Hello all.

15. Bach/Liszt Organ Prelude and Fugue in A minor.
17. Schubert Moment Musicale #2 in A-flat major.

Raymond (I am not sure whether it is unpolite or not to address you with prename - coming from another culture (Germany), so hopefully it is ok to take your prename):

Both, the Schubert Moment Musical as well as the Bach/Liszt P&F sound beautiful to me - very calm and worldly-wise. Your playing mirrors your VERY impressive vita. Anyhow, your playing style reminds me on the old famous Albert Schweitzer (hope that this nobel prize winner is known in USA as well?) who recorded in the same calm manner some Bach items on organ 50 years ago. The only difference - Schweitzer could not play without slips, but you can!

Did you record those pieces recently? You are a shining example what is possible in advanced age if beeing that blessed as you are!

Thank your for posting this.

Very nice. When was this recorded?

Hello rsmullan - I enjoyed your Schubert piece. (have not listened to your Bach yet)
And you have such an interesting life; not only your musical life, but that you are also a magician. Can you teach me any tricks on how to play Granados' music?

I believe these were recorded in 2004, or at least that is the copyright date given for the CD Musical Memories where these tracks come from. Great performances, very musicianly and deeply considered. Some minor inconsistencies in the denser passages of the Bach-Liszt but none of that is important with playing of this calibre and conviction. Great you want to join Piano Society !

I am just uploading these for inclusion on the site, but I would appreciate having a bio in text format, as I do not really fancy typing all this in from the scans (unless we have a volunteer for doing that ? )

I have nothing else better to do...enjoy:

Raymond Smullyan has had a remarkably diverse sequence of careers. Fellow polymath Martin Gardner, former editor of Scientific American, has aptly described him as a “unique set of personalities that includes a philosopher, logician, mathematician, musician, writer and maker of marvelous puzzles.” Born in 1919 in Far Rockaway, New York, Raymond’s early music studies were with Victor Huttenlocher, piano and Raymond Huttenlocher, violin. After winning the gold medal for the piano in 1931 competition of the New York Music Week Association, he decided to make the piano his principal instrument. His main teachers have been Grace Hofheimer of New York City, Bernhard Abramowitsch at San Francisco, and Gunnar Johansen at the University of Wisconsin. He has also had coaching from Artur Schnabel, Mieczyslaw Horszowsky, Nadia Boulanger, Greta Sultan, Alicia de Larrocha, and Richard Goode. At Wisconsin, he publicly performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #1, and in those days, he was an accompanist to the cellist Ernst Friedlander of the Pro Art Quartet.
His first teaching position was at Roosevelt College in Chicago, where he taught piano. At about that time he unfortunately developed tendonitis in his right arm forcing him to abandon piano performances as his primary career. As a result of this he turned his attention to mathematics which he equally loved. He had learned most of this on his own, with very little formal education at the time. He then took a few advance courses at the University of Chicago, and supported himself at the time as a professional magician! Curiously enough, before he had a college degree, or even a high school diploma, he received an appointment as a mathematics instructor at Dartmouth College on the basis of some brilliant papers he had written on mathematical logic.
After teaching at Dartmouth College for two years, the University of Chicago gave him a Bachelor of Arts degree, based partly on courses he had never taken, but had successfully taught. He then went to Princeton University for his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1959. He is now internationally known as a mathematical logician, having published six books and over forty research papers in the field. He is equally well known world-wide as a writer, having authored over twenty books, many of which have been translated into seventeen languages. His writings cover an amazing variety of subjects: recreational logic puzzles designed to introduce the general reader to deep results in mathematics; retrograde chess problems encapsulated into Sherlock Holmes and Arabian Nights stories; stereo photography; Chinese Taoism; the psychology of religious and mystical consciousness; philosophical fantasies; and essays on various aspects of life. His latest book, Some Interesting Memories (Published by Thinkers’ Press, Davenport, Iowa) contains a delightfully charming account of some of his more memorable adventures and is replete with jokes, anecdotes, puzzles, and paradoxes.
Now, a retired, distinguished professor of philosophy from Indiana University, he resides with his lovely musician wife in the beautiful upper region of the Catskill Mountains and has returned to music as one of his principal activities.

