Malcolm Frager
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Malcolm Frager (January 15, 1935 – June 20, 1991) was an American piano virtuoso and recording artist.
Frager was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and studied with Carl Friedberg in New York City from 1949 until Friedberg's death in 1955. In 1957 he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University with a major in Russian.
Competitions and debut
He won the Piano Competition in Geneva (1955), the Michaels Memorial Award in Chicago (1956), the Leventritt Competition in New York City (1959),[1] and the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels (1960).
Performances and recordings
He made his Carnegie Hall debut in November 1960, performing Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 6.[2]
His Grammy-nominated debut recording with RCA Victor Red Seal was Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16 and Haydn's Sonata No. 35 in E-flat.
Apart from the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2, Frager and Ronald Turini, who had won second prize in the 1960 Queen Elizabeth competition, did not make any concerto recordings under their RCA contracts, which were reserved for Van Cliburn following his triumph in the Moscow Competition against a field of regional pianists.
Some important live performances from Frager survive in off-the-air transcripts, for example the 1972 Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.[3] and the 1972 performance of Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Aldo Ceccato.[4] RCA did not make any recordings of Frager performing the piano concertos of Mozart or Beethoven.
He recorded solo piano music by Mozart, Haydn, Chopin, Schumann, Beethoven, Brahms and Prokofiev.[clarification needed] For example Telarc Records "Malcolm Frager Plays Chopin" CD-80040 published 1979 originally on digital audiophile LP.
Frager regularly programmed the two piano concertos and numerous solo works by Carl Maria von Weber, as well as the keyboard compositions of C. P. E. Bach.
He completed acclaimed musical tours of Southern Africa in 1976 and 1978.[5]
Frager performed Mozart Piano Concerto No. 19 with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1983.
