Dead-Eye Fred

The brilliant young pianist zipped vivacissimamente through the final movement of Beethoven's "Les Adieux" sonata. Impeccable in white tie and tails, he bowed to the storm of applause that swept Carnegie Hall, dutifully played three encores. Later that night, he could be seen walking down neon-gaudy Broadway. Just five blocks south of the august concert hall, he ducked into a cellar. Within a few minutes Concert Pianist Friedrich Gulda was on the bandstand, amid the smoke and clatter of Broadway's famed Birdland nightclub, playing jazz--cool, glittering and poignant as icicles. Sitting in with the Modern Jazz Quartet, Pianist Gulda rippled out chorus after chorus of Lullaby of Birdland while the hipsters shouted approval. "How much nicer this is than Carnegie Hall," sighed Pianist Gulda when closing time came.

Like Gulls & Honey. At Birdland, Carnegie Hall or anywhere else, Vienna's Friedrich Gulda, 24, is a pianist to watch.

Earlier that evening, at his Carnegie Hall concert, he displayed the style that in a few years has made him stand out in a crowded field. He hunched owl-like over the keyboard, played with his fingers close to the keys, his only visible flourishes an occasional phrase-smoothing gesture.

The first movement of Beethoven's Sonata Op. 2, No. 3 was marked Allegro con brio, which Gulda interpreted in terms of jet-age speed and atomic-age heat, and every fast movement for the next hour and a half had a breathless here-we-go-again quality. It would have been just another dead-eye Fred taking pleasure in his fingerwork. except that Gulda's pianissimo was sweet as a barrel of honey, his legato glided like a gull, and his perfect shading gave each movement a convincing contour.

It was the climax of Gulda's third visit to the U.S. since his ill-fated arrival in 1950. At the age of ten, in Vienna. Gulda was impressed into a Hitler Youth group, and that was enough under the McCarran Internal Security Act to land him on Ellis Island. After a protest storm in the press Gulda finally played--to rave reviews--and took the next plane home. His political history cleared up, he later gave about 200 concerts on tours of the U.S., Europe and South America.

End of Youth. Pianist Gulda is a young man as sure of himself off the concert stage as on it. Says he of his work as a spare-time composer: "I am a very severe critic, and once I let a piece pass out of my factory, it is good." Shrugging off the fact that he now wears glasses: "Musicians have no expression in their eyes anyway." On piano music: "Beethoven suits me best because I thoroughly understand it. I find Mozart difficult, and dangerous. I play Prokofiev because people expect me to--I do not consider it important." On teaching: "If I have to teach, I do it pretty well." This year he will cut his concerts to 30 a year. Says he: "I want to have time for things that are important to me." Among the most important: jazz. This spring he plans to form his own jazz combo in Vienna. Also, Gulda thinks that it may be time to relax a bit. "With my 25th birthday coming up," he says solemnly, "I consider my youth finished." Perhaps the next time he plays in Carnegie Hall he will even play more slowly.

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