Alexandre Tharaud
As regular readers know, I frequently complain about bios—bios of musicians published in concert and opera programs. These bios can deprive you of basic information.
Such as the musician’s home country. Really, where’s the guy (or gal) from? What town did he grow up in? With whom did he study?
The typical bio gives you a long, long list of conductors with whom the musician has worked. If he’s a conductor himself, the bio gives you a long list of orchestras he has conducted. All this is terribly uninteresting.
Is it interesting to publicists and others in the music biz? Are the bios written by insiders for other insiders, and not for the reading or concertgoing public?
Also, the bios contain the most absurd boasts. Hyperbole in PR, and in bios (is there a difference?), is obviously normal and permissible. But sometimes it goes way too far.
Not long ago, a bio told me that a certain pianist was “one of the great pianists of his generation.” Really? I had never heard of him. His recital did not suggest that the boast was remotely true. Moreover, the bio didn’t tell me his nationality. I had no idea where he was from.
This is supposed to be a bio?
In addition to giving you lists of conductors or orchestras, a bio will tell you two things. It will tell you that the musician is an avid participant in chamber music. By golly, he lives for chamber music. No, he actually lives for contemporary music, of which he is a tireless champion. There’s nothing he likes better than to advocate today’s music.
Just once, I’d like to read a bio that says, “Frankly, Mr. Smith is lukewarm about participating in chamber music, and he thinks that most of today’s music is not worth advocating. He’ll play a new piece when he thinks the piece worthwhile.”
Another thing a bio will tell you? The musician’s schedule, for last season, this season, and next season. Zzzzz . . .
A few months ago, I reviewed Alexandre Tharaud, the French pianist. His bio told me essentially nothing. So, I went to his Wikipedia entry. I’m not sure it’s correct, but here is a sample of what it says:
Born in Paris, Tharaud discovered the music scene through his mother who was a dance teacher at the Opéra de Paris, and his father, an amateur director and singer of operettas. Tharaud thus appeared as a child in theatres around northern France, where the family spent many weekends. His grandfather was a violinist in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. At the initiative of his parents, Alexandre started his piano studies at the age of five, and he entered Conservatory of the 14th Arrondissement, where his teacher was Carmen Taccon-Devenat, a student of Marguerite Long.
Now, that is interesting. I’m not saying that every word (if true, which I assume it is) should be included in a program bio. But my plea is this: that the public be provided with less useless, less meaningless, less dull bios. They are practically an insult.