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The Pianist Menahem Pressler - The Life I Love

January 14, 2015

At 91, Menahem Pressler is the oldest active concert pianist today. This exceptional musician became famous with the Beaux Arts Trio, one of the world’s greatest piano trios until its dissolution in 2008.

https://p.dw.com/p/1DlBk
Image: ©2004 Marco Borgreve

Anyone who imagined 85-year-old Menahem Pressler would rest after the trio split got it quitewrong. He started again, relaunched his solo career and has since debuted with the biggest and best orchestras in the world. “The fact that I am now once again having a solo career at my age is a miracle,” he says.

Pressler has had an eventful life. At 16, the native of Magdeburg had to flee from the Nazis and his family onlynarrowly escaped deportation. His path took him via Israel to America. There he began his career as a pianist, met all the great masters of his time, went to concerts with Bruno Walter, drank tea with Alma Mahler on Saturdays and counted Franz Waxmann amongst his close circle of friends. Now, at 91, he opens a window into the past, and yet with his iPad under his arm he is completely at home in the 21st century. His profound love for music and the music itself seem to be the source of his youth. He tirelessly travels the world, playing concerts, recording CDs and teaching young musicians in master classes. You just don’t notice his age when he expresses praise with a mischievous smile or criticizes something with a harsh severity.

18.12.2014 DW Doku Pressler3
In 1939, Menahem Pressler’s family fled to Palestine via Trieste. Pressler's grandparents and other relatives died in the Holocaust.

Menahem Presslernever tires of telling people about his approach to music. "Everyone should have at least heard him once in his lifetime," recommends Raphaël Merlin, cellist withthe French string quartet Quatuor Ebené.We now have this opportunity - not only in our portrait but also on New Year's Eve, when Pressler is due to join Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic to play out 2014.

18.12.2014 DW Doku Pressler4
Menahem Pressler was the founder of the Beaux Arts Trio. A critic once called his playing of Mozart “soul, love and devotion.”



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