Tomoko asserts: “Piano playing is good when you are 60 years old; you can even start after 70. As long as you can move your hands, you can continue to play the piano. Tomoko remarks, “Playing also stimulates the brain, and keeps it younger.” Playing at an older age has other benefits too. “When you get older, you may find yourself repeating pieces,” says Tomoko. “They can be so beautiful, and give you warm memories as well as console you.”
Likewise, Tomoko knows musical performers and teachers who are in their nineties. Tomoko recalls Pablo Casals performing publicly at the age of 96. At that time, in 1972, one of Tomoko’s college friends was inspired by Casals, and flew to Arizona State University where he was playing a benefit concert to raise money for an International Cello Library. Tomoko went along with her friend, and met Casals at the airport. They spent a meal with him and his young wife, who was the same age at Tomoko at the time.
In that vein, some composers started late in life.
Austrian composer Anton Bruckner starting playing the organ as a child, and gave organ lessons as an adult. He didn’t start composing seriously until almost in his 40s, and was not widely recognized until his 60s. Most of his piano works were written for teaching purposes.
French composer Alexis-Emmanuel Chabrier played the piano mainly as a hobby because his family did not approve of a musical career for him. Instead, he would as a civil servant. As did Bruckner, Chabrier started full-time composing as he reached 40. He is sometimes associated with Debussy with his tender emotional piano pieces. Some of those worked served as the core inspiration for his later orchestral versions. He also created duet piano works.
Considered a major modernist composer, American Elliott Carter Jr. most the most productive after the age of 80.
In that vein, while some piano composers died earlier in live, such as Mozart, others led long and productive lives. As with Chabrier, Carter’s family did not encourage music, although they let him take piano lessons. Amazingly, the man who sold insurance to Carter’s family was Charles Ives, later to become a renown composer. Ives encouraged Carter’s love of music, which led to Carter earning a doctorate in music. In his 40s, Carter edited Ives’ music and only then started composing, which he then did daily until his death in 2012. Most of his piano works were concertos.
Several other composers lived to their mid eighties and nineties: Randall Thompson, Richard Strauss, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Charles-Camille Saint-Saens, Cecile Chaminade, Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, and Jean Sibelius.
As the autumn days grow shorter, it is comforting to know creating, playing and listening to piano music certainly is a lifelong joy, and can even keep one younger in spirit. Just ask Tomoko.
