist in DC-6 Crash". The New York Times. (subscription required)
  18. ^ . Archived from the original on June 23, 2012. Retrieved January 15, 2012.
  19. ^ Daniel J. Wakin (November 10, 2004). "The Found Treasures of a Great Pianist". The New York Times. Retrieved October 8, 2023.
  20. ^ "Last Recordings of American Pianist William Kapell". Sony BMG. Retrieved March 20, 2008.

Sources

  • Downes, Stephen (2013). A Lasting Record. HarperCollins Australia. ISBN 9780730499909.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to William Kapell.
 
Wikiquote has quotations related to William Kapell.
  • William Kapell Rediscovered at williamkapell.com
  • "The Undefeated" review of William Kapell Edition by Michael Kimmelman, The New York Review of Books, March 24, 2005 (subscription required)
  • The William Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival 2013-02-07 at the Wayback Machine
  • Video of William Kapell recital (10:19) on YouTube, Scarlatti; Chopin's Nocturne No. 2, Op. 55; "Gato" arranged by Emilio A. Napolitano
  • William Kapell Remembered, Part 1 (8:26) on YouTube
  • William Kapell Remembered, Part 2 (8:27) on YouTube
  • William Kapell Remembered, Part 2 (8:26) on YouTube

January 01, 1970
william, kapell, other, people, with, same, name, william, capell, disambiguation, september, 1922, october, 1953, american, pianist, recording, artist, killed, crash, commercial, airliner, returning, from, concert, tour, australia, kapell, 1948, signed, drawi. For other people with the same name see William Capell disambiguation William Kapell September 20 1922 October 29 1953 was an American pianist and recording artist killed at the age of 31 in the crash of a commercial airliner returning from a concert tour in Australia Kapell in 1948 Signed drawing of William Kapell by Manuel Rosenberg 1926 Contents 1 Biography 1 1 Death and aftermath 2 Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival 3 Recordings 4 References 5 External linksBiography editWilliam Kapell was born in New York City on September 20 1922 and grew up in the eastside neighborhood of Yorkville Manhattan where his parents owned a Lexington Avenue bookstore 1 His father was of Spanish Russian Jewish ancestry and his mother of Polish descent 2 3 Dorothea Anderson La Follette the wife of Chester La Follette met Kapell at the Third Street Music School and became his teacher giving him lessons several times a week at her studio on West 64th Street 4 Kapell later studied with Olga Samaroff former wife of conductor Leopold Stokowski at the Juilliard School Kapell won his first competition at the age of ten and received as a prize a turkey dinner with the pianist Jose Iturbi In 1941 he won the Philadelphia Orchestra s youth competition as well as the prestigious Naumburg Award The following year the Walter W Naumburg Foundation sponsored the 19 year old pianist s New York debut a recital which won him the Town Hall Award for the year s outstanding concert by a musician under 30 He was immediately signed to an exclusive recording contract with RCA Victor 3 Kapell achieved fame while in his early twenties in part as a result of his performances of Aram Khachaturian s Piano Concerto in D flat His 1946 world premiere recording of the piece with Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra was a sell out hit 5 Eventually he became so associated with the work that he was referred to in some circles as Khachaturian Kapell Besides his exciting pianism and stupendous technical gifts Kapell s attractive appearance and mop of black hair helped make him a favorite with the public 3 By the late 1940s Kapell had toured the United States Canada Europe and Australia to immense acclaim and was widely considered the most brilliant and audacious of his generation of young American pianists 6 On May 18 1948 he married Rebecca Anna Lou Melson with whom he had two children She was a fine pianist herself having been a student of Sergei Tarnowsky the teacher of Vladimir Horowitz Early on there was a tendency to typecast Kapell as a performer of technically difficult repertoire While his technique was exceptional he was a deep and versatile musician and was memorably impatient with what he considered shallow or sloppy music making His own repertoire was very diverse encompassing works from J S Bach to Aaron Copland who so admired Kapell s performances of his Piano Sonata that he was writing a new work for him at the time of the pianist s death Kapell practiced up to eight hours a day 3 keeping track of his sessions with a notebook and clock He also set aside time from his busy concert schedule to work with the musicians he most admired including Artur Schnabel Pablo Casals and Rudolf Serkin Kapell also approached Arthur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz whose East 94th Street townhouse was diagonally across the street from the Kapells apartment for lessons but they demurred Horowitz later commented that there was nothing he could have taught Kapell From August to October 1953 Kapell toured Australia playing 37 concerts in 14 weeks appearing in Sydney Brisbane Melbourne Bendigo Shepparton Albury Horsham and finally in Geelong 7 Death and aftermath edit Kapell played the final concert of his Australian tour in Geelong Victoria on October 22 1953 a recital which included a performance of Chopin s Funeral March Sonata 8 Days after the concert he set off on his return flight to the United States telling reporters at Mascot Airport he would never return to Australia because of the harsh comments from some Australian critics 9 He was aboard BCPA Flight 304 when on the morning of October 29 1953 the plane descending to land in fog struck the treetops and crashed on Kings Mountain south of the San Francisco airport Everyone on board died 10 11 His friend broadcaster Alistair Cooke covered Kapell s death in his Letter from America on October 30 1953 On November 2 Kapell s funeral took place at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York interment followed at the Mount Ararat Cemetery near Farmingdale New York 12 Famed musician Isaac Stern set up the William Kapell Memorial Fund to bring notable musicians to the United States for wider experience The Australian violinist Ernest Llewellyn a long time friend of Stern s was the inaugural recipient