Sviatoslav Richter

Sviatoslav Richter
Pianist

 Richter nació en Zhytomyr, Ucrania, de padre expatriado alemán y madre rusa. Creció en Odessa. Fue autodidacta, algo poco habitual en estos casos, aunque su padre -pianista y organista- y uno de los alumnos de su padre -un arpista checo- le dieron una educación musical básica. Richter era un excelente lector a primera vista, y practicaba regularmente con las compañías locales de ópera y ballet. Empezó a trabajar en la Ópera de Odessa como pianista acompañante en los ensayos.
El 10 de marzo de 1934, dio su primer recital en el club de ingenieros de Odessa, pero no empezó a estudiar formalmente piano hasta tres años después, cuando decidió buscar a Heinrich Neuhaus, famoso pianista y profesor en el Conservatorio de Moscú. Durante la audición, Neuhaus le susurró a otro estudiante: "Este hombre es un genio". Aunque Neuhaus dio clase a muchos grandes pianistas, entre ellos Emil Gilels, Radu Lupu, y Jean-Marc Savelli se dice que consideraba a Richter su "alumno genial, al que había estado esperando toda la vida", a la vez que admitía que no había podido enseñarle "nada".
En sus comienzos, Richter también hizo sus pinitos en la composición, e incluso parece que tocó algunas de sus composiciones en la audición de Neuhaus. Sin embargo, abandonó la composición poco después de mudarse a Moscú. Años después, explicó esta decisión: "Quizás la mejor manera de explicarlo es que no tiene sentido traer más mala música al mundo".
En 1940, todavía estudiante, estrenó la Sonata para piano no. 6 de Serguéi Prokófiev, compositor a cuyas obras quedaría asociado para siempre. Se hizo famoso por saltarse las clases obligatorias de adoctrinamiento político en el conservatorio y por ser expulsado dos veces en su primer año. Siempre fue un extraño a la política de la Unión Soviética, y nunca se unió al Partido Comunista.
 Richter se dio a conocer en Occidente gracias a grabaciones de los años 50. Uno de sus primeros defensores fue Emil Gilels, quien durante su primera gira estadounidense, en la que recibió magníficas críticas, dijo: "Esperen a escuchar a Richter".
Richter dio sus primeros conciertos en Europa Occidental en mayo de 1960, cuando se le permitió tocar en Finlandia. Ese mismo año le fue permitido tocar en Estados Unidos. Su debut tuvo lugar el 15 de octubre de 1960 en Chicago, donde tocó el Concierto para piano nº 2 de Johannes Brahms, acompañado de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Chicago y Erich Leinsdorf, y consiguió muy buenas críticas. La gira de 1960 culminó con una serie de conciertos en el Carnegie Hall.
Sin embargo, Richter afirmó que no le gustaba tocar en Estados Unidos.  A causa de un incidente en 1970 en el Alice Tully Hall de Nueva York, cuando un grupo de manifestantes antisoviéticos irrumpió en un concierto de Richter y David Óistraj, Richter juró que no volvería.
En 1961, tocó por primera vez en Londres. Su primer recital, con obras de Haydn y Serguéi Prokófiev fue recibido con hostilidad por los críticos británicos. Concretamente, Neville Cardus dijo que su estilo era "provinciano", y se preguntaba por qué había sido invitado a Londres, si tenía la ciudad tantos pianistas de "segunda clase" propios. Tras el concierto del 18 de julio de 1961, donde interpretó los dos conciertos para piano de Franz Liszt, los críticos cambiaron de parecer.
 Aunque disfrutaba al dar conciertos en público, Richter odiaba planear las temporadas de conciertos, y en sus últimos años solía tocar en conciertos anunciados con poca antelación, en salas pequeñas y oscuras, tan sólo con una lámpara para iluminar la partitura. Richter afirmaba que de esta manera el público podía concentrarse en la música, en vez de en sucesos irrelevantes como los gestos y muecas del intérprete.
En 1986, Richter se embarcó en una gira de seis meses por Siberia y dio unos 150 recitales; a veces tocaba en pueblos pequeños, donde ni siquiera había una sala de conciertos. Se dice que, en sus últimos años, Richter contempló la posibilidad de dar conciertos gratis.
Al final de los años 80, la técnica de Richter decayó parcialmente debido a su edad y a problemas de corazón. Este proceso de envejecimiento continuó en los 90, y le causó gran frustración. Sin embargo, en 1995 seguía tocando las piezas más difíciles del repertorio pianístico, incluyendo el ciclo Miroirs de Maurice Ravel, la Sonata para piano no. 2 de Serguéi Prokófiev, y los estudios y Balada no. 4 de Frédéric Chopin.
Su última interpretación grabada fue un concierto de 1994 con la Orquesta Sinfónica Shinsei de Japón y su amigo Rudolf Barshai como director, en el que tocó tres conciertos de Mozart.
El último recital tuvo lugar en una reunión privada en Lübeck, Alemania, el 30 de marzo de 1995. El programa incluyó dos sonatas de Haydn y las Variaciones y fuga sobre un tema de Beethoven, de Max Reger, pieza para dos pianos que interpretó con el pianista Andreas Lucewicz.
Richter murió en su casa a las afueras de Moscú, de un ataque al corazón. Había atravesado un largo periodo de depresión debido a su incapacidad para actuar en público. En el momento de su muerte, Richter estaba aprendiendo los Fünf Klavierstucke, D. 459, de Schubert.

