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BACH -Toccata in C Minor BWV 915 - Agi Jambor, piano

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Before Glenn Gould and Angela Hewitt, there was Agi Jambor. Agi was brought back to Baltimore to start a new life by one of her admirers also a Bach pianist and Harpsichordist, the psychiatrist Joseph Stephens. He found her living under stressful conditions, with 30 cats in the outskirts of Philadelphia. And yet, Agi a Hungarian, had been a famous pianist in Europe, who immigrated to the US after the war. She had played Bach, and other composers with Mengelberg, Ormandy, and many other famous conductors. She refused to play under the baton of Alfred Cortot after the war, because she considered him as being anti-Semitic. She turned down von Dohnanyi, who offered to become her teacher at the Budapest Conservatory. On her 16th birthday, Albert Einstein came to her house and brought his violin. How did he play? I asked her once. She smiled and said politely: 'Not too well. The harder the piece, the worse it got'. After the passing of her first husband, she met an fell in love with the famous actor Claude Rains, and became Mrs. Rains. The marriage did not last long, because Claude was a severe alcoholic. When she arrived back in Baltimore (she had taught at the Peabody before going to Philadelphia) Joe rented for her an apartment in Bolton Hill, very close to his own home. She brought with her her old dilapidated Steinway, and her marimba. (She was also a marimba virtuoso, and played Bach Concertos on it. Her piano was in bad shape, and she was frail, so I suggested to Joe to get her an electronic piano, with a weighted touch. It would be even and easier to play. By miracle, she started playing, and in no time she started sounding like the great Agi Jambor of the 50s. Joe and I also bought electronic pianos, that she loved playing, coming to my house or Joe's on Sunday, and for 8 or so years we had a great pianist in our midst. Meanwhile Juan Bastos a superb painter helped taking care of her, and from a neglected old lonely lady, she blossomed back into the princess of the keyboard, that she really was. Dedicated to another superb Bach pianist Angela Hewitt, and to the memory of Glenn Gould.