Iturbi’s recording of Chopin’s “Polonaise in A-flat” stayed on the charts an eye-popping 219 weeks. Both the “Polonaise” and “Clair de Lune” were on the “Must-Have Records” list issued by RCA-Victor. But, never one to rest on his laurels, Iturbi was concertizing with a fury. Between 1948 and 1955 he played from Europe to Australia, to Jamaica and Latin America—and of course all over the United States. Iturbi traveled 100,000 miles a year or more.

His concerts were still packed—as late as 1957 one newspaper commented that he had “continued to be one of the most in-demand concert musicians in this country.” He was equally popular at Chino Prison, where the inmates begged for “Clair de Lune,” and at the White House where Harry Truman demanded an obscure Chopin waltz.

Iturbi’s latest crowd of admirers also included “bobby-soxers”—teenaged boys and girls—who, converted to classical by Iturbi’s movies, preferred Beethoven to boogie. Iturbi was known for offering them the choice, and they always asked for classical…although their requests were sometimes novel. One girl, apparently a Frank “the Voice” fan, asked for “Beethoven’s Moonlight Sinatra.” Another asked for “Choppin’ Mayonnaise.”

But in 1951, Time Magazine ran a story called “What happened to José?” In it they called him a “perfunctory performer.” The article complained that he now played mechanically, and that his only interest was making money. And other critics from other newspapers heaped similar criticism upon him. If Iturbi was only interested in dollars, one might question why he had cut his paying concerts to play for hospitals and military bases…but somehow that was overlooked. And Time’s opinion was not shared by other pianists; in 1952 the famous William Kapell, himself a former child prodigy, called Iturbi “A wonderful pianist. The evenest playing I know.”

There were some great successes to come out of the 1950’s; Iturbi recorded a ten-inch LP called “Iturbi Plays.” This was a brilliant recording, not a simple rehash of some of his other records, this little record carried a diverse selection of lesser known classics—and a single, beautiful Iturbi composition: “cradle song,” or “Canción de Cuna.”

Then there was television. Many of the early television programs were variety shows which included a lot of music, both classical and popular. Iturbi’s appearance on a 1957 Arthur Murray show with Tallulah Bankhead brought happy sighs to the television critics. And when the Bell Telephone Hour, a longtime radio favorite, began a television show, Iturbi was a frequent guest.

1957 became quite a year for Iturbi. He was offered a chance to conduct an opera—and not just any opera, but a Spanish opera. Called “La Vida Breve” and written by Manuel de Falla, whom Iturbi had known personally, it was Iturbi’s first chance to conduct an opera, and he attacked it with vigor. He conducted Falla’s “El Amor Brujo” as well. The performances received warm reviews. As for Iturbi’s conducting, the reviewer said, “De Falla’s style is in his bloodstream. His command of color and rhythm, his flexibility of beat, his success in getting from the orchestra both vigor and iridescence, were impressive.”

That October, Iturbi’s hometown of Valencia suffered a major tragedy. The Turia River flooded the city, destroying hundreds of buildings, turning the streets into muck, and leaving thousands of people homeless. Lucrezia Bori, a retired Metropolitan opera star who was herself a native Valencian, decided to put together a relief effort. She and Iturbi organized a charity concert, with the proceeds going to the Valencia Flood Relief Fund. It was a sellout event, raising more than $50,000.

At the age of 67, Iturbi was still traveling 50,000 miles a year. At a concert in London in 1962 the enthusiasm for Iturbi was such that he was brought back for three encores. He received an honorary doctorate in music from University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, and even cut a new record. This record was also completely different from his records of the past decade—an album of all-Spanish music that prompted a reviewer to observe, “although most of his output over the last dozen years has been mannered and slick, the result, no doubt, of his Hollywood career,” in this recording “one finds the Iturbi of old, fiery and powerful.”

And very vigorous. At 68 he was giving advice to reporters decades his junior on how to stay in shape and keep their energy. One reporter left the interview shaking his head and mumbling, “Practice three or four hours a day, every day, for 62 years. Nothing to it, really.”