Fuente: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sviatoslav_Richter

Lev Oborin

Pianist

Nació en una familia en constantes mudanzas. Cuando se asentaron en Moscú en 1914 fue enviado a una escuela de música. Estudió con Jelena Gnesin, alumna de Ferruccio Busoni. Al mismo tiempo estudió composición con Aleksandr Grechanínov, alcanzando admirables resultados.
En 1921, Oborin fue aceptado en el Conservatorio de Moscú, como estudiante de piano y composición. Completó sus estudios en 1926. Ese mismo año llegaron a Moscú noticias del primer Concurso Internacional Chopin en Varsovia, y su profesor de piano, Konstantín Igumnov, pensó en él.
Mientras estaba escribiendo su Concierto para piano, el compositor Aram Jachaturián dijo: "Cuando estaba trabajando en mi concierto soñé que lo escuchaba tocado por Lev Oborin. Mi sueño se hizo realidad en el verano de 1937. La magnífica actuación de tan destacado pianista ha asegurado su éxito.1
Después de ganar el primer premio en el concurso, dio recitales en Polonia y Alemania. Hasta 1945 tocó exclusivamente en Rusia y enseñó en el Conservatorio de Moscú.
En 1935, dio su primer concierto con el violinista David Óistraj, con el que continuó colaborando durante toda su vida.
En los años 1941 a 1963, tocó en un trío con piano junto a Óistraj y el chelista Sviatoslav Knushevitski, alcanzando fama internacional.
Estrenó obras de compositores contemporáneos, incluyendo Jachaturián, Shebalin, Miaskovski, Prokófiev y Shostakovich.
Fue profesor, entre otros, de Vladímir Áshkenazi (ganador del segundo premio en el Concurso Chopin de 1955), Mijaíl Voskresenski, Dmitri Sajarov, Aleksandr Bajchiev y Andréi Yegorov.

Fuente: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Oborin

Tatiana Nikolayeva

Tatiana Nikolayeva
PIanist
 

Born: May 4, 1924 - Bezhitz (in the Bryansk district), Russia
Died: November 22, 1993 - San Francisco, California, USA

Tatyana Nikolayeva’s mother was a professional pianist who had studied with Alexander Goldenweiser, with whom Tatyana also studied from the age of thirteen, continuing her lessons with him when she went to the Moscow Conservatory. While studying there, Nikolayeva won first prize in a competition held in Moscow to commemorate the death of Alexander Scriabin thirty years before. Three years after graduating from Goldenweiser’s class, Nikolayeva graduated also from the composition class of Evgeny Golubev; and whilst still at the Conservatory she won second prize at the first International People’s Competition in Prague.


In 1950 Nikolayeva won first prize in the Bach Competition in Leipzig. On the jury that year was composer Dmitri Shostakovich who was greatly impressed with Nikolayeva’s performances of Bach’s preludes and fugues of which she could play any from memory. Shostakovich wrote his set of Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 for her between October 1950 and March 1951. Nikolayeva telephoned him every day during the period of composition, going to his home to hear him play the most recently written prelude and fugue, and gave the first performance of the complete work in Leningrad in 1952. Their friendship lasted until the day of his death, more than twenty-five years later. The State Prize she won at that time was in recognition of her services as a pianist and also for the composition of a piano concerto. From 1959 Nikolayeva taught at the Moscow Conservatory and has left a generation of devoted students including Nikolai Lugansky. She was also a composer. Her works include two piano concertos, twenty-four concert studies for piano and a piano sonata as well as an arrangement for solo piano of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.