in 1955 13 The fascination with Kapell s playing has continued in the decades since his death Pianists including Eugene Istomin Gary Graffman Leon Fleisher and Van Cliburn and many others have acknowledged Kapell s influence Fleisher stated that Kapell was the greatest pianistic talent that this country has ever produced 14 Kapell s widow Anna Lou Dehavenon 1926 2012 undertook a career as an expert on homelessness in New York in part as a result she said of her own experience of suddenly becoming a single mother with no income For the rest of her life she worked to keep her late husband s recordings before the public Kapell s estate sued BCPA Qantas which had taken over BCPA in 1954 and BOAC which was alleged to have sold Kapell the ticket 15 In 1964 more than ten years after the crash Kapell s widow and two children were awarded US 924 396 in damages 16 The award was overturned on appeal in 1965 17 Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival editIn 1986 the University of Maryland s piano competition was renamed the William Kapell International Piano Competition in Kapell s honor It became quadrennial in 1998 and is currently held at the university s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center 18 Recordings editSee also William Kapell discography In 1944 Kapell signed an exclusive recording contract with RCA Victor Many of his recordings were originally issued as 78RPM records Some were issued on LP but by 1960 all of Kapell s commercial recordings were out of print In 1962 RCA Victor reissued the Kappell Koussevitzky recording of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto Beethoven s Piano Concerto No 2 and Prokofiev s Piano Concerto No 3 were reissued on the RCA Victrola label in 1970 For decades pirated copies of the Kappell s commercial RCA Victor recordings and unlicensed recordings of live performances circulated among collectors In the 1980s RCA Victor issued two compact discs of Kapell s recordings including the Khatchaturian and Prokofiev Third Piano Concertos and an all Chopin disc A 9 CD set released by RCA Victor in 1998 contains Kapell s complete authorized recordings including renditions of Chopin s mazurkas and sonatas as well as concertos by Rachmaninoff Prokofiev and Khatchaturian It also has many lesser known items some of them first releases including Shostakovich preludes Scarlatti sonatas and the Copland Piano Sonata The set sold remarkably well throughout the world and brought Kapell s work to a new audience VAI 1027 contains broadcast recordings of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No 3 and the Khatchaturian Piano Concerto Arbiter 108 features part of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No 3 and the Shostakovich Concerto No 1 and it includes Mussorgsky s Pictures at an Exhibition which also appears in the RCA Victor set as well as on VAI 1048 the last from an Australian recital of July 21 1953 In 2004 a number of broadcast recordings made during William Kapell s last Australian tour were returned to his family 19 RCA Victor issued these recordings in 2008 under the title Kapell Rediscovered Included are several previously unknown performances of God Save the Queen Debussy s Suite bergamasque Chopin s Barcarolle Op 60 and Scherzo No 1 in B minor Op 20 and Prokofiev s Sonata No 7 Op 83 20 In 2013 RCA issued a new 11 CD set of Kappell s complete recordings including the broadcast recordings from the final Australian tour References editNotes Downes 2013 p 15 William Kapell Archived 2008 07 04 at the Wayback Machine at Naxos com a b c d Tim Page William Kapell s Piano Benchmark The Washington Post September 27 1998 at williamkapell com Downes 2013 p 18 William Kapell Edition Vol 4 Khachaturian Prokofiev Notes amp Reviews ArkivMusic Archived from the original on August 23 2018 Jean Pierre Thiollet 88 notes pour piano solo Solo nec plus ultra Neva Editions 2015 p 51 ISBN 978 2 3505 5192 0 Jed Distler Review William Kapell Rediscovered The Australian Broadcasts Classics Today Retrieved July 12 2021 McBeath John February 16 2013 Last notes of a prodigy The Australian Downes 2013 p 115 19 Killed In B C P A Crash in U S A The Sydney Morning Herald Australian Associated Press October 31 1953 p 1 Retrieved October 8 2023 via Trove Kapell Truly American Craftsman Of Music obituary in The Sydney Morning Herald October 31 1953 p 2 Retrieved 2012 08 17 Downes 2013 p 16 W L Hoffmann Lest we forget Isaac Stern The Canberra Times October 24 2001 Dubal David Reflections from the Keyboard ISBN 0 8256 7211 2 7M Suit Filed Against Three Airlines News in Brief The Times No 54372 London January 30 1959 col C p 10 924 396 for Pianist s Widow News The Times No 55923 London January 31 1964 col G p 12 Edward Ranzal June 10 1965 Kapell s kin lose 924 396 award Appeals Court Throws Out Damages for 1953 Death of Pianist in DC 6 Crash The New York Times subscription required Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at Maryland The William Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival About the Competition and Festival Archived from the original on June 23 2012 Retrieved January 15 2012 Daniel J Wakin November 10 2004 The Found Treasures of a Great Pianist The New York Times Retrieved October 8 2023 Last Recordings of American Pianist William Kapell Sony BMG Retrieved March 20 2008 Sources Downes Stephen 2013 A Lasting Record HarperCollins Australia ISBN 9780730499909 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to William Kapell nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to William Kapell William Kapell Rediscovered at williamkapell com The Undefeated review of William Kapell Edition by Michael Kimmelman The New York Review of Books March 24 2005 subscription required The William Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival Archived 2013 02 07 at the Wayback Machine Video of William Kapell recital 10 19 on YouTube Scarlatti Chopin s Nocturne No 2 Op 55 Gato arranged by Emilio A Napolitano William Kapell Remembered Part 1 8 26 on YouTube William Kapell Remembered Part 2 8 27 on YouTube William Kapell Remembered Part 2 8 26 on YouTube Portal nbsp Classical music Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title William Kapell amp oldid 1191612105, 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