Time out

The Washington Post’s Anne Midgette writes about classical musicians who’ve decided to take sabbaticals from performance, often at the peaks of their careers.

Pianist Piotr Anderszewski, the latest to temporarily leave the stage, said in an interview with the website Humans of New York that becoming “a 200-concert-per-year performing machine . . . requires too much efficiency. And the efficiency burns you out.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/style/wp/2016/03/02/give-me-a-break-classical-musicians-are-stepping-away/

It surely doesn’t help that many prominent performers play the same music night after night. Check out the website of the pianist, violinist or chamber group of your choice, and you typically find these artists spending months alternating among two or three concertos or half a dozen chamber works parceled into a couple of programs.