Nikolayeva had a career as teacher and performer in the USSR, but it was not until the early 1980s that she began to perform in Europe, Japan and America, eventually playing in more than thirty-five countries. She regularly visited London to give concerts and master-classes and appeared at the ‘Last Night of the Proms’ playing Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major Op. 102. Often her programmes would be of major works such as Bach’s ‘Goldberg’ Variations BWV 988, Die Kunst der Fuge BWV 1080 or Das wohtemperierte Klavier complete (performed over four evenings). Her repertoire was vast, with some fifty works for piano and orchestra ranging from Bach to Bartók and Shostakovich, all the keyboard works of Bach, all the piano sonatas by Beethoven, plus major compositions by Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Scriabin, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Arensky, Liadov and Stravinsky. She had a phenomenal memory and travelled abroad without music scores. On one occasion, when she came to rehearse Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G major Op. 44 she asked the conductor if they were playing the abbreviated version by Alexander Siloti, which she was expecting to play. They were not, so Nikolayeva launched into a performance of the original version. In the 1990s she played Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 4 Op. 40 in America and it was during a performance in San Francisco of Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 that she suffered a stroke. She continued to play to the end of the first half of the programme, but had to cancel the rest of the performance. She died 9 days later.

With her huge repertoire and popularity in her homeland, Nikolayeva made many recordings for the state label Melodya in the USSR which were issued on 78rpm discs and LP. Early recordings on 78rpm discs include an excellent Moment Musical in E minor Op. 16 No. 4 by Rachmaninov and Chopin’s early Variations Brillantes Op. 12. In the early 1950s Nikolayeva also recorded for the Supraphon label in Czechoslovakia, and these recordings deserve reissue, particularly Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor Op. 18 with the Czech Philharmonic and Konstantin Ivanov and a recital disc containing an excellent Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue BWV 903 by Bach, Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 3 Op. 28, some of the recently written preludes and fugues by Shostakovich and three of her own concert études. Of her Melodya recordings, the most important are Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G major Op. 44 with Nikolai Anosov (issued on compact disc by Dante), Medtner’s Piano Concertos Nos 1 and 3 with Yevgeny Svetlanov, an excellent Piano Concerto No. 5 Op. 55 by Prokofiev with Rozhdestventsky, a 1966 disc of Arensky and Liadov piano solos, an excellent 1976 disc of Liadov piano music including a superlative Barcarolle Op. 44, a disc of unusual solo works by Tchaikovsky, and Glinka’s Trio and Viola Sonata with Rudolf Barshai. She also recorded the Piano Sonatas No. 4 in F minor Op. 22 and No. 7 in B flat major Op. 65 by her composition teacher Yevgeny Golubev for Melodya. In 1975 Nikolayeva performed all the Bach keyboard concertos, including those for two and three keyboards, in Moscow. Recordings of these performances were released in Europe by Ariola-Eurodisc. Later LPs from the 1980s include Hindemith’s Four Temperaments for piano and orchestra and Haydn’s Piano Concertos in D major and G major, both conducted by Saulius Sondeckis.

Keeping track of Nikolayeva on compact disc is very difficult as she recorded for many labels and many of her Melodya recordings made in Russia have been licensed to various European and American labels. Nikolayeva first appeared on compact disc in the early days of digital recording. In the early 1980s she recorded two recitals of Bach and Das wohltemperierte Klavier complete in Japan. These were released on the JVC label, (and later Mezhdunarodna Kniga) as was a 1977 recording of the two- and three-part inventions of Bach. Many Soviet recordings have been licensed to European companies including Harmonia Mundi, who issued Haydn’s Piano Concerto in D major and Mozart’s Piano Concerto in E flat K. 482. Nikolayeva recorded many works two or three times including the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 and Das wohltemperierte Klavier of Bach. There have been at least three versions of Bach’s ‘Goldberg’ Variations BWV 988 on compact disc: the 1970 Melodya recording reissued by Relief in Switzerland, a 1987 live performance from Stockholm issued by Bluebell and a 1992 studio recording by Hyperion.

