Efrem Zimbalist: A Life -- Book Review
BOOK REVIEW
In Tuesday's (8/31) Philadelphia Inquirer, David Patrick Stearns reviews "Efrem Zimbalist: A Life," a new biography by Roy Malan of the violinist who headed the Curtis Institute of Music from 1941 to 1968. Stearns writes, "A student and friend of Zimbalist, Malan accumulated much information before time scattered it too far. However, he handles his subject with the protective affection of a family member, but with little inner drive to figure him out." He adds, "The biography's biggest problem is details: Malan loves them all and fails to prioritize...Half of the anecdotes are neither amusing nor revealing." Stearns concludes, "And yet the book is better than nothing. How much better depends on what impact it has.One can only hope that this book is a catalyst for creating something more important: a Zimbalist legacy in sound."
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September 2, 2004 at 04:19 AM · Roy Malan happens to be my violin teacher.
He went to Zimbalist after having studied with Galamian at Juilliard and once he arrived there he realized that Zimbalist was much more of a human being, which corroborates Zimbalist's own remark that while Galamian produced more good violinists, he produced more musicians. Arrogant? Sure, but that was part of the man.
While reading the book, I wondered exactly why the book wasn't set to "prove" Zimbalist's influence, but expected the details to speak for themselves. I asked Roy Malan how he went about compiling the stories and what he said was he simply went to Zimbalist and made sure that the stories he was going to publish were true, hence why he calls it an "authorized" biography. In his words, "it was a full time job for 10 years," and knew that Zimbalist wasn't going to live to see its publication.
Also, pay attention to the title, "Efrem Zimbalist: A Life," and not "Why Efrem Zimbalist Matters."