Los Angeles gave him a “fiesta” for his 70 th birthday. In May of 1966 they held a huge concert with Franz Waxman conducting and Iturbi as the soloist, playing “a program offering enough challenges to keep many a younger virtuoso perspiring for four separate evenings.”

He was asked when he might retire. With a smile, Iturbi said, “I will play only as long as I feel I can play. In that regard I have an artistic conscience.”

But even after a slight heart attack in Paris in 1967, he still showed no sign of slowing. He became the conductor of the Bridgeport, Connecticut Symphony Orchestra in 1966 and the Calgary Orchestra in Alberta in February of 1968. During this time he also accepted the position as principal conductor for the Albuquerque Symphony (now called the New Mexico Symphony).

By the mid-’60’s, Iturbi’s record company, Turia Records, was operational; José and Amparo were recording in José’s studio. Amparo was planning to record a new rendition of Goyescas, and some contemporary classical as well. But Amparo died in April of 1969. José and Amparo had been close from earliest childhood. Musically, they shared an incredible rapport. Amparo’s loss seemed to be the one from which he never recovered. He resigned from two of his three orchestras within a month.

But he still performed and still drew crowds. The press, as usual sloppy in its research, described him as a Mozart specialist in a concert announcement in 1971. Iturbi, who hated being called a specialist in any one composer, must have shuddered at that one, but it didn’t affect his performance.

In 1975 José Iturbi turned 80, and celebrated by doing the impossibly difficult. He led his old orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic, both conducting and soloing, at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in New York. At the concert he was awarded the Lincoln Center Medallion and a certificate of appreciation from the city of New York. “Your greetings are very encouraging,” he said in response, and promised “to spend the next 80 years practicing my piano.”

The concert itself was a marathon performance including Mozart’s Overture to the Marriage of Figaro, Haydn’s Concerto in D-minor, Franck’s Symphonic Variations, Mendelssohn’s Concerto in G-minor, and of course his old favorite, Mozart’s D-minor Concerto. The reviewer said he “breezed through the trickier passages as if he were half his age.”

Audiences still piled in to see him on his 1976-1977 concert tour, which took him all over the United States, down into Mexico, then to Europe. A reporter asked if ever still got “butterflies” after so many concerts. “I get them before, during, and after a concert,” he replied.

Asked about his apparent youthfulness at the age of 82, Iturbi only shrugged. “There is no secret. Some people are old all their lives. Some are young.”

The following year plans were announced for a special concert in Carnegie Hall to celebrate the 50 th anniversary of Iturbi’s debut there. But the concert never took place; Iturbi’s health was failing. In March of 1980 doctors ordered him to take an “extended sabbatical.” In late June Iturbi was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Hospital with heart trouble. He died in the early morning hours of June 28 th, 1980, at the age of 84 and was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California, where he had buried his daughter and his sister.

In Valencia, Iturbi is still a favorite son. The street where he was born now carries his name. There is a monument for him and Amparo in the gardens at Valencia’s Music Palace, and the Municipal Conservatory of Music also carries his name. Since 1981 there has been a biennial Iturbi international piano competition held in Valencia. But in the United States, aside from the José Iturbi Foundation, which holds a yearly series of young artist concerts and a musical competition in his memory, Iturbi has been largely forgotten.

Then, in 1999 Ivory Classics released an Iturbi CD that made Mozart fans take note. And the reviews, two excerpts from which are quoted here, show that true quality never dies.

American Record Guide, February 2000: “The D minor Concerto is glorious—the second movement is one of the most melting performances I have ever heard.”

International Piano Quarterly, August, 2001: “The great D minor Concerto, directed from the keyboard, is sparkling…In the Concerto for two pianos, K365, again directed from the piano, his sister Amparo collaborates with him and the pair produce a stylish performance, featuring idiomatic cadenzas by José.”

More recently, a new two-CD set of Iturbi’s playing has been released in France; and in the United States, Video Artists International released a new DVD of his Bell Telephone Hour performances. Perhaps if this trend continues, the world will again have reason to notice José Iturbi, pianist, conductor, composer, movie star…a man of “many fountains” of talent.