An interesting disc on the Berlin Classics label contains a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor Op. 23 with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Kurt Masur. Made in April 1959, it was apparently Masur’s first recording. Nikolayeva gives a stately performance reminiscent of Emil Gilels. It is a musically satisfying rendering, not used as a vehicle for display.

The French label Vogue has reissued some fascinating Nikolayeva repertoire in its Archives Sovietiques Series including Richard Strauss’s Concerto for piano left hand Op. 73 (Parergon), Stravinsky’s Capriccio for piano and orchestra, and a 1950 performance of Tchaikovsky’s Concert Fantasy for piano and orchestra in G major Op. 56 conducted by Kyrill Kondrashin. Most interesting of the Vogue releases is a coupling of a live performance of Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor from 1967 and Henri Dutilleux’s Piano Sonata recorded live in 1978. The Liszt sonata is one of the most musically satisfying on disc with Nikolayeva understanding perfectly the whole structure and the relationship between the sections of this work.

During her visits to London in the 1990s Nikolayeva recorded for the Hyperion label some of her core repertoire: Bach’s ‘Goldberg’ Variations BWV 988 and a masterly performance of Die Kunst der Fuge BWV 1080, Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues Op. 87, Piano Sonata No. 2 Op. 61, Twenty-four Preludes Op. 34 and his three Fantastic Dances Op. 5. She also recorded the complete Shostakovich preludes and fugues for BBC television in Scotland. Her previous recording of the Shostakovich preludes and fugues, made for Melodya three years earlier in 1987, was available on compact disc and is in some ways preferable as the Hyperion recording is extremely reverberant. Many other Russian recordings have appeared on compact disc on the Melodya label or have been licensed to other labels, such as the complete Beethoven piano sonatas which were recorded in concert at the Moscow Conservatory in 1983 and issued in Britain by Olympia in 1994 (and again by Scribendum in 2004). Olympia also issued Nikolayeva’s excellent recordings of the first three partitas of Bach which were made in 1980.

Over five days in May 1991 whilst in Switzerland, Nikolayeva recorded three discs for the Relief label: one of Schumann, one of Tchaikovsky (including the Piano Sonata in G major Op. 37), and one of works by Borodin, Liadov and Prokofiev.

Nikolayeva appeared as volume fifteen of BMG’s Russian Piano School Series where she plays Schumann’s Drei Romanzen Op. 28 recorded in 1983, Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in B flat Op. 84 and her own transcription of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, both recorded in the mid-1960s. She recorded her transcription of Peter and the Wolf again in 1991 for JVC in Japan. It is included on a delightful disc of children’s pieces with other Nikolayeva compositions We Draw Animals Op. 31, Eight Little Pieces Op. 27, Little Baroque Style Variations in G major and Album for Children. This disc is one of her best as it captures her extraordinary range of tone and touch and a great deal of her wit and humour. Many of her JVC recordings are only available in Japan; another excellent one being a disc of Bach’s twelve Little Preludes, six Little Preludes and other miscellaneous works.

A disc on the Novalis label of two Beethoven sonatas claims to be her last recording. It was made in August 1993 in Blumenstein, Switzerland, the location where her recordings for Relief were made. Fortunately however, recordings of Nikolayeva continue to be released. Recently a recital from the Salzburg Festival of 1987 was issued, and the Scribendum label has licensed her Melodya recordings of the complete Das wohltemperierte Klavier from the early 1970s, complete French Suites from 1984 and English Suites Nos 1 and 4 from 1965.
Nikolayeva was one of the great pianists of the twentieth century. She had a wonderfully warm tone reminiscent of Shura Cherkassky, but this was coupled with a piercing intelligence and a delightful generosity of spirit. Her great love of music was transmitted in every performance she gave, and her recitals were always greeted with enthusiasm by her army of ardent admirers. The greatest Bach player of her generation, an undisputed authority on the music of Shostakovich and a musician of the highest capabilities, Nikolayeva will be fondly remembered through her public appearances and many recordings.  

