Death in Carnegie Hall

When Russian-born Simon Barere made his U.S. debut in 1936, he was hailed as "a pianist of the first rank." He had everything--thunder, poetry, brilliance and dazzling speed. But somehow Simon Barere, a man with little flair for the limelight, failed to catch the fancy of the crowds.

Moreover, he seemed to suffer from chronic bad luck. As a young man (a conservatory classmate of Sergei Prokofiev) he won the Rubinstein Prize, but his career was thrown off pace by World War I and the Bolshevik revolution. His first tour of England fell apart before it got started when his English manager dropped dead. Once, while his piano was taken off to Rio de Janeiro, he was left standing on the dock for lack of a visa. Two years after his sensational U.S. debut, a New Yorker critic wrote: "It wouldn't be hard to make a catalogue of Mr. Barere's accomplishments, but he doesn't need a catalogue. He needs an audience . . ."

He never got a wide one. He became a U.S. citizen, played engagements now & then with U.S. orchestras, faithfully gave Carnegie Hall recitals every season. A quiet but genial man who liked to entertain friends with card tricks, he had to settle musically for the adulation of a cult.

Two months ago, grey, ailing and 54, Simon Barere got another big chance. He was invited to play the tried & true Grieg

Piano Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra in a program of Scandinavian music. Oddly, it was a concerto he had never played, and he worked hard to perfect his performance of the old war horse.

Last week, in the wings at Carnegie Hall, smiling Pianist Barere confided to Eugene Ormandy: "When I played with Pierre Monteux [at Lewisohn Stadium last summer], he told me, 'I hope this won't be the last time we play together.' May I say the same thing to you now?" Ormandy smiled in gracious agreement.

When the time came, Barere stepped briskly to the piano. In the clanging chords of the opening, he was in brilliant form. A few minutes later, he seemed to be bending close to the piano, listening. Then his left hand fell from the piano, his head almost touched the keys. A second later he rolled off the stool on to the floor. It was a cerebral hemorrhage. Doctors were called to the stage, but Simon Barere was beyond aid; within ten minutes he was dead.

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