Murray Perahia

Unlike his mentor Horowitz, who is remembered for his brilliant performances of dramatic, virtuoso pieces by Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Liszt, Perahia is sometimes considered a more intellectual than emotional pianist and has primarily concentrated on Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Schumann and Beethoven, as well as performing chamber music with the Guarneri, Budapest and Amadeus quartets, among others.

Hailed by the "Times of London" as "one of the piano's most lyrical contemporary poets," Perahia pursued a busy performance schedule with tours in North America, Europe, Israel and Japan until 1991, when something as trivial as a paper cut nearly ended his career. When the cut on his right thumb became infected, Perahia took the prescribed antibiotics for only a few days, as the problem seemed to go away. But a few weeks later, the thumb swelled up again "and nobody could tell me why," Perahia told an interviewer in 2000. "Because the doctors couldn't find what was causing the inflammation, they didn't know what to do about it."

Exploratory surgery didn't reveal anything, and subsequent operations failed to solve the problem. An operation to remove scar tissue brought temporary improvement and Perahia was able to play again, but the swelling returned a year later. That was when the pianist turned to Bach for help: "The doctors were giving me very bad news. I went to quite a few who said there was no hope, but I didn't want to believe that. I couldn't. At the time the only thing that gave me some solace and some kind of purpose in life was Bach."

Starting anew

Unable to play, Perahia listened to Bach's music and studied the composer's use of counterpoint and harmony from the music scores. As he said in a 2001 interview, this allowed him to approach the music differently than if he had been practicing: "You get to the essence of what music is about. ... A chance to study this without technical preoccupations, without worrying about your fourth finger or your fifth finger or whatever, it's a very important opportunity because it gets you into the composer's shoes."

Getting into the composer's shoes gave Perahia a new and more profound appreciation of his work. "I think that Bach is the essence of music, that Bach, through his logic and through his comprehensiveness, made every note follow the next so inevitably, and at the same time with so much surprise that he influenced the rest of music. Nobody could compose really the same way once they had been exposed to Bach's music."

The crisis finally came to an end when a three-dimensional scan of the thumb revealed a bone spur that was then removed during an operation. By 1997 Perahia was performing again, and he has had no more trouble since. Indeed, his 1998 recording of Bach's English Suites was acclaimed by critics, won a Grammy and was chosen as Classic CD Magazine's "Best Instrumental Disc of 1998". Perahia's intensive study of Bach also brought forth a 2000 recording of the "Goldberg Variations" that the "New York Times" described as "immaculate, crystalline and flowing ... a spectacular achievement." Recordings of Bach's seven keyboard concertos followed, with Perahia also conducting the Academy of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields orchestra, which recently selected him as its principal guest conductor.

Perahia has described his return to the piano as "the great joy of playing again and not taking something for granted that one took for granted one's whole life." The experience seems to have left its mark on his music: Critics have said that, since his recovery, his playing has gained depth and fullness, without sacrificing its naturalness and ease.

Perahia, who is married and has two sons, has lived in London for more than 20 years. He enjoys the musical scene there and finds it a convenient base for his European concert tours. Apart from Bach, his latest recordings feature works by Johannes Brahms and Frederic Chopin, and his spring 2002 concerts at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. included pieces by Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin.

Gretchen Wiesehan