Neil Solomon: Renowned pianist, composer and teacher
1931-2015
NEIL Solomon, concert pianist, teacher and composer has died, aged 83. It’s surprising that he managed to die at all, he was so extra-full of life, bringing a combination of wild generosity, kindness and talent to a life lived in fortissimo.
Once seen, Solomon could not be forgotten. His face was never in repose and he had this wild laugh that echoed across rooms, mostly coffee shops, where he would tuck into enormous slices of cake. His house in the middle of town, in Kloof Street, Cape Town, was always filled with music students and friends. Walking past, you could hear that laugh and always a piano being played, often Schubert, of whom he was so fond he gave Schubertonly concerts.
People said he was a man who knew how to listen, not only to music, but to people. His professional activity as a musician embraced composing, performing and teaching, which he once described as “rather like playing musical chairs”. Perhaps because he had such a bountiful personality and love of people, it was as a teacher that he is often best remembered. He was senior lecturer in piano at the University of Cape Town College of Music for more than 30 years. Pieter van Zyl, a pianist who has played all over the world, was taught by Solomon, with whom he became great friends. “For me,” he says, “he was wonderful, always made everything exciting.”
Because he was also a performer, he knew the journey on a deep level. He had this huge appetite for cultural involvement and fun, for movies, books, the theatre, everything.
Deon Knobel, former head of the department of forensic medicine at UCT and a friend of Solomon’s, tells this anecdote: “Neil was once playing a Mozart concerto with the CTSO [Cape Town Symphony Orchestra] under direction of David Tid- boald. He decided to put the lid of the piano on half stick. It was not a success and afterwards not knowing quite what to say, I said: ‘Neil that was a novel idea.’ He roared with laugher; apparently three people before me had used exactly the same words.”
It is an apt anecdote, because one thing Solomon certainly was not was a half-stick player. Although he often accompanied people, he was never an accompanist, and continually asked, like the famous accompanist Gerald Moore: “Am I too loud?” He lived life at full stick.
His son Kenual recalls: “When I was a child, I spent a lot of time under the piano while he played. He’d say ‘Papa is now going to make a thunderstorm’ and I clambered out quickly. I knew how he liked to hit that pedal.”
He leaves two children, Adrian and Kenual, and a widow, Jaqueline, who all live in London.