Frail Thunderer

Nicole Henriot is a slender girl of 23 who does not look as if she could hit a piano keyboard very hard. But she can: there is enough thunder in her piano-playing to have been heard all over Paris. Last week, when Nicole made her U.S. debut in Carnegie Hall, some Manhattan critics found her performance of Schumann's Concerto in A Minor too cold and brittle for their taste. But most of them were sure of one thing: in the small field of women concert pianists, she was the brightest newcomer of the year. "Here," wrote the Herald Tribune's Virgil Thomson, "is an artist one can enjoy with all the faculties--with the sentiments, with the mind, and with the musical ear."

Nicole found her thunder when she was only eight. Her father, a Parisian engineer, had hoped she would become a painter and her sister a pianist. For hours, the two little girls struggled wretchedly over their lessons. One day, when their parents were out, they decided to switch. Nicole sat down at the piano and just started to play. She first played in public before she was ten, has been playing ever since.

By the time the Germans got to Paris, Nicole, a fragile blonde of 15 who played Bach for relaxation ("So big. So high. Like the sky") was already well-known on Paris concert stages. The Germans never knew that many nights, after her practicing, Nicole mounted her bicycle to run messages for the underground (she is one of only twelve civilians to receive the Commandos d'Afrique medal). Once she was asked to give a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic. To avoid playing for the Germans, she wrapped the fingers of her right hand in a bandage, pretending that she had just had an accident and kept them wrapped up for weeks. Once two Gestapo agents invaded her house to look for some papers her brother (a member of the Resistance) had hidden. Next night, Nicole appeared on the concert stage bruised and bandaged--this time for cause. What had happened was very simple: "J'etais" Nicole explains, "knockouted."

Since the war, Nicole has played in Cairo, Prague, Tel Aviv, Brussels and London. She falls head over heels in love with each new city in turn. Last week, she was in love with Manhattan--its Philharmonic ("It leefts"), its Automats, its Empire State Building. If Nicole had her way--no matter where she was--she would give a concert every night. "I am never nervous. Only very, very happy. And very, very sad when it is over."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.