Prince Of Virtuosos: A Life Of Walter Rummel, American Pianist

Rating:
Summary: A Model Biography of an Astonishing Pianist
Review: This book is extraordinary for two reasons: Rummel's life was fantastic and couldn't have been dreamed up even by Hollywood, and especially for the research and art Mr. Timbrell has
displayed in tracking down and telling the story.

I'll try to precis the life: Walter Rummel's mother was the daughter of Samuel Morse, eminent American painter and inventor of the telegraph; his father was Franz Rummel, a British/German concert pianist (pupil of Brassin) who was internationally famous and respected in the 1880s and 90s - the Arthur Rubinstein of his day. He died in 1901 at the age of 48 and
apparently made no records.

Walter was amazingly talented and was raised in a cosmopolitan and sophisticated atmosphere. He studied composition and then piano with Godowsky in Berlin. He was interested in mysticism, oriental arts, poetry and dance. In his teens he became friends with Ezra Pound, later collaborating with the great poet on several projects, and is the subject of a stanza of one of Pound's Cantos. Each influenced the other's work. By his late teens Rummel had composed songs that entered the repertoires of
many of the great singers of the day. By his early twenties he was receiving acclaim in Europe and the USA for his piano recitals and compositions. In 1909 when he was 22, Paderewski asked if he wanted to be his pupil for a year, but Rummel declined, for he wanted to go to Paris and be with Debussy. He went and there met a woman ten years older. She became the first of his three wives, but the marriage was sexless (as were
apparently all Rummel's subsequent marriages and affairs), for like Manuel de Falla, he couldn't bear to have anyone touch him.


Later he did meet Debussy who loved his playing; the two worked together on the Etudes, and the world premiere of four Etudes was given by Rummel. Debussy and others were struck by the similarity of his handsome visage to Liszt's, whose music and spirituality fascinated Rummel his entire life. An entire chapter of the book is devoted to his relationship with Debussy, and it is particularly valuable.

Rummel became part of the incredible crucible of artistic creativity in Paris, where the poet H.D. had a crush on him. Soon he was at the center of artistic life there, befriending Rabindranath Tagore, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and others. He began studies in Eastern philosophy, occultism, Theosophy and reincarnation. He was friends and collaborated with W. B. Yeats who was crazy about him, as apparently were many other important artistic figures on the continent....G.B. Shaw, the artists
Edmund Dulac and Frantisek Kupka, Indian mystic Inayat Khan (who played ragas for Debussy), and the man who probably had the greatest influence on Rummel of all, Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Anthroposohical Society.

In 1918 Rummel threw his wife over (she went insane after a while) for dancer Isadora Duncan, with whom he lived (Duncan was not happy about the no-sex bit) and the two collaborated on piano-dance performances as well as shared their interest in mysticism. One of the women in Duncan's dance troupe fell for Walter, and the jealousy got too intense. Isadora asked him to leave.

He played all over Europe to great acclaim, ostentatiously chased women and got married a second time (apparently because it was convenient), got divorced again and finally married a mysterious Russian woman with a fortune, who was said to be the illegitimate daughter of the Czar. The two entered higher spheres of social intercourse, and soon she was the mistress
of the King of Belgium, with Rummel's acquiescence. World War Two came while the pair continued to live in France and
Germany. After the War things were difficult for Rummel because he had played regularly in occupied France and in Germany, but he resumed his career and played often. He worked for years on an "SOS" piano concerto, based on the Morse code formulation "dit dit dit dah dah dah dit dit
dit." It was never performed and the manuscript disappeared after he died in 1952. His name fell into obscurity, most probably because of the widespread perception of his collaboration.

Walter Rummel made several 78 rpm records and Mr. Timbrell also rescued two different groups of broadcast recordings. Almost all of his known recordings are included on a CD that accompanies the book. I think Rummel was one of the greatest pianists to record, his playing informed by a mysterious quality that is hard to define but moving and visionary. The CD which comes with this book contains some of the most fabulous piano playing ever recorded.


Timbrell's prose is lean and to the point; he avoids speculation, does not clutter the narrative with irrelevant details but does give the reader sufficient selection of reviews and information from which to draw conclusions. He tells the entire story in 150 pages, and in these days of bloated biographies, in which writers can't resist telling us details like the names of ships on which pianists sailed, I say: BRAVO!


Walter Morse Rummel received seventeen words in Harold Schonberg's book "The Great Pianists." Now Charles Timbrell has rescued him from obscurity. I hope what I have written
will make you want to acquire and read Timbrell's book, which I found enthralling.


Gregor Benko