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| Gary Graffman making a point. Photo taken in Hong Kong, 2016 |
I OWE MY LOVE OF CLASSICAL
MUSIC TO GARY GRAFFMAN
It is with much sadness that we learn the death of American pianist Gary Graffman (1928-2025) on 27 December. He was 97 years old. Gary Graffman was the reason why I fell in love with classical music, and to him I owe a debt of gratitude.
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| Remember this cover? Mine was a bootleg copy of this cassette. |
It was 1979, and with pocket money saved up I was beginning to discover the joy of music. Those were the days of cheap $2 cassette tapes (now known as a mixed tape) that were sold at almost every street corner in Singapore. It was at one such shop in Dhoby Ghaut which also sold tropical fish (a site now occupied by the School of the Arts) that I bought a cassette titled Rachmaninoff’s Greatest Hits. The main work was his Second Piano Concerto, which may be described as the “sound of falling in love”. I was immediately smitten by the Russian Romantic composer’s bittersweet melodies and luscious orchestration, and played that tape over and over until it squeaked terminally. The performance was bold yet tender, speaking with an immediacy, voice and presence that swayed me intoxicatingly into the “dark side”. As if on drugs, I had been hooked forever. The pianist was Gary Graffman, partnered by the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein.
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| Another version of the album on CD, complete with Malaysian copyright sticker. |
This music followed and haunted me over the years, and I bought multiple versions of that 1964 Columbia Masterworks recording after the old $2 cassette gave up its life, including another bootleg cassette in Kuta Beach, Bali and that too soon wore itself out. Then, I got the CD version in its various guises, including the same record but with a different cover in Kuala Lumpur International Airport. By some stroke of fortune, I was gifted the LP of the greatest hits album with the original iconic artwork of the series by former Singapore Lyric Opera general manager Ng Siew Eng. Now I have many CDs, the sole LP while all the cassettes had gone kaput.
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| That same Rach 2 recording, but in different CD guises. |
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| The original vinyl recording. Photo taken in Hong Kong on 14 October 2009, Gary Graffman's 81st birthday. |
My wish of seeing Gary Graffman perform with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra never came to fruition, as he developed focal dystonia of the right hand that disrupted his career during the early 1980s. Then he transitioned into a career of teaching the piano (at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute), also becoming a serious collector of Asian art. Among his many students whom I was fortunate to see perform were Lydia Artimiw and the young Chinese triumvirate of Lang Lang, Yuja Wang and Haochen Zhang. He was always proud of his students, and would never be fazed by any criticism of them. To every adverse comment on LL, he would just add, “And he’s so much more than that”.
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| Notice that Lang Lang's autograph is far bigger than Gary Graffman's. The Gary Graffmann Sony Classical box-set. |
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| GG with Yuja Wang |
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| GG with Haochen Zhang |
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| GG with the young Tengku Irfan (Malaysia) and Aristo Sham (Hong Kong) in 2009, after hearing the youngsters improvise. |
I finally got to meet my musical idol in 2005, at the 1st Hong Kong International Piano Competition where he was a jury member (alongside other piano luminaries like Leon Fleisher, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Vladimir Krainev). He was a regular presence at the Chopin Society of Hong Kong’s festivals and events. In 2006, I finally got to see him perform a recital of left hand solo repertoire and Erich Korngold’s Suite for piano quartet at the HK Cultural Centre.
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| GG (extreme right) and the jury of the 2008 Hong Kong International Piano Competition headed by Vladimir Ashkenazy. |
He also gave an illuminating talk about his life in music at the Society’s breakfast meeting, the proceedings which have been described here:
At the same event, he also autographed my copy of his autobiography I Really Should Be Practising, a candid, witty and self-deprecatory account of his life till the early 1980s. Its title alone could easily describe the state of all of us would-be piano players.
Sometime in 2009, I was asked to accompany him in a taxi from the Peninsula Hotel to City Hall Concert Hall where a concert of The Joy of Music Festival was to take place. That was, for me, the greatest honour thought possible, and within that 20 short minutes, I went on to regale him on how his Rachmaninoff recording had changed my life forever. He sat there quietly, probably wondering how many times he had heard all of this before. After finding out I was from Singapore, he warmly recounted a former Singaporean student of his who had invited him to a concert she was conducting. He had to decline since he was now in Hong Kong. That Singaporean was the conductor Wang Ya-Hui, who is presently based in Taiwan.
A left hand piano recital in The Joy of Music Festival 2009 was covered by yours truly here:
Years later, I was asked to write a blurb to promote Singaporean violinist and Curtis alumna Siow Lee-Chin’s autobiography From Clementi to Carnegie. I was most honoured to find my musings placed in the same page and below that of Gary Graffman’s.
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| Also notice how great artists get their message across in far fewer words. |
About piano concertos, I finally got to see Graffman perform and these concerts were also in Hong Kong. These included Prokofiev’s Fourth Piano Concerto (in 2008) and Ravel’s Left Hand Piano Concerto (2011), both conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy. Needless to say, those were unforgettable musical events for me.
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| Gary Graffman after Ravel's Left Hand Concerto with Vladimir Ashkenazy in 2011. Andrew Haveron is the young concertmaster. |
I own many recordings of Gary Graffman of varied repertoire – solo, chamber and concertos – including 20th century composers like Schnittke, Rorem and Skrowaczewski, and these continue to be an inspiration for me. For Graffman, music always came first, and his role as a servant of the great composers and their music will always be a constant reminder to all of us who profess to love music.
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| GG with Liang Liang, our last selfie, in 2016. |
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| Ultimate memorabilia: the only Gary Graffman Rachmaninoff drinking mug in the world. |
Now let's enjoy Gary Graffman
playing Rach 2 again:
with Ben Laude on legendary pianists.
(Posted 18.1.2026)
