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The pianist Marvin Maazel, uncle of conductor Lorin Maazel, circa 1921 in New York. 5x7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.
He looks like one of the Jonas Brothers in appearance and dress. Great picture, lighting composition.
What a perfect portrait of youthful self-confidence!
He looks like a young man with the world at his fingertips.
If this photo was taken in 1918, Marvin Maazel was 19 years old (which might account for his "sophisticated" pose with the cigarette holder), and just beginning his career as a piano soloist. Managed by the Metropolitan Musical Bureau in New York, he appeared in a solo recital in Boston at Jordan Hall on the afternoon of February 3, 1918.
A brief notice of Maazel's first New York piano recital appeared in the New York Times on October 26, 1918: "Marvin Maazel, a young pianist who has appeared at the Metropolitan, gave his first recital in Aeolian Hall last evening. He is a youth of genuine musical gifts, as displayed yesterday in Bach-Busoni chaconne, the Brahms-Paganini variations, pieces by Chopin, Lizt [sic], and Russian composers, and a Strauss-Godowsky waltz."
Marvin looks like a "cake eater" to me, but first impressions can be deceiving. Nevertheless, just like the table he is leaning against, he is built to last.
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