eBay

DESCRIPTION : Up for sale is a vintage BEAUTIFULY Original HAND SIGNED PHOTO with BOLD AUTOGRAPH - SIGNATURE and INSCRIPTION ( With a blue fountain pen ) of the popular British pianist CLIVE LYTHGOE . The photo is an original silver gelatine photo ( Definitely not a print ) and it is stamped by the photographer. The size of the original autographed - signed photo ( SP ) is around 7 x 4.8 " . Very good condition ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images ) Authenticity guaranteed. Will be sent inside a protective rigid packaging .

PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal .

SHIPPMENT :SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $ 19 . Will be sent inside a protective packaging. Handling around 5 -10 days after payment.

Clive Lythgoe (9 April 1927 – 4 September 2006), was a leading British classical pianist of the 1950s and 1960s, popular in the UK and the United States, where he was considered to be "Britain's answer to Liberace"[1]He was born in Colchester, Essex, on 9 April 1927, the son of a Royal Army Medical Corps sergeant major. He grew up at Wimbledon, where he sang in the church choir, and disappointed his parents by shunning a career in law or accountancy. At seven years of age he was entranced by the piano player in a Carmen Miranda film. Some years later, he won a piano scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which marked the start of his musical career. Towards the end of World War II, he joined the RAF. By the 1950s, he had become a regular fixture on the concert circuit.[2]UK careerLythgoe was a protégé of Myra Hess, for whom he turned pages. His career breakthrough was under Arthur Bliss in 1954, performing the conductor's own Piano Concerto in B-flat at the first of what were to be many performances at the annual Royal Albert Hall Proms. He consolidated his reputation when he performed the premiere of Malcolm Williamson's piano concerto at the 1958 Cheltenham Music Festival. He appeared as a soloist with all the leading British orchestras, under conductors including Sir Colin Davis, Sir John Barbirolli, and Zubin Mehta.[citation needed]In the 1960s, he was the first classical pianist to abandon formal concert attire. The stylish collarless suit which Pierre Cardin designed for him attracted the attention of Brian Epstein, who asked if the Beatles could adopt the same style.[citation needed]He owned a six-bedroom house in Surrey, a hand-built Bristol 405 sports car, but became increasingly depressive. By the early 1970s, Lythgoe was relying heavily on drugs to get him through performances. During World War II, a bomb had landed in his back garden, decapitating the girl next door and ripping off his piano teacher's arm. Decades later, he claimed to still wake up screaming at the memory.[citation needed]US careerHis 1973 Carnegie Hall debut was critically acclaimed, but Lythgoe spent the two days between the recital and the reviews on Valium. In 1976, five hours of back-to-back recitals in New York almost finished him off, and when Herbert von Karajan offered an engagement playing Brahms' second piano concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic, Lythgoe astonished both the conductor and himself by declining. He recalled that he felt he had reached a "musical menopause". A breakdown caused him to abandon performances altogether, and in 1976, he accepted the post of Dean of the Music School Settlement in Cleveland, Ohio, where he became a well-loved figure, appearing again in his own television series, A Touch of Lythgoe, produced by public television station WVIZ, and playing occasional concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra, some of which were conducted by his friend, Sir Colin Davis.[citation needed]Later lifeLythgoe increasingly felt his true mission was to bring music to those not privileged enough to attend concert halls. When he settled in New York City, he became director of Horizon Concerts in New York City, a non-profit organization, and using talented young musicians he gave short concerts mixed with anecdotes to audiences in homeless centres, nursing homes, hospices and schools. He was also the director of the Roosa School of Music, a community music school located on Willow Place in Brooklyn Heights for several years, after which it was merged into another school.He lived alone in a simple one-bedroom co-op apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens.[3] In 2000, a New York Times profile led to renewed media interest and a career revival.RecordingsHis first Gershwin recording, Music For Pleasure, scaled the pop charts, and won the British "Record Of The Year Award", an award he shared with Sir Georg Solti and The Beatles. His acclaimed recordings of American piano music were added to the permanent collection of the White House Library by President Jimmy Carter[4]Television and radioIn England, his TV series, The Lythgoe Touch, ran for 85 weeks, consecutively followed by a 52 week BBC radio series, My Piano and I, and a 26 week television series for London's ITN. Celebrity guests included Gracie Fields, who became a close friend and took him with her to perform in New York. In the USA, he hosted a TV series, A Touch Of Lythgoe for PBS. Clive Lythgoe, who died on September 4 aged 79, was a leading classical pianist of the 1950s and 1960s and a fashionable man-about-town; known to American audiences as "London's Liberace", he frequented Carnaby Street and claimed to have inspired the Beatles' choice of collarless suits after Brian Epstein spotted him wearing a Pierre Cardin creation. But at the time when the Fab Four were being chased by screaming fans, Lythgoe was pursuing more cerebral activities. He had been a protégé of Myra Hess, for whom he turned pages, and made his Proms debut under Arthur Bliss in 1954 performing the conductor's own piano concerto. Bernstein, Maazel and Mehta offered him concert engagements; he played under the batons of Sir Adrian Boult, Sir John Barbirolli and Sir Colin Davis, and performed regularly in London, New York and Amsterdam. In 1967 his classical album, Music for Pleasure, sailed into the pop charts alongside the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. In the same year his recording of Gershwin's piano music won an Audio Record Review award. As well as technical virtuosity, Lythgoe had the added advantage of good looks, a glossy black mane and a chiselled profile. He was witty and urbane, and his name alone could pack concert halls on both sides of the Atlantic. There was a popular series on Southern TV, The Lythgoe Touch, a weekly radio show, and a hectic concert schedule. And he enjoyed the trappings of success: a six-bedroom house in Surrey, a hand-built Bristol 405 sports car and camel treks in the Algerian desert. But beneath this successful exterior Lythgoe was a tortured soul. A wartime bomb which landed in the garden behind his house had decapitated a girl playmate next door and ripped off his piano teacher's arm. Decades later he claimed still to wake up screaming at the memory. His performing career was no less stressful. His debut at Carnegie Hall in 1973 may have excited the critics, but Lythgoe spent the two days between the recital and the reviews on Valium. A pair of back-to-back recitals in New York in 1976 almost finished him off, and when Herbert von Karajan rang to offer an engagement playing the Brahms Second Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic, Lythgoe astonished both the conductor and himself by declining. Lythgoe recalled that he felt he had reached a "musical menopause". Subsequently Lythgoe turned his back on the international concert circuit. He resurfaced in Cleveland, Ohio, where he taught and, eventually, returned in a low-key manner to the concert platform, shunning publicity and the fans. Ten years later he moved into a one-bed apartment in Queens, New York, and became director of Horizon Concerts, giving benefit concerts in shelters, hospices and schools. Aids patients would be treated to Mozart, while the homeless were offered Chopin. "What I'm doing now is the happiest work I've ever done in my life," he claimed. "I'm a geriatric Robin Hood, taking music from the rich to give to the poor." Clive Lythgoe was born at Colchester, Essex, on April 9 1927, the son of an RAF officer. He grew up at Wimbledon, south London, where he sang in the church choir, and disappointed his parents by shunning a career in law or accountancy. At seven he was entranced by the piano player in a Carmen Miranda film, and some years later a piano scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama marked the start of his musical career. Towards the end of the war he joined the RAF. By the 1950s he had become a regular fixture on the concert circuit. Later in life he unearthed a collection of manuscripts by Edward MacDowell, the 19th-century American Romantic composer, who was criticised in the US for being too European. He had recently completed a new edition of MacDowell's second piano concerto. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on New York, Lythgoe enjoyed a brief flurry of fame, turning a long-planned return to the Wigmore Hall into a tribute to his adopted country — "An Englishman living in New York salutes America". Musically it was an ill-advised and sad attempt to re-live past glories. However, Lythgoe's masterful accounts of Gershwin, on the Philips label, were placed in the White House Library by President Carter. Clive Lythgoe was unmarried. Clive Lythgoe had it all, or so it seemed. A postwar British piano sensation with a zest for Gershwin and other American masters, he became the protege of Dame Myra Hess and the darling of composers, audiences and critics on both sides of the Atlantic. By the 1960's, his long-running television and radio series on classical music had made English broadcasting history, and his classical album ''Music For Pleasure'' scaled the pop charts alongside hits by the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. ''Mr. Lythgoe has the strength of 10,'' Donal Henahan wrote in The New York Times in 1976. Admirers swooned over his glossy black mane and chiseled profile, calling him ''Britain's answer to Liberace.'' Some even said that anyone who looked that good probably couldn't play that well. ''I was gorgeous,'' Mr. Lythgoe