William Kapell: America Still Waits For His Equal

Sixty years ago today, October 29, 1953, William Kapell's skyrocketing career as a concert pianist ended. He and ten other passengers and eight crew members died in a fiery crash when their aircraft clipped the summit of Kings Mountain while on descent to San Francisco. Born in New York, Kapell was only thirty-one, but he had already reached such maturity that many in the classical music family declared he would soon be the nation's "pianist of the century."

William Kapell in 1948

In 1958, the accolades reserved for Kapell were soon directed toward Vann Cliburn on his winning of the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow. By 1960, Kapell's recordings were no longer available and he likely would have fallen into total obscurity without his extraordinary skill and the efforts of his wife to keep his music alive.

In the 1980's there was a renewed interest in this remarkable pianist. The University of Maryland became the home of the quadrennial Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival.  Over the next fifteen years, old recordings returned, his complete authorized catalog appeared, and newly discovered recordings of his concerts in Australia made days before his death were issued.

If you want to hear Kapell, there are a few recordings available on You Tube. Even if you know little about the classical piano, I have a feeling you'll come away with the understanding that you just heard a very special genius. For a tantalizing sense of his abilities, here is a legendary recording made in 1945 when he was twenty-two years old:



Even Vladimir Horowitz said there was nothing he could teach Kapell. Indeed, we are still waiting to hear his American equal in our time.