Sigizmund Blumenfeld News
Ukrainian composer and pianist (1852-1920)
- piano
- Ukraine
- composer, pianist
Last update
2024-04-24
Refresh
2020-09-28 14:19:31
This Week in Classical Music: September 28, 2020. Instrumentalists. While there are no significant dates associated with composers this week, there are plenty of wonderful names to celebrate among the people who interpret composers’ music. Let’s start with the pianists. Vladimir Horowitz was born on October 1st of 1903 in Kiev, Ukraine, (then the Russian Empire) into a well-off Jewish family (Horowitz’s grandfather had a special merchant rank that allowed him to live outside of the Pale of Settlement; after the Revolution their assets were expropriated and the family impoverished). At the age of nine Horowitz entered the Kiev Conservatory where he studied with Felix Blumenfeld, among others. He made his solo debut in 1920; around that time, he met the violinist Nathan Milstein, who was the same age and showed great talent. They played together in concerts (Vladimir’s sister Regina was Milstein’s accompanist). Both Horowitz and Milstein left Russia in […]
2020-04-16 05:06:24
Vladimir Horowitz was born on October 1, 1903, in Berdichev (near Kiev), Ukraine. His father was an electrical engineer. His mother, named Sophie Horowitz, was a professional pianist and teacher at the Kiev Conservatory. Young Vladimir Horowitz took his first piano lessons from his mother. At the age of 9 he entered the Kiev Conservatory where he studied with Vladimir Puchalsky, Sergei Tarnowsky, and Felix Blumenfeld. At the age of 11 he met and played for Alexander Scriabin. He graduated from the Conservatory in 1920 with the performance of the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Rachmaninov. Horowitz performed extensively in
2020-01-13 15:24:27
This Week in Classical Music: January 13, 2020. Jansons. Mariss Jansons died less than two months ago, on November 30th of 2019 (the great Wilhelm Furtwängler also died on November 30th, in 1954). This week Jansons would’ve celebrated his 77th birthday: he was born on January 14th of 1943 in Riga, Latvia. The circumstances of his childhood were extremely difficult. Latvia was occupied by the Germans, and while his father, Arvid Jansons, was an established musician, his mother, a soprano Ida Blumenfeld, was Jewish and undermortal danger. Almost 70,000 Jews were killed in Latvia during the German occupation, only 14,000 survived. Most of the Riga Jews ended up in the ghetto, but Ida, with Arvid’s help, went into hiding. All her relatives perished during the occupation. Mariss was born while Ida was still hiding from the Nazis and local collaborators, and that’s how he spent the first year and a half […]
2019-07-12 21:08:23
Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony #1 was composed in 1905–1907 and revised in 1913. It lasts for about forty minutes. This symphony was the very first Stravinsky work that was published; it carries the identification “Opus 1”. The score bears the dedication “To my dear teacher N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov”. Stravinsky later recalled that both Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov considered the orchestration “too heavy”. The first public performance was conducted by Felix Blumenfeld on 22 January 1908. A revised version was conducted by Ernest Ansermet on 2 April 1914, and the composer conducted this version in his later performances. The symphony is scored for 3
or
- timeline: Composers (Europe). Performers (Europe).
- Indexes (by alphabetical order): B...