Peter Feuchtwanger
Zen master of piano teaching whose work inspired the film “Shine”
DESCRIBED VARIOUSLY as the go-to teacher and the of the world of piano teaching, Peter Feuchtwanger, who has died aged 85, was noted for his work with gifted Australian pianist David Helfgott, portrayed in the Academy award-winning film by actor Geoffrey Rush.
The invitation to teach Helfgott, an outstanding but troubled pianist, came in 1986, accompanied by a Chopin recording by the Australian. Feuchtwanger immediately saw through the pianist’s emotional outpouring to his “intense gifts”. But having become interested in musical therapy himself, and knowing the work and discipline involved, he accepted the challenge gladly.
Helfgott, the son of a German Nazi survivor, had suffered a nervous breakdown over his father’s conflicted attitude towards his music, offering Feuchtwanger an emotional landscape that probably resonated with him. He had also been a child prodigy, a refugee from Nazi Germany who had grown up in Palestine.
Peter Bernard Feuchtwanger was born in Munich, named after the Bavarian town of Feuchtwangen where his family had lived until 1555. His father Theodore, a cousin of German-Jewish novelist Lion Feuchchtwanger, who influenced Bertold Brecht, was a Munich banker, philanthropist and landscape gardener, who took his family to Haifa via Italy during the early days of the Second World War. His mother Amalie (née Birkenruth) escaped the Nazis only to be murdered in her 80s, in a Haifa hotel room by a Russian gang of jewellery thieves.
As a child, Feuchtwanger played Chopin, Beethoven and Liszt from memory, but in the wrong key as the record player was running too fast.
His reputation began as a 13- year-old when he missed school in order to play piano at a friend’s home. Once his serial truancy was discovered his parents found a piano teacher for him, but in an early indication of the thread of his life, this lesson proved disastrous: he failed to sightread as he had never seen a score, earning the rebuke of his teacher for his inevitable mistakes. He never went back.
Sent to Zurich to become a banker, he ended up first at the Conservatoire and then the Royal College of Music where, true to his epicurean nature, his time was brief, as he entered the world of art, fashion and opera, meeting Jean Cocteau, Ava Gardner, and in 1956, the Australian artist Michael Garady, who would become his partner.
At the age of 20 he experienced every performer’s nightmare on the concert platform. About to play a Beethoven sonata, he discovered it was not the one advertised. With great aplomb, he managed to wing it, improvising the fugue for some 10 minutes until he reached the end which he knew well. This probably prompted him to go for teaching instead. He favoured unconventional methods, rejecting positions offered at leading music colleges out of the belief that lengthy sessions and exams would not bring out the best in his students. Instead he chose Zen methods of harmony, deep breathing and correct posture, combined with the correct height of the piano stool.
As the Zen master of piano playing, he was frowned on by the teaching elite for his unconventional techniques. But several celebrated pianists benefited from them: Martha Argerich, who won the 1965 Chopin competition in Warsaw, Shura Cherkassky, who suffered from nerves, and of course Helfgott who had to overcome mental illness. Feuchtwanger praised Helfgott’s musical triumph: “So much goodness and love pours out of him when he plays that I am convinced we cannot but become better human beings from having heard him.”
His own technique was inspired by his mentor Clara Haskil, who was relaxed about imposing conventional fingering methods for difficult passages of music, and advised him to use “whatever comes”.
It was on childhood trips to Druze and Bedouin villages that Feuchtwanger became attracted to Arabic musical styles. He went on to study oriental music and mastered the sitar at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, and began composing music reflecting Indian and Arabic themes. His
was performed at the Wigmore Hall by Malcolm Binns in 1958. He was commissioned to write
which fused European and Indian music for violin, sitar and tamboura for Yehudi Menhin and Ravi Shenkar, who performed it at the 1966 Bath Festival. It was in the 1960s that he began giving weekly music therapy classes as a volunteer at Horton Psychiatric hospital in Epsom.
Feuchtwanger never lost his talent for performing on the hoof. Just as he had famously played the unfamiliarBeethoven sonata in his youth, in his later years he stepped from a Wigmore Hall audience to talk for one hour on Schumann’s chamber music, when the speaker failed to turn up.
Studious looking in his youth in long scarf and jumper, he developed a slight resemblance to Elton John with his long, bobbed blond hair – definitely the look of a non-conventionalist. A regular judge at music competitions, he resented their encouragement of ”fast, loud and mechanical playing”. He also taught well-known performers described as “secret pupils”, who liked to disguise the fact that they were still studying. Feuchtwanger lived both in Munich and his London penthouse near Knightsbridge,enjoying life as a quiet, unassuming concert-goer.
He is survived by his partner, the artist Michael Garady. GLORIA TESSLER Peter Feuchtwanger was born on June 26, 1930. He died on June 17.