© 2024 Texas Public Radio
Real. Reliable. Texas Public Radio.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
The KPAC Blog features classical music news, reviews, and analysis from South Texas and around the world.

Visiting Pianist Says His Art Comes From 'Perspiration, Not Inspiration'

A pianist is coming to San Antonio to play an engagement for the Tuesday Musical Club. The Tuesday Musical Club was founded in 1901 to bring classical music performance to a town not exactly known for that. The musician they're bringing Tuesday is here from New York.

Classical pianist and visual artist Roman Rabinovich is known to be quoted for believing more in perspiration than inspiration, something that's served him well as a solo artist.

"You have to be disciplined or else you're not going to survive," he says.   

He grew up in Israel and now lives in New York. Rabinovich will play Laurel Heights Methodist Church Tuesday afternoon and he says he's programmed an event with a lot of variety.

"The Haydn sonata for example, which I will start the program from, is a very bravura piece, with lots of humor, but also has a very emotional and deep second movement."

His second piece is one he wrote, and it's curiously-titled Capriccio: A Clown on a Bicycle.

"You know a clown has always a mask, and I wanted to explore what is under this mask, and what he feels. So it goes from funny and clumsy to sad and lonely and so on."

The next piece he'll play is by Beethoven.

"The Beethoven sonata is one of the greatest masterpieces. He wrote it quite late in his life and it's an incredible piece.  And the last movement is an affirmation of life and optimism. And the second half of the program will be devoted to four ballads by Chopin. And these are absolute masterpieces. Probably the most beloved Chopin."

He says each part of the program draws from a different part of him.

"Well, every piece is a different animal. I have to approach every piece differently."

This is his first San Antonio performance.  

Find more on the Tuesday Musical Club here

Jack Morgan can be reached at jack@tpr.org and on Twitter at @JackMorganii