Speaking Of Fifth-Tier Pianists . . .

As long as I am on the topic of fifth-tier pianists, I submit a query: why would a professional pianist, albeit a fifth-tier pianist, publish on his website a photograph such as the one below? The photograph positively screams, “I am not a serious artist.”


The man in the photograph, an Israeli, is known, if he is known at all, not for his musical talent but for the men who have passed through his life.

For four or five years, the man was associated with oddball Danish/Israeli violinist Nikolaj Znaider, ten years his junior, until that association was abruptly terminated in 2003 or thereabouts.

More recently, the man has been associated with oddball New York architect Charles Renfro, who at least is more or less the pianist’s age.

The question remains: what goes through a person’s mind—a 47-year-old person’s mind, I might stress—when he decides to publish such a foolish photograph of himself? (And there are many, many more such foolish photographs on this man's website.)

One cannot imagine Maurizio Pollini doing such a thing.