Going out with a bang.

[Ed Waffle]

I hadn't heard of French pianist Duchable before this article but he should be in the news again if he follows through with blowing up pianos and setting his concert suit afire in protest against the institutions that made his career possible.

http://www.andante.com/article/article.cfm?id=21464

[Mel Johnson]

Well, he can always hire himself out to medieval reenactors who would be happy to throw his pianos as far as he wants with a trebuchet. They can toss him, too, for that matter.

[carbro]

Originally posted by Ed Waffle

I hadn't  heard of French pianist Duchable before this article . . .

So it worked! Because now you have!

This is very disturbing. To have reached the level concertizing, I would have thought that great love for the art would be at the root. That he has turned so bitterly against it may reflect the state of the industry or alternatively, perhaps, Duchable could benefit from the wide range of psychotropic medications that are available these days.

[Estelle]

That sounds really weird! I had heard about François-René Duchâble before (for example a search on amazon.fr about him lists about 20 CDs, but from that article his behavior now really seems crazy...

[Marc Haegeman]

Duchâble is one the great French pianists of today and a supreme interpreter of Liszt and Chopin, among others.... yet this sounds like April Fool's Day.

[Estelle]

A Yahoo article in French about Duchâble's penultimate concert (and he did indeed throw a piano in a lake, after playing Beethoven's 3rd concerto and Saint-Saëns' 2nd concerto). The last one will take place in the small village of Mazaugues on August 31st, and after that one he will burn his concert suit. He's 51 and gave his first concert when he was 16.

[Mel Johnson]

Ain't mid-life crisis awful?