Court Pianist

On stage in Washington's Constitution Hall, the Philadelphia Orchestra was playing the first number. In his dressing room, 27-year-old Eugene List nervously paced up & down. A secret-service man knocked on the door. "Would you like to see the Boss?" he asked.

Pianist List was led to the Presidential Box, shook hands with Harry Truman. He bowed to Mrs. Truman and the ten ladies of her Independence, Mo. Tuesday Bridge Club (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). Then he walked on stage, played a serviceable if somewhat flashy Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. Said he, afterwards: "My foot shook on the pedals. When you're playing for the President . . . you're really about ready to pass out."

About four years ago Eugene List gave a concert in Constitution Hall, which lost money. Wrote a Washington critic: "He makes me nervous." List was just one of half a dozen promising young pianists.

Then he was drafted. He spent a year as a G.I. misfit, in the Transportation Corps, before he got a transfer to Special Services as a one-man entertainment unit. One night at a G.I. concert in Munich he got special traveling orders. It turned out to be the Potsdam Conference. When List played from the Tchaikovsky concerto, Stalin jumped up to propose a toast in vodka, and List had a chance to talk to him. "I said 'I like Tchaikovsky,' and he said, 'Good, I do too.' I said, 'I played the first American performance of Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Concerto in 1934,' and Stalin said 'Good.' " Winston Churchill requested Missouri Waltz, and "fortunately, I knew the tune." At another dinner Truman turned the pages while List played Chopin. An hour of piano playing was all Churchill's ears could stand. List remembers the Prime Minister turning to Truman and growling: "Mr. President, why don't you go home? I can't stand this noise much longer."

Since then Eugene List has become the President's unofficial court pianist. He played five times at Potsdam, has played at two Truman dinners in Washington since his Army discharge in January. This presidential patronage has made List a big box-office draw. He now gets up to $2,500 for every concert performance, is earning $7,500 a week in his first Hollywood movie (Bachelor's Daughters).

The President last week invited List and his talented young wife, Concert Violinist Carroll Glenn, to play in the White House, but List will have a hard time working it into his schedule. Next month he and his wife will fly to Prague to represent the U.S. in an international music festival. Then they will give concerts in Paris, Budapest, Berlin and Vienna, before taking a vacation in Connecticut. Says List, a very earnest young man: "I am looking forward to the summer as an oasis in the great sea of turmoil. Life is very exciting these days. So exciting I can hardly stand it."

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