Big Ear

Three years ago on a trip to Chicago, British Band-Leader Jack Hylton took with him a slight-framed pianist named Alec Templeton. Pianist Templeton was blind, but he had large, sensitive ears. Chicago listeners were amazed at his uncanny versatility. He could ripple through a Mozart concerto with thorough orthodoxy, and next minute go to town in a jammed-up version of The Music Goes 'Round and 'Round. Not only could he swing Bach, he could Bach swing. He could improvise in the style of any classical composer, aid get such a good likeness that most listeners were fooled.

In 1937, Pianist Templeton moved on to Manhattan. Manhattanites liked his improvisations on any theme that was tossed up to him. His musical satires* floored them completely. Stoop-shouldered, solemn Templeton would sit at the piano and reproduce the sound of a whole Wagnerian opera, pounding out brass chords, yodeling out-of-tune soprano arias and throaty German tenor recitatives. From Wagnerian opera he would turn to Italian opera, lieder singing, Gilbert & Sullivan, the bedlam inside a music conservatory. Last week Pianist Templeton brought his improvisations and caricatures to Carnegie Hall, where they formed the dessert of a program of more conventional piano music. Crotchety highbrow critics hemmed & hawed about his straight playing, but they had to admit that his mimicry was extraordinary.

Templeton's ability springs at least in part from his blindness. Blind from birth he has developed remarkable acuteness and memory in hearing. Today he recognize people by their voices, and can readily identify a voice he has not heard for yean Once at a party he was asked to accompany Violinist Nathan Milstein. Asked if he knew the accompaniment to Lalo Symphonie Espagnole he said no, but the he would try it if somebody ran through once. While the 32-minute-long accompaniment was played, Templeton listened attentively, then played the whole thing from memory, made one mistake.

*Recorded are his jazz fugue, Bach Goes Town (Victor), and an album of satires (Gramophone Shop, Inc., 18 East 45th Street, Manhattan.

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