I bought two tickets for the recital of Murray Perahia on the 30th, May (so on the comming Friday) in Stuttgart - already in January.... and have been really really looking forward to hear him live.
And today I checked the homepage of the company which organizes the recital, in order to check up the programm, which was never announced so far.
But he cancelled the recital because he is sick!!!!
Oh my God, why must it be so??? I like him very much but I've never experience his performance live, and this is the recital he must gave us after his long long absense in the concert venue... And - this is the most important - the first concert in Stuttgart that I reserved for myself and was saving for the train tickets (40 Euro for me and my husband) and concert tickets at full price....!!!!! (I'm a student, so I usually buy a cheap student ticket directly before concerts. But this time I didn't want to miss the opportunity because of the sold-out and I bought expensive tickets... )

And you know what? Instead of him Elisabeth Leonskaja will play. What the heck... She is the pianist who gave in the hall of my university the most terrible recital I've ever experience in my life. She played Brahms Op.118 and suffered from memory problem. Thus she changed the rest programm from the Ligeti etudes and Bartok, which I was eager to hear, to her routine pieces of Chopin. And she will play Chopin again, nearly the same pieces: Scherzos and Nocturns. God, is it really my fate

OH THE HUMANITY!

Last thing I heard is that his old thumb injury was playing up again. Seems that despite the operation this will never go away permanently. Must be maddeningly frustrating for a pianist ...

Here they speak of a skin infection. He cancelled a recital last January in Turin, postponing it to the beginning of June, but even this one won't be held due to the illness.

Yes, I found after posting this that he cancelled already almost all recitals in Germany. And only I didn't know that... Now the dissapointment of me is going away and I'm worrying now about the possiblity that the world could lose this great pianist permanently

However why did they replace him by Leonskaja?! In Heidelberg Christian Zacharias stood in for him... I'm thinking about refunding

Even if the worst happens, if he goes into permanent retirement, it's alright; his recordings are numerous. We all get old and fall apart, eventually. What's important is that we try our best while we're here. (I'm talking like he's dying! )

What's that law of thermodynamics again?...entropy increases

In Amsterdam Concertgebouw, he is being replaced by Anton Kuerti. Not well-known here but he seems to be really good.

Perahia's recordings of the English Suites are numbers 1 and 2 on my desert island CD collection.
Hyenal, after I read your post the other night I had a bad dream about missing him in concert!

Thank you guys for the feedbacks and sorry about your bad dream, bclever!
I've found an article about him from a German newpaper ("Die Welt") where was told that Perahia is afraid he would have to finish his pianist career and he said "I don't want to be a left hand pianist."

I know the feeling.

I just realized today this retirement probably means we will never hear the second disc of
Partitas. Dang. If anyone ever could have replaced Glenn Gould for me it was Murray.