LIFE AND MUSIC

The life of an acclaimed musician is celebrated in this hybrid biography/memoir from Biret and Xardel.

Classical pianist Biret’s music attracts, on average, over two million Spotify listeners every month. She’s played before presidents and royalty in the world’s most prestigious concert halls. In this work—originally published in French almost 20 years ago—Biret shares her story via scholar and admirer Xardel in the form of an extended interview. As readers learn through her dialogue with Xardel, Biret was a musical prodigy from a young age. Born in Ankara, Turkey, in the 1940s, she could play Mozart and Bach pieces after hearing them on the radio. As a 5-year-old, she played before the president of the Turkish Republic, and in 1948 she moved to Paris, taking advantage of “Idil’s Law,” passed by the Turkish National Assembly, which provided gifted children the opportunity to study abroad. When she was 11, Biret performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées before an audience of thousands. Reflecting on her 80-year career as a classical pianist, Biret comments on the highlights of her illustrious tenure as one of the 20th century’s most distinguished pianists. She describes her historic performance on November 22, 1963, when she comforted a stunned Boston audience alongside the Boston Symphony Orchestra after news had broken of President Kennedy’s assassination—the concert would subsequently be added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry for its historic significance. The narrative is driven by the broad timeline of her career and her globe-trotting adventures; Biret is particularly adept at providing introspective reflections on topics that include the pressures put upon child prodigies, the dichotomy between her Turkish background and her love of Western music, and the power of music to unite humanity. An astute observer of musical cultures around the globe, the author also discusses the declining popularity of classical music in the United States since the 1960s, lamenting the elitism often associated with the classical community. She notes that the groundbreaking composers of yore “mostly played contemporary music” and “were not museum curators as we have become,” clinging to centuries-old pieces.

The bulk of the text is presented as an interview/dialogue between Xardel and Biret. It reads like a hybrid of a biography crafted by an admirer and a memoir that’s both conversational and incredibly detailed. Biret’s autobiographical vignettes are supplemented by additional commentary by Xardel, which adds clarity and contextualization within the classical music scene and the broader events of the times (such as the Cold War, since Biret navigated between both the Western and communist worlds). The volume’s ample appendix material (which takes up almost a third of its total pages) contains commentary on Biret from family members, fellow musicians, and friends. The deeply personal overview of her life is supplemented by dozens of full-color, high-resolution photographs and reproductions of newspaper clippings, posters, and other historical ephemera. While thorough, the book is an occasionally disjointed read that lacks chronological and narrative cohesion. Still, even though the book can be repetitive, the work offers a poignant celebration of the unifying power of music.

A noteworthy, if at times jumbled, overview of a musical prodigy.