Last week it was Phyllis Curtin. At age 86 I guess this is to be expected.
Eleanor and I first met in 1960-something when the Monmouth County American Guild of Organists, of which we were both members, asked us to do a joint report on Felix Mendelssohn. We found that we enjoyed working together and Eleanor began organ lessons with me.
At about that time I was gifted two Steinway pianos and we decided just for fun to read the two-piano literature together. After a bit we would invite friends to my home in Middletown, NJ, for informal recitals which were basically sight-reading. After a couple of years of this we decided we should stop sight-reading in public and actually practice. This led to our New York debut as 'Burtis and Benoist' in Steinway Hall. This was followed by a two piano concert in what was then Carnegie Recital Hall and later a piano four-hands concert in the same venue. We toured throughout the United States.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"A program chosen with unusual taste and played with much skill was presented by Herbert Burtis and Eleanor Benoist, duo-pianists, in Carnegie Recital Hall Monday night. Except for the Bach C major Concerto, the music came from the 20th century: Poulenc's Sonata and Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations, played with some regularity, and Riegger's Three Dances and Rorem's Four Dialogues presented with such rarity as to seem like novelties. What was most satisfactory about the performance was the kind of sonorities developed by the two artists. The Poulenc had a full, shining texture, whereas the Bach was appropriately dry and clear. Riegger's dances had strength and richness, the Lutoslawski a virtuosic brilliance".....Raymond Ericson.
We continued to perform together until 2006 when the poor health of John Ferris made it impossible for me to commute back and forth to New Jersey to teach or to work with Elli.
Over the years she sent me many young singers from her High School music program for study. When Ellie and Herbie Linley, her second husband, were at the House of the Redeemer on East 95th Street just off Fifth Avenue, we often performed in the amazing library of what had been the Fabri mansion.
We were a great match musically and emotionally, finishing each others thoughts.
A part of me seems to have gone missing with her death.