agreed. And when he wasn't performing to packed houses from Prince Albert Hall in London to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam to the United Nations in Geneva or being lionized in the press, Mr. Lythgoe (pronounced LITH-go) was at his country estate or tooling around Europe in his hand-built Bristol 405 sports car or riding camels in the Algerian desert. Then one day, in the grip of a malaise he called ''musical menopause,'' he gave it all up, quietly decamping to be dean at a music school in Cleveland in 1976. The once ubiquitous artist seemed to vanish from the concert stage. ''The glory days were hell,'' said Mr. Lythgoe, now 73, in a recent series of interviews in New York, where his career has taken a striking new turn. ''Carnegie did me in,'' he said, recalling a 1973 recital that was hailed by critics but threatened to propel him into the kind of breakdown suffered by a fellow pianist, David Helfgott, portrayed in the movie ''Shine.'' Mr. Lythgoe has assiduously shunned that film as hitting far too close to home. Leonard Bernstein was among the few who fathomed Mr. Lythgoe's secret anguish, advising him, ''Take care of your inner soul.'' Which he finally did. Mr. Lythgoe's life these days is a far cry from his glamorous existence as a fast-rising star. Instead of a six-bedroom manor in Sussex, he lives alone in a simple one-bedroom co-op apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens. No longer behind the wheel of his beloved Bristol, enjoying ''its symphony of speed,'' he drives a used white Lincoln that draws waves from people who mistake it for a gypsy cab. But Mr. Lythgoe said he had no regrets. On the contrary, he said, he has never been happier or felt more fulfilled. He is back to playing the piano. But these days it is not for television viewers or gala audiences in tuxedos. Accompanied by young musicians from around the world, he plays in shelters for the homeless, nursing homes, AIDS hospices and the city's neediest schools. As executive director and music director of Horizon Concerts, a nonprofit organization that has been bringing classical music to disadvantaged audiences in New York since 1975 and presents more than 100 concerts a year, Mr. Lythgoe has found a new niche. He is ''a lost soul rescued by lost souls,'' said his friend Jean-Claude Baker, the restaurateur. And so it was that one evening last month, Mr. Lythgoe and two accompanists arrived for a Horizons concert at Holland House, once a notorious welfare hotel at West 42nd Street and Ninth Avenue and now a model 306-person residence for homeless and disabled singles, run by Project Renewal, a social service organization. Waiting were about 50 men and women, some from other shelters also invited to the free performance. ''This is therapy for me,'' said Mr. Lythgoe before stepping in front of the crowd (there was no stage) and introducing his fellow musicians: Sergio Reyes, 24, a violinist from Colombia, and Thami Zungu, 28, a Zulu baritone from South Africa discovered by Martina Arroyo and now studying at Juilliard. After Mr. Reyes warmed up the crowd with the gypsy fiddling of ''Czardas'' by Monti, and Mr. Zungu followed with Figaro's spirited aria ''Largo al factotum'' from ''The Barber of Seville,'' Mr. Lythgoe deadpanned: ''Here's where the evening is going down the drain. I'm going to play something.'' He thundered out de Falla's ''Ritual Fire Dance,'' drawing rousing applause. Then, introducing a soulful violin solo by Mr. Reyes playing ''Oblivion'' by Astor Piazzolla, Mr. Lythgoe struck a personal note. ''Although I may appear smooth,'' he said, ''lots of things happened to me, as to you. When I was little, my first girlfriend was killed by a bomb of the Germans. The house fell down on me. I had to be dug out. She was dead. I was very sad. I will never forget her. I escaped into music.'' Afterward audience members thronged the musicians. ''I never knew classical music would be like this,'' said James Ferguson, 45, an out-of-work sheetrock taper. ''I thought it would put me to sleep. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. When I get back to the ghetto, I'm going to say, 'Yo, check this out!' '' Mr. Lythgoe said he was delighted to introduce classical music to enthusiastic new audiences. ''It brings me back to the reason I became a musician,'' he said. He added that it also reminded him of what captivated him about music in the first place. ''Playing an instrument is not about 'how,' '' he said. ''It's about 'why.' '' Music gripped him early, Mr. Lythgoe said. Born in Colchester, England, in 1927, the son of a sergeant major in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and raised in the London suburb of Wimbleton, he was a boy soprano in a church choir until his voice changed. At 9 he learned the piano from the church organist and fastened on a music career, disappointing his parents, who saw him as an accountant or a lawyer. His schooling went underground, literally, during the German blitz. Families in shelters would listen for the whistle of falling bombs. ''If you heard the whole whistle, it meant it was not for you,'' Mr. Lythgoe recalled. One