The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 33

Ai'ttsIEimteiPtoMiniiKgimtt PAGES D7-D10 Russian-born maestro of piano dies at 85 By Jacob Siskind Citizen staff writer breath. He seemed to play faster than other pianists, but when his playing was actually clocked it was discovered that he often was playing more slowly than some of his most famous rivals. The impression of speed was created by the clarity he was able to achieve at the keyboard, a transparency that gave his playing a hailstone effect, creating an illusion of lightning speed. Some of this was a product of his own imagination; some of it came from his acquaintance with virtuoso conductor Arturo Toscanini, whose daughter Wanda, Horowitz married in the early 1930s. They had a daughter, Sonia, who died in Italy in 1975.

Once he began to play any trace of shyness disappeared and he could mesmerize his listeners within a few measures of the start of his performance. On one occasion in the 1970s, at a recital in Cleveland on the occasion of one of his many returns from "retirement," I had the score for the sonata he was playing in my lap but was so enthralled that I could not recall, afterwards, whether he had played the usual repeats or left them out. Horowitz made his U.S. debut at Carnegie Hall in 1928, playing Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Thomas Beecham. Horowitz's career was marked by much-noted withdrawals from public appearances.

In 1953, he abandoned concert performance and did not perform in public for the next 12 years. Horowitz had a comparatively limited repertoire, preferring to hone a small collection of works to a level of perfection only he could conceive and achieve. This was acceptable in an age live concerts. As recordings came to the fore, he was constantly being prodded to commit new repertoire to disc, though he managed to re-record some works when he changed his allegiance from one record label to another. Until the 1950s there was an uncanny consistency to his playing.

Later, he allowed himself more experimentation and more freedom, especially where tempo was concerned. In his later years, he returned to the music he preferred in his youth, sonatas by Mozart and Clementi, smaller works by Schumann and the Mazurkas and Waltzes of Chopin. He was a supreme miniaturist, but he was comfortable with works of grand scale. His performances of the Liszt Sonata in and the Rachmani-nov Concerto No. 3 were for decades the yardsticks by which other pianists were measured.

Horowitz did teach, occasionally. One of the half-dozen or so pianists he chose for lessons was Montreal-born Ronald Turini, for whom he held high regard and in whose career he remained interested decades after the teacher-pupil relationship was over. Horowitz made a much heralded return to the Soviet Union in 1986, playing in the country of his birth for the first time in over 60 years. It was an occasion for tears and smiles and some magnificent piano playing. His recordings, even his most recent albums, have never captured the animal vitality of his live performances.

Only after one had heard him in person could one begin to identify with the unique quality that was his. He will fill a large space in the musical pantheon. Vladimir Horowitz, the most widely heralded pianist of this century, died Sunday of a heart attack at his New York home at 85. With his passing, the last of the great individualists among pianists has disappeared from the musical scene. Horowitz was a unique musical phenomenon.

His stage presence, a mixture of bravado and shyness, made him a strangely attractive character. He was aware of his capacity to captivate audiences in a way no other performer in this century could, but he was equally aware that his gift could leave him without notice and that his magic was fragile. He carried the burden of his previous successes every time he appeared on stage and was always conscious of the importance of living up to expectations he had created over three-quarters of a century of playing in public. Horowitz was born in Kiev in 1904. Legend has it that he began to study the piano seriously at the age of eight after he heard a recital by the giant of an earlier era, Josef Hofmann, a pupil of Anton Rubinstein.

He was so overwhelmed by Hofmann's playing that he rushed home to try to capture some of the sounds he had heard coming from a piano for the first time. It was the unique piano tone that Horowitz drew that set him above and apart from his rivals. That, and his equally distinctive sense of rhythm and rhythmic propulsion. In concert, Horowitz produced a range of sound quality that no other pianist has ever approached and the rhythmic intensity would often leave listeners gasping for r-v -UPI photo Vladimir Horowitz: 1904-1989 bortion: Degrassi takes on explosive topic By Stephen Nicholls The Canadian Press second-floor library. "The writers have grown up with the kids in the cast.

They try to deal with what we're going through." That, says sister Maureen, is why Degrassi has been so successful. "It's real real kids, real situations. Everything is from a teen's point of view. It's not glossed over. It doesn't tie up neatly at the end, and someone doesn't come in and solve your problems for you." Adds Angela: "You're not spoon-fed morals or told: This is the right way, this is the only way.

