Jose's Sister

Almost all her life, Amparo Iturbi has played second piano to her famous brother Jose. If they weren't rippling away together on the Mozart concerto for two pianos, Jose was usually on the podium, conducting while she pounded out the solo part. One of Jose's favorite cracks: "I am my sister's worst enemy."

Last week, Amparo set out to show her brother, and the public,"what she can do on her own. She picked a bad time and a worse place: Philadelphia's Robin Hood Dell, the night the Republican convention opened. When she finished Liszt's bombastic Piano Concerto No. 1, the 5,000 people in the Dell cheered. The critics cheered too, but less noisily: Amparo had some of her brother's lightning in her fingers, but not enough of his thunder.

Amparo, who is three years younger than Jose, flares up when she is called his pupil, but admits that "Jose is my god."

As children in Valencia, she sang while Jose played the piano. When Jose went to the Paris Conservatory, Amparo wanted to go too, but Jose said no: "It's all work. One gets nothing but exhaustion. And [for her] it's not necessary." That is why, she says, she is still a "kind of wild pianist." At 18, Amparo arrived in Paris under her own steam, made her debut as a pianist six years later. Finally, just before the Spanish civil war broke out, Jose persuaded her to join him in the U.S.

Long divorced from her Spanish husband, Amparo lives in Beverly Hills with her 17-year-old daughter Amparin. Amparo believes that concertizing "is a crazy life," though she has lined up a 30-concert tour for fall. She also plans to make recordings, though she regards the process as "the ultimate torture of our century."

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