Pianists: The Boy Who Hates Circuses

For Pianist Peter Serkin, musical nirvana is being scrooched up in a recording studio retaping and re-retaping portions of some concerto. Like Glenn Gould, Serkin, 19, is one of the new strain of virtuosos who play beautiful music but in few other ways resemble the traditional concert soloist. He is totally indifferent to audiences, abhors the personality cult, is convinced that performers get in the way of the music, and that the only way to play is in the quiet privacy of the recording studio, where perfection is the only reality. "Listening...

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