You're told that there are choices to make and you can't rely on somebody else to make those decisions for you." The twins staunchly defend the abortion episode. "It's hard-hitting, but it's not really exploiting the issue," says Maureen. "It's not sensationalism." Producer Linda Schuyler, a former teacher, says the show's subject matter reflects what's on the minds of kids today. "As the kids get older, the only way we can remain true to this age group is by growing with them. Therefore, the issues get more complex." Schuyler looks and sounds a bit like actress Barbara Bosson Fay Furillo in Hill Street Blues, the captain on Hooperman.

Sitting in an empty classroom in a quiet wing of the building, she explained the aims of the abortion program. "What we wanted to do more than anything else was to show both sides of the abortion issue. "I love the idea of the two twins having opposing views because I think that says so much about the complexity of the issue." Head writer Yan Moore had been reluctant to tackle abortion. "Years ago, when we began doing Degrassi Junior High, I swore I would not do this topic because I didn't see there was any way we could possibly do it," says Moore, stationed at his trusty word processor in an office several blocks from the school. But when the kids got older and the producers did some research into adolescent concerns, he was swayed.

"I began to write, always a little bit nervous, always scared that maybe this one I don't dare do. But it became more exciting, actually. "This is an issue where there is very little middle ground. It really polarizes people. "We are excited about the show and, yes, a little It's a rap: i music fills LA.

suburb LOS ANGELES (AP) The heavy beat of rap music is resounding in two I neighborhoods near a powerful radio transmitter, with songs like Wild Thing following some residents even into the I bathroom. "You can walk in my yard when it rains and hear the 'rap, rap, rap' music "in the chain link fence," said Tanya Busko, a 27-year resident of the affluent hillside community of Silver Lake, about 15 kilometres north of downtown Los Angeles. i "It's awful. It's unbelievable. night it's unbearable," she said.

Residents of Silver Lake and adjacent 'Echo Park grumble KDAY-AM is too loud and even brags about the potency of its signal. They cite pro-J motional ads boasting the station's rap music is everywhere "in cars, at the in living rooms, even in the show- er" president Edward Kerby said station has broadcast from its one-; hectare site for 24 years, focusing its signal toward downtown with a narrow 'beam that keeps it from interfering with other broadcasters. As a result, KDAY's rap music the format since 1982 can sometimes be heard as far away as Hawaii and Japan. Busko said no room in her house is jree from the signal. the bathroom, you can hear it coming through the toilet plumbing," she "I can go in my bedroom, which has no appliances or radio, and hear the rap music coming from the wiring in the walls." Kerby said inexpensive, low-quality -v.

household electronics equipment act as makeshift radio receivers in residents' If you hear knees knocking these days, it could be the sound of some nervous TV executives waiting for the Degrassi kids to hit high school. The kids of Degrassi Junior High have grown up over the past three seasons and now they've graduated to a secondary school called Degrassi High, which is what the show will be called from now on. Growing pains have brought grown-up problems. The critically acclaimed series on CBC has never shied away from controversy, raising such subjects as sexual molestation, teenage pregnancy, racism, underage drinking, drug abuse, death and even some TV taboos like menstruation and wet dreams. The series kicks off its new season tonight (8:30 on Channels 6, 8 and 20) with an explosive topic abortion.

In the premiere episode, one of the show's freckle-faced twins gets pregnant and contemplates abortion. True to form, the program doesn't pull any punches. The character, Erica, finds herself surrounded by adamant anti-abortionists, including emotional classmates, vocal pickets at an abortion clinic and even her own outspoken twin sister. When she visits the abortion clinic, she gets the straight facts on exactly what the procedure involves. It's a strong episode on a sensitive subject.

Even the mention of abortion is a red flag for a lot of people, and that fact hasn't escaped the folks who make Degrassi High nor those at the network that broadcasts it. They're plenty nervous about the response. How nervous? The American PBS network has edited out the ending of the show when it is broadcast in the U.S. in January. And CBC brass are so anxious they asked the media not to divulge too many details of the episode or reveal its ending.

It seems they want to head off any pre-broad-cast controversy. OK. We'll let the viewers tune in to see what happens. Meanwhile, let's drop by the new set of Degrassi and talk to some of the front-line players. It's a sunny, crisp autumn day in Toronto's east end as two technicians hoist silver-metal letters that spell Degrassi into place over the doorway of a vacant com- Erica (Angela Deiseach) as pregnant teen munity college building.

