Josef Lhévinne
Josef Arkadievitsj Lhévinne (Russian: Иосиф Аркадьевич Левин) (Orjol, December 13, 1874 - New York, December 2, 1944) was a Russian pianist and piano vocalist.
Lhévinne was born in a musical family in Orjol and studied at the Moscow Conservatory at Vasily Safonov. His debut at the age of four was an execution with Ludwig van Beethoven's 5th piano concert under the direction of his great music example Anton Rubinstein. He studied as best of class together with Sergei Rachmaninov and Alexander Scriabin and won the Gold Medal for Piano in 1892.
In 1898, he married Rosina Bessie, fellow student, who was also pianist and medalist in her graduation year. Together they gave concerts until the death of Lhévinne. Due to increasing anti-Semitism and the increasing turbulent political situation at that time, both moved to Berlin in 1907, where Lhévinne became known as a piano virtuoso and pedagogue. Just after the outbreak of World War I, the couple lost their Russian bank assets and could no longer act. They were forced to lead a tremendous existence with only a handful of students' income.
In 1919, they left Germany and emigrated to New York City, where Lhévinne recorded his concert career and became a teacher at the Juilliard School. In his days, Lhévinne was seen by almost all his famous colleagues (including Vladimir Horowitz) as a pianist with an outstanding piano technique. Nevertheless, he never equaled their success to the public. His game even sounded in the most demanding technical passages childhood. Lhévinne, however, loved teaching more than the performance. He combined to his death - a heart attack just before his seventieth birthday in 1944 - hence concert trips and teaching.
Lhévinne has only handed a handful of recordings, but in turn, they are all examples of its outstanding technique and elegance. The recordings of Chopins études on. 25. Nos. 6 and 11 and Schulz-Evler's arrangement of Johann Strauss' Blue Danube Wals are well-known among pianists and experts. His piano solo recordings from Schumanns Papillons are on. 2 is seen as one of the best recordings ever of that work. Harold C. Schonberg said: "His tone was as if the morning stars were gathering, his technique was quite cool even compared to the fingers of Hofmann and Rachmaninov, and his musicality was sensitive." Lhévinne played a number of piano rolls in the 20's for Ampico. These recordings were later released on LP on Argo's label in 1966. Lhévinne also scored three times on the Welte-Mignon reproduction piano.
Lhévinne wrote a short book in 1924: Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing.
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