The Hard Way

Never had there been such a hunt for young U.S. pianists. For two years the Rachmaninoff Fund's regional judges had been screening them. Last week, in Manhattan, the national finals were on.

The weary five who had managed to slip through all the screens into the final pool pounded and rippled, an hour each, while out front their teachers, families and friends clenched their hands. The finalists had been allowed to choose their own repertories from a list--ranging from Bach to Gershwin--that might have stumped the late Sergei Rachmaninoff himself. After five straight hours, the judges had pretty well made up their minds--but this was only the warmup.

Next night, the five faced a jampacked Carnegie Hall audience, with the NBC Symphony under Fritz Reiner at their backs. This time each had to play part of a concerto--after only the briefest rehearsal with the orchestra.

Rhapsody in Taffeta. First was New York's Ruth Geiger, 24, who stepped out bravely in red taffeta to tackle Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. She was followed by New Jersey's Grace Harrington, doing her best by Brahms's formidable Concerto No. 2. Then came a keyboard duel between two young men who have been buddies--and rivals--for half a dozen years. New York's Gary Graff man, 19, played two movements of Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2; Detroit's slight Seymour Lipkin replied with the pounding opening movement of Tchaikovsky's Concerto No. 1. New York's Jeanne Therrien, playing two movements of Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 1, was something of an anticlimax.

The judges (among them Mrs. Rachmaninoff) went into a huddle. Half an hour later, Senior Judge Vladimir Horowitz stepped onstage to announce the winner: 20-year-old Seymour Lipkin. Prizes: guest appearances with at least twelve U.S. symphonies, recitals that will bring Lipkin more than $15,000, and a recording contract with RCA Victor.

Proof of Velocity. Not everyone was happy over the contest. The New York Herald Tribune's Critic Virgil Thomson complained that "Even mature soloists cannot be judged in concertos. Young ones [can] give no proof of anything but velocity and marksmanship."

Winner Lipkin, who last year passed an equally severe test to qualify as one of George Szell's apprentice conductors in Cleveland, intends to be a conductor some day. Said he, grinning: "Now it looks as if I'm going to be a pianist, at least for the time being."

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