Fuente: www.tatiana-nikolayeva.info/
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Emil Gilels

Emil Gilels 
Pianista

Born: October 19, 1916 - Odessa, Russia
Died: October 14, 1985 - Moscow, Russia
Emil Grigoryevich Gilels (Russian: Эми́ль Григо́рьевич Ги́лельс, Emi'li Grego'rievič Gi'lelis;–) was a Soviet pianist. He was born Samuil Hilels in Odessa to a musical Jewish family; both his parents were musicians. He began studying the piano at 6 under Yakov Tkach, a stern disciplinarian who emphasized scales and studies. Gilels later credited this strict training as establishing the foundation for his technique. Gilels made public debut at the age of 12 in June 1929 with a well-received program of L.v. Beethoven, Scarlatti, Chopin and Schumann. In 1930 he entered the Odessa Conservatory where he was coached by Berta Reingbald, whom Gilels credited as a formative influence.

In 1933 Emil Gilels won the newly-founded All Soviet Union Piano Competition at age 16. After graduating from the Odessa Conservatory (Ukraine) in 1935, he moved to Moscow, where he studied under the famous piano teacher Heinrich Neuhaus until 1937. A year later, at age 21, he won the Ysaÿe International Festival in Brussels, beating such competitors as Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and Moura Lympany.

Emil Gilels was the first Soviet artist to be allowed to travel extensively in the West. After the war, he toured Europe starting from 1947 as a concert pianist, and made his American debut in 1955 playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in Philadelphia. He taught as a professor for the Moscow Conservatory after 1952. In his later years he remained in his native Russia and rarely ventured abroad. He was the winner of the prestigious Stalin Prize in 1946, the Order of Lenin in 1961 and 1966 and the Lenin Prize in 1962. Emil Gilels premiered Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 8, dedicated to Mira Mendelssohn, on December 30, 1944, at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.

Emil Gilels is regarded by many as one of the most significant pianists of the 20th century and is universally admired for his superb technical control and burnished tone. His interpretations of the central German-Austrian classics formed the core of his repertoire, in particular L.v. Beethoven, Johannes Brahms and Schumann, but he was equally illuminative in Scarlatti, J.S. Bach as well as 20th-century music like Debussy, Béla Bartók and Prokofiev. His Franz Liszt was also first-class, and his recordings of the Hungarian Rhapsody nº 6 and the Sonata in B minor have acquired classic status in some circles. He was in the midst of completing a complete survey of L.v. Beethoven's piano sonatas for the German record company Deutsche Grammophon when he died after a medical check-up in 1985 in Moscow. Sviatoslav Richter who knew Gilels quite well reported that he was killed accidentally by the Russian doctor responsible for the check-up.

Fuente: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Gilels-Emil.htm

Heinrich Neuhaus

Heinrich Neuhaus

Pianist

Born: April 2, 1888 - Elizavetgrad, Ukraine
Died: October 10, 1964 - Moscow, Russia
Heinrich (Gustavovich) Neuhaus ((Russian: Генрих Густавович Нейгауз, Henrikh Gustavovič Nejhaus) was an outstanding pianist and pedagogue, a creator of a piano 'school' which is a great achievement in a development of the art of piano playing. His life-long teaching attitude was strongly influenced by the first impressions of his childhood. His father Gustav, of German origin, and his mother Olga, of Polish origin, were a music teachers. They opened the first music school in their town, and were teaching literally all day long. According to Heinrich Neuhaus, his father was very musical but with limited pianistic skills. In his teaching Gustav emphasized the so-called technical or physical side of piano playing beyond all reasonable limits. For years, everyday, for many hours, Heinrich heard his parents teaching in this way, completely based on the physical elements of playing, and he absolutely hated it. Therefore, the key concept of his own teaching was appeal to the intellect of the student. He perhaps avoided physical aspects somehow more than he later thought would be reasonable.

Heinrich Neuhaus' mother, Olga Blumenfeld, was the sister of Felix Blumenfeld, a famous conductor and professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, pianist and composer, who died in 1931. Following Blumenfeld's advice, Neuhaus went to Berlin, in 1905 to study with Leopold Godowsky. The whole family traveled to Germany a few times (in 1902, and in 1904 together with F. Blumenfeld and Karol Szymanowsky, his first cousin). When he arrived to Berlin at the age of 17, he was already a great concert pianist. Neuhaus was fluent in German, French, Italian, English, Russian, Ukrainian and Polish. After studying briefly with L. Godowsky, Neuhaus went to Italy for two years. He considered it the most productive and happy period of his musical and personal life.

