Leonard Pennario

Jul 3 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

SOME devotees said that the handsome chap, who briefly dated Elizabeth Taylor, when she was in a lull between husbands, was the finest musician to step out of Buffalo, the flour-milling city on the banks of Lake Erie.

Others said, rather more grandly, that he was one of the greatest pianists in the world, seamlessly switching from the popular to the classical.

“All we can say is that when he played Dreams, you dreamed; when he played Embraceable You, you embraced the dream. Leonard Pennario’s execution of Tico-Tico, Holiday for Strings and Chopin’s Polonaise was almost too swift for credulity,” wrote a critic.

The concert was actually given on a troopship in which he was sailing as a staff-sergeant towards the end of World War II. His remuneration was a glass of water.

He would be more handsomely rewarded both in cash and praise as his career progressed. Another critic wrote of his “transcendental pianism”, but there was also a feeling that he had sacrificed his true talent to please the audiences in glitzy lounges.

Pennario was born in Buffalo, but when his father’s shoe shop on Niagara Street failed, the family moved to Los Angeles.

By then, however, he had heard Rachmaninov in concert, spurring his own desire to be a concert pianist.

He made his debut, aged 12, playing the Grieg Concerto with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. As his talent blossomed under the tutelage of Isabelle Vengerova, at the University of Southern California, his technique was likened to that of Vladmir Horowitz.

His status grew when he appeared at Carnegie Hall, New York, wearing the uniform of a soldier to play Liszt’s Concerto in E Flat.

From there, Pennario served in the Far East, performing in Calcutta, on Christmas Day, 1944.

He would become best known for his interpretation of works by Rachmaninov and George Gershwin.

Most of his 60 recordings for the Capitol label were successful, and, in 1959, he was declared the highest- selling American pianist in the world.

But he was happiest playing before live audiences, dazzling them with his technique, as he appeared at the best venues in the USA and Europe.

As he became a regular, in showbiz circles, Pennario accompanied Judy Garland at concerts and courted Liz Taylor between husbands one and two, though he didn’t marry himself.

Leonard Pennario, pianist; born July 9, 1924, died June 27, 2008.