QUINTET

Inspired by an interviewer trusted as a confidant, five world-class musicians help him sketch engrossing self-portraits. Orchestra founder Blum (Casals and the Art of Interpretation, not reviewed) knows that “a person with artistic gifts will usually develop in one of two ways: as an artist at the expense of others, or as a human being at the expense of art.” Yet his forthcoming subjects reveal how, despite diverse trials, they avoided either trap. Soprano Birgit Nilsson overcame voice-damaging instructors. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, son of traditional Chinese parents, had to tame his own Americanized teenage wildness. Russian- born violinist Josef Gingold, longtime Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster, writhed under cruelty as an immigrant boy. Pianist Richard Goode, celebrated for his Schubert and Beethoven, still wrestles with dire stage fright. Jeffrey Tate, certified as a doctor, turned full-time conductor only after pain from his deformed spine acted like a “refiner’s fire.” As these highly accomplished performers reflect unpretentiously on their core musical experiences, Blum weaves in commentary from colleagues and partners, cherishing the incidental humanizing touch: Goode heading for a campus concert, a bag of books and scores on his back, still the student; devoted teacher Gingold’s “jealous mistress” of a violin challenging him each morning: —I dare you”; Nilsson, known for her aquavit wit, pausing at the local churchyard to water her parents’ grave. Striving to cast sound into words, and laud towering talents without fawning, Blum occasionally turns grandiloquent, but he never obstructs our view as his sitters answer what must have been prescient questions with fluent candor. The author’s illness precluded updating these previously published heroes’ tales before his 1996 death; this memorial would have benefited from a current discography. As good writers about art should, Blum sends the reader back to the works afresh’seeking these five interpreters as mentors. (5 b&w photos)