George Copeland: Piano Man

Talk about serendipity. George Copeland is an American pianist whose rare recordings I'd loved for years. Out of the blue an old friend asked whether I'd ever heard of him. Copeland, it seemed, had been a friend of his family (he had even given my friend a few piano lessons, telling him never to "hit" the keys but to "caress" them). Then another friend told me he knew someone who was working on a new George Copeland album. That album has just been released.

Now I know more about Copeland than I ever did before. That, for instance, he toured with Isadora Duncan, accompanying her dancers and playing piano solos. That he played the world premiere of two Debussy ƒtudes and was giving the first American performances of Debussy as early as 1905. And who but Copeland would have insisted on placing the microphones under his piano to capture the particularly diaphanous quality of Debussy's Prélude Veils? Debussy once said to him: "It is not my habit to pay compliments. But I wish to say, Mr. Copeland, that I never thought to hear my music played as well as that in my lifetime."

Copeland's wealthy Boston father was opposed to his son's musical career, but his Spanish mother encouraged it, which helps explain his devotion to Baroque and modern Spanish music. The generous two-disc collection George Copeland: The Complete Victor Recordings (Pearl) includes an expected variety of French, Spanish, and Latin American composers (including Copeland's own insinuating transcription of Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune), but there are also some surprises, such as a breathless Bach Passepied.

I especially cherish the chance to hear Copeland perform live, on never previously issued recordings of a 1964 concert -- his very last, in fact, at Yale, when he was 82 (he died at 89). He was still playing with his singular, instantly identifiable combination of delicacy and power. The exquisite touch (his trademark), teasing rhythms, and captivating phrasing that critics were already praising before the turn of the century were all still there more than 50 years later.

-- Lloyd Schwartz