Fernando Valenti, RIP - obituary

National Review, Oct 1, 1990 by William F. Buckley, Jr.

HE TOUCHED the life of most of us at NATIONAL REVIEW glancingly-for eight years he played the harpsichord at our annual Christmas party. The instrument was situated under a curving staircase, lighting was by candle light, and the sound was magic. He would play for just about an hour, a few minutes less, as a rule. (He liked short sessions. When in 1978 he played one hundred Scarlatti sonatas on five consecutive evenings at Carnegie Recital Hall, the concerts, including the ten-minute intermission-during which he ate sandwiches, drank Coca-Cola, and chatted with visitors-never went over seventy minutes. His musical programs were written down on one 3 x 5 card: per concert.) He might begin with a Handel sonata, go on to Bach, then-who knows? Elliott Carter? Schoenberg? George Gershwin? But always-inevitably-three or six sonatas by Scarlatti.

Valenti was to Scarlatti as Artur Schnabel was to Beethoven. Just as Schnabel was this century's greatest interpreter of Beethoven, so Valenti was our time's definitive exponent of Scarlatti." So said Thomas Wendel, professor of history, San Jose State. And Tom Wendel went on to say, on hearing that Fernando Valenti had died in a taxicab en route from Kennedy Airport to his sister's house in New Jersey, Valenti's personality mirrored Scarlatti's music: humorous, versatile, mercurial, jocular; and at base, profound." He was, if truth be told, a very difficult human being. He was married three times, was always searingly broke; from a relatively early age he declared war on his health, drank alcohol to excess (until he went on the wagon a dozen years ago), and smoked three packs of cigarettes a day (his autopsy showed advanced lung cancer, which he died unaware of). Junk food was his Thing, combined with an unconditional war against physical exercise.

He was, personally, as endearing a mess as the world of geniuses throws up. But that he was a genius is not seriously doubted by anyone who has listened to his work, or pondered his career as a child prodigy who turned to the harpsichord while at Yale, and was called by Time and by the New York Times, in varying formulations, the finest harpsichordist in the world.

His death at 63 is, one needs to suppose, a vindication of the laws of hygienic probity: either Fernando would not Eve a long life, or the laws of physical health would have to be repealed. Those who knew him will miss him; more accurately, miss much of him; but the music is there, 330 Scarltti sonatas, much of Bach, including the most beautiful harpsichord Goldberg ever (surely) done. He is at peace, but his music will never lie down.