Then Heinrich Neuhaus' parents insist he returned to Elizavetgrad, which caused him a great depression. After that, he was sent to Berlin again, to the Hochschule der Musik. His piano teacher there was Heinrich Bart. At the same time, he took full courses in theory and composition. Bart's teaching was very much in the spirit of the old German school. He didn't recognize composers like Franz Liszt, Wagner, Debussy, Scriabin, Gustav Mahler, Strauss, and Max Reger. He thought real music finished with Johannes Brahms, and real art of performance finished also with J. Brahms. He absolutely didn't respect contemporary pianists and virtuosos, such as Ferruccio Busoni. Neuhaus could not accept all this and soon left Berlin and returned to Ukraine. His parents were not happy to see that he hadn't completed his music education and sent him to the Masterschule in Vienna Academy of Music. Later in 1915, H. Neuhaus took examinations and received his diploma from the St. Petersburg Conservatory. That same year he was invited to teach in the Tbilisi Conservatory in Georgia.

It the 1917 revolution was approaching and Heinrich Neuhaus soon joined his parents in Elizavetgrad. From 1919 until 1922 he taught in Kiev Conservatory. For Heinrich Neuhaus, this was a very special and active time. In first season at Kiev, he gave six or seven solo recitals, and instantly became, not only an audience favorite, but also real idol, especially among young music lovers. His numerous concert programs at that time included a great variety of music from Bach to Szymanowsky. In 1922 Neuhaus and Blumenfeld, also a Kiev Conservatory professor were transferred to Moscow Conservatory. The Moscow period of Neuhaus' musical life lasted until his death in 1964.

Heinrich Neuhaus' pedagogical manner was completely different from other teachers. There was always an audience at his lessons: students of different professions constantly came in, sometimes for a whole day, to hear and to see how he was teaching. Neuhaus very much loved and encouraged the presence of people during his lessons. The more people were present, the more he was inspired. He was an artist from head to toe. Neuhaus expected the student to really understand the language with which a musical work was written. He wanted musicians to strive to understand the complete vision of the work's logic and structure, its harmonic underlying, it's essence. He paid special attention to sound and balance (range, quality, etc.). However, it is important to note that almost everyone he accepted to his class was pianistically very well prepared.

From the beginning his Moscow concerts attracted enthusiastic attention. Heinrich Neuhaus' art was characterized by poetic inspiration, a fine sense of style and character and depth and nobility in delivering different musical images. The attraction of Neuhaus' pianistic mastery was not bravura virtuosity but his ability to use the richness of a sound palette of the piano, his incredible imagination, and the way he always found true artistical meaning of each work. Neuhaus was a remarkable master of sound. Under his fingers the piano had a singing quality, an emotional expressiveness and diversity of timbres. Neuhaus' art opened for the listener the great possibilities of the piano. He made it sound like an orchestra, which was obeying an ideal conductor. Neuhaus' in-depth knowledge of music, poetry, literature, art, his personal experiences, artistic imagination, all of this expressed through interpretation of the works he performed. Neuhaus knew how to find the most quintessential and individual quality in each composer. Neuhaus' performances of Scriabin's works were particularly memorable. He was creating an illusion that the sound was coming not from the striking of the hammer on the strings, but just appeared by themselves from the air.

The charm of Neuhaus' image as a performer, his outstanding erudition, the genuine love for art, and his personal human qualities had attracted talented young people to him. Everyone who was close to Neuhaus was greatly influenced by his artistic personality, and felt a special responsibility to art. They were absorbed by artistical atmosphere, which was in class of Neuhaus.

In his teaching, Heinrich Neuhaus didn't follow any dogmatic principles. His main subject was the process of artistic upbringing and the personal influence of pedagogue on student. This influence consisted of different practical remarks, showing on the piano the finest nuances of sound, phrasing, rhythm, dynamic, from which finally comes complete artistic interpretation of a musical work. Neuhaus' work in his class was a creative event, including the element of improvisation. There were moments of artistical intuition, which lead to practical ways of solving pedagogical goal. Even the most detailed description of his pedagogical process can give only a very vague idea of what he was doing. One of the things he believed in, was that a pedagogue must first of all be a music teacher. That means to bring the student to an understanding of the musical art, its ideas and emotional content. He used to say, "First you have to know what to play and later how to play it."

 

Fuente: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Neuhaus-Heinrich.htm