Thanks for that juufa, it really helps.

Raymond, you are now up the site as a pianist with these great performances. If you have any more to share, please do ! It is good to have an artist/scientist of your calibre on board. You have certainly met some great musicians !

The recordings are wonderful and your biography was among the most impressive I have ever read. Quite different from what most of us have here on the site . If there is one pianist I really would have like to meet among the ones you have met, it is Schnabel who I admire a lot.

Very welcome to the site and it will be very interesting to "see" more of your output and musical (perhaps also mathematic) ideas.

[quote="rsmullyan"]Hello all.


IMHO very well played (as and more than certain celebrated "pro") Schubert.
But "beautiful" is more precise than "well played". Near to the best Serkin's Schubert.
I've not heard yet the Bach-Liszt.

S.

Dear Sandro Bisotti.Many thanks for your kind words! Only what does IMHO mean? I listened to your Chopin and Beethoven. Loved the Chopin. As for the
Beethoven, first and third movements were very good -- particularly the third.
J had mixed feeling about the secomd.On the positive sidr, it was beaiutifully
expressive! But for me. it was a bit too slow and seemed a bit labored.I believe
that you could maintain the same degree of expressivenes at a somewhat less slow tempo.
I would love to know more about you.Please tell me about yourself.Also,do
you ever come to America? Jf so, how would like yo have a nice little vacation in the beaiutifull Catskill mountains where I reside?.
Thanks again,
Raymond

I have now put these recordings up the site properly... Thought I had done already that but not so

> Loved the Chopin. As for the
> Beethoven, first and third movements were very good

Too much kind, really.
Having read your amazing curriculum (the mine is microscopic in the comparison, for quality and quantity) and heard your recordings, your words make me happy as few other things in these last months.

> -- particularly the third.

Which was written by J.S. Bach. A sort of "2 voices invention".

> But for me. it was a bit too slow and seemed a bit labored.

To me too it seems weaker than others. At a faster tempo I’m not able to preserve the same
“mood”, but I can try to work about it… I’m obsessed by the problem of musical tempo:
load bearing structure or variable depending from expressive intents? I’m so fascinated by
that old generation (Rosenthal, Pderewski, Cortot) that have chosen the second answer.
And recently I admit I was striked by Pogorelich thinking and realization of tempo: so extended,
almost ritual, hieratic. Not the “rubato” (he not use ) but it’s like a translation on another
surface. But I think that general indications by composer are to be respected.

> I would love to know more about you. Please tell me about yourself.

Piano and human studies in Turin. Music silence. Employ as technical analyst of financial
markets (trading systems, neural networks), and now as a basic music teacher in public school
(funny work, one can speak and make music with a certain lightness…). Since 3-4 years I
have begun again to practise and play piano (about 1 hour X day, 1 and a half), and I’m
enjoying much more than when I was student.
I live too in a mountain town (n/w of Italy, the zone of the last winter olimpic games),
I’m a scarcely decent bridge and tennis player, and a good reader (among your compatriots
I prefer Salinger, Carver, Philip Roth, Frost and James Hillmann)…

> you ever come to America?

Sorry, I didn’t.

> Jf so, how would like yo have a nice little vacation in the beautiful Catskill mountains
where I reside?.

It is a wonderful idea. If and when it will be possible…
But obviously is the same for you here in Italy.

Thank you again, I’m very honoured to be listed in this site in the same list with you
(with the utmost respect for all pianists listed here).
Are there some of your works translated in italian?

Sandro Bisotti.

P.S.

This evening I’ll be able to hearing your Bach-Liszt.

Raymond, check your private messages. Up at the top of the page next to the "log in/log out".