Alva Review-Courier -

SAO PAULO (AP) — Days before Christmas, acclaimed pianist João Carlos Martins ran to a Sao Paulo bar to show off his new gloves to friends. They were seemingly magical, enabling the 79-year-old to play songs with both hands for the first time in 21 years.

It sounds too good to be true, but the proof is in the playing. Sitting at his Petrof piano in his penthouse, Martins reels off Frédéric Chopin's nocturnes with aplomb. Before the gloves, he could only play songs slowly with his thumbs and, sometimes, his index fingers.

The Brazilian classical pianist and conductor, one of the great interpret...