On the final episode last year, the old three-storey, red-brick junior high burned down. This year, the kids file into a low-slung '60s-style building with lots of glass and green-metal panels. Inside, the cast and crew talk about a different feel now that the show is set at high school. Viewers can expect "meatier issues" this season, says Angela Deiseach, who stars as Erica in the abortion episode. Elbow to elbow with her real-life reflection twin sister Maureen the 17-year-old with frizzy auburn ringlets rests her chin on her hands at a table in the Gunsmoke's Miss Kitty died of AIDS, doctor says BRIEFS Jane Siberry a hit with British critics LONDON (CP) An ocean away from home, Toronto singer-songwriter Jane Siberry is being decorated in stars by many of Britain's music critics.

Her fifth album, Bound By The Beauty, just released in Britain, and her 7 wore in the 1953 movie Lilt will be on display Nov. 8 when Frederick's of Hollywood opens its Lingerie Museum, which is replacing its Bra Museum. The displays also will include a black bustier worn by Madonna, a petticoat Ava Gardner wore in Show Boat and a white peignoir that Mae West donned for a Life magazine layout in 1952. de Havilland writes The very proper Olivia de Havilland, 73, will write her autobiography for Harper it Row, the New York Daily News reports. Shell discuss shooting Gone With the Wind and a heartbreaking affair with Errol Flynn.

"I cannot afford to keep the collection fresh by adding new things," Wilder says. "But I will still have enough stuff in my storage house to fill a small hotel." Soldier-songwriter dead Singer-songwriter Barry Sadler, who recorded the hit Ballad of the Green Berets in 1966, died Sunday. He was 49. Sadler, who suffered brain damage from a shooting, died at the Alvin C. York Medical Centre in Murfreesboro, hospital spokesman Albert Archie said.

A cause of death was not given and an autopsy will be performed. Sadler had been in hospital in Murfreesboro or Cleveland since he was critically wounded in 1988 in Guatemala while training Contra rebels. He became the centre of a guardianship dispute between his mother and a son over who would handle his affairs. A probate judge in Geveland in February said Sadler's family had agreed to the appointment of an independent guardian. Sadler, as Staff-Sergeant Barry Sadler, co-wrote and recorded Ballad of the Green Berets which was the No.

1 song in the United States for five weeks in 1966. Citizen news services SACRAMENTO, Calif. Actress Amanda Blake, who starred for many years as television's "Miss Kitty" in the western series Gunsmoke, died of AIDS, her doctor confirmed on the weekend. Her Aug. 16 death of throat cancer at age 60 was complicated by a type of viral hepatitis brought on by acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, her physician, Dr.

Lou Nishimura, said. She died at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento, but no mention was made of her having AIDS. Her close friend, Pat Derby, said only that Blake had suffered an "ongoing deterioration" that finally caused her to be hospitalized three weeks before her death. Nishimura said he treated Blake the last year of her life while she was living on an animal ranch owned by Derby and her husband. When he diagnosed AIDS, it came as no surprise to Blake, he said.

The doctor said he believed Blake had been tested for AIDS while travelling in Africa, which she often visited in pursuit of her love for animals. Nishimura said be listed AIDS as a cause of death on Blake's death certificate, but it was not disclosed publicly. The doctor said he heard nothing mere about it until be was called by Sacra- 1 concerts the last week have won rave reviews from music critics and warm applause from audiences. "Albums of this quality are rare," Black, music critic for Magazine, declared in awarding Siberry a grade of four stars out of four. Two other music critics also nailed her album with four stars.

"Uncompromising, unequivocal, unstoppable," is how Glyn Brown of 2020 magazine put it. Siberry, who performed with her four-man band in Bath, Brighton and London, takes the positive reviews to heart "I feel I can touch the music lover in a critic," she said in an interview before taking the stage at London's Bloomsbury Theatre. "I touch that part of a person more often than the critical side. That mAes them happy so they like the mu- Amanda Blake Got disease in Africa mento television ancborwoman Christine Craft Friday. Nishimura said Blake never told him how she became infected with the fatal disease.

Zsa Zsa's underwear Zsa Zsa Gabor's criminal status hasn't hurt her historical value in the lingerie industry. I The black lace bra and panties Gabor Director sells paintings Hollywood director Billy Wilder is selling off a group of impressionist and modern paintings. They will be auctioned off Nov. 13 in New York City. The collection consists of .9 4 works, including paintings by Picasso, Miro and Braque.

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