night in 1940 the whistle stopped halfway. A bomb had landed in the garden. ''They threw me under the table,'' he recalled. The explosion toppled walls and flung the dresser onto the table. His mother emerged splashed with crimson, which turned out to be strawberry jam. But his little girlfriend next door had been decapitated. And his piano teacher, who happened to be passing by, lost his arms. ''I still wake up screaming,'' Mr. Lythgoe said. He retreated into music, winning piano scholarships at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He turned pages for Dame Myra, who became his mentor, and near the end of the war entered the Air Force, where he joined a military band. At his triumphant London debut in 1954, he played the Piano Concerto of Sir Arthur Bliss, Master of the Queen's Musick, at a concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra led by Sir Arthur himself. Critics were soon hailing his ''poetic touch'' and gentle pianissimo, and a stage presence that ''makes you want to rise and applaud every item.'' In 1967 he won an Audio Record Review award for his recording of Gershwin's piano music, sharing honors with Georg Solti, Otto Klemperer, Neville Marriner and the Beatles. In the first month of its release, his ''Music for Pleasure'' album sold nearly 20,000 copies, making him a crossover phenomenon. A Carnaby Street regular and the first classical pianist to appear in a polo shirt, he had a wide-ranging sartorial influence. Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, once admired a Pierre Cardin jacket Mr. Lythgoe had picked up in Paris and soon outfitted the Fab Four similarly. His celebrity led to a job as host of a groundbreaking classical series, ''The Lythgoe Touch,'' on Britain's first commercial network, Southern Television. The half-hour show ran for 85 weeks, but the pressures of performing and commenting on the music drove him to rely on the stimulant Drinamyl. Moreover, the show was followed by a 52-week BBC radio series, ''My Piano and I.'' Mr. Lythgoe's personality changed. ''I was not a nice person,'' he said. He grew more alienated when music colleagues, perhaps jealous of his success, taunted him for his forays into pop culture. But he continued to perform to acclaim, making his New York debut in 1973 in a Town Hall recital devoted entirely to the music of one of his idols, the American romantic Edward MacDowell. ''His identification with the music is astonishingly complete,'' Peter G. Davis wrote in The Times, praising Mr. Lythgoe's ''glowing solid tone'' and ''real delicacy and unaffected sentiment.'' He also played Carnegie Hall, triumphantly to all appearances. But inside, he said later, he was tailspinning into panic. ''I don't even remember playing,'' he said, adding that he needed ''two days of Valium until I could look at the reviews.'' His anxieties overcame him when Herbert von Karajan of the Berlin Philharmonic called with a sudden invitation to play Brahms's Second Piano Concerto, one of Mr. Lythgoe's signature pieces. ''It took me two minutes to decide I couldn't do it,'' Mr. Lythgoe said. He returned to New York in 1976 to perform two back-to-back recitals lasting five hours at the 92nd Street Y for the Bicentennial, which drew another rave in The Times. But now, he said, performing was an ordeal. His manager, Thea Dispeker, suggested that he take some time off to teach, and in 1976 he took a job as dean of the faculty of the Cleveland Music School Settlement. He didn't stop performing completely, but he generally shunned the bright lights and concert stages of his past. In 1986, urged by Nancy Zannini, the president of the Philips label and a board member of Horizon Concerts, Mr. Lythgoe moved to New York and became Horizon's music director. Five years later, with state arts funds slashed and the group in crisis, Mr. Lythgoe took over as executive director as well. He helped obtain new private sources of support and stabilized Horizon. And there he stayed. He did play a concert in France, though, to the amazement of a former British colleague who blurted: ''Clive Lythgoe? I thought he was dead!'' And he did put out a CD of his Gershwin recordings, ''By George! By Clive!'' Now there was only one turn left for his career to take. Not long ago, Stephen Hough, 39, a British pianist who said he was inspired to take up the piano by listening to Mr. Lythgoe's records, urged Mr. Lythgoe to return to England for a comeback concert. ''It would be a marvelous thing to do, a great thing to do,'' Mr. Hough recounted in a telephone interview. Mr. Lythgoe said he was ready to try. He is planning to return next fall to Wigmore Hall, where he began his career nearly a half-century ago. On the program will be Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Howard Ferguson, MacDowell and Gershwin. ''Now I can come back, because of Horizon,'' he said. ''Horizon gave me a reason for my existence.'' Photos: Clive Lythgoe, shown in the 1960's, left and inset, was a star pianist. Above, he performs with Thami Zungu in what is now his favorite hall: a homeless shelter. (Photographs from Clive Lythgoe); (Thomas Dallal for The New York Times) ebay2472