‘Zen master of piano’ taught the world’s best
Peter Feuchtwanger, who died June 17 at age 85, was the go-to teacher for many of the world’s leading concert pianists.
He prepared Martha Argerich for her win at the 1965 Chopin Competition in Warsaw; helped Shura Cherkassky to overcome his nerves; and coached David Helfgott, whose battle with mental illness was depicted in the film Shine.
Feuchtwanger had been a promising, self-taught pianist, but at the age of 20 gave up performing to carve out a niche as a teacher. Nevertheless, he turned down positions at leading music colleges, claiming that hour-long lessons and the requirement for students to sit examinations were not conducive to his methods.
Some called him the Zen master of piano playing, with his belief in relaxation, deep breathing and total calm. “Posture combined with both the stability and the correct height of the piano stool are the sine qua non for correct playing,” he insisted.
He was particularly inspired by Clara Haskil’s technique. When he asked her about the fingering for a particularly difficult passage of music she replied: “Whatever comes,” inspiring Feuchtwanger to adopt a similar approach, urging his students to adopt different fingerings each time they played.
Peter Bernard Feuchtwanger was born in Munich on June 26, 1930. In 1555 his ancestors had left the Bavarian town of Feuchtwangen, where he would later run a piano festival. His father, Theodore, a cousin of the German-Jewish novelist Lion Feuchtwanger, was a bank director in Munich who fled Germany early in the Second World War, taking his family to Haifa. His mother, Amalie, would be murdered in her 80s.
Many of his students were “secret pupils,” famous pianists who did not want it known that they were still studying. One of his more promising “unknowns” was Domingos de Vasconcellos, who drowned in the Marchioness disaster in 1989.