Elmer: Did Liszt REALLY slice through the tendons connecting hisAs I said: Don't try this at home. Total failure. I don't think it ended his piano playing entirely, but it sure didn't help.
fingers?? My god!! Could he still play after that?
The Steinway rep hand-shaking incident: It seems to me incredible thatHere's where I'm hoping for other deep readers to help me out with details and citations. However, the bio commentator who wrote about this episode suspected that when it happened, Gould was already looking for a reason to be mad at Steinway and change or get out entirely from his longstanding professional relationship with it. No one denies there was a handshake, but its vigor and subsequent damage are considerably suspicious and debatable matters, even among people on GG's side. The incident caused great personal pain and unhappiness to Steinway officials who worshiped Gould and his affiliation with Steinway. To someone like Gould, the damage may have become as "real" as other parts of his psyche needed it to be.
someone who worked for STEINWAY would ever shake a musician's hand in
this manner; has this story ever been confirmed, or did it just happen
in GG's imagination?
Bob Merkin