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Concept
Benno Moiseiwitsch
Summary
Benno Moiseiwitsch CBE (22 February 1890 9 April 1963) was a Ukrainian-born British pianist.
Moiseiwitsch was born to Jewish parents in Odessa, in those times Russian Empire (today part of Ukraine), and began his studies at age seven with Dmitry Klimov at the Odessa Music Academy. He won the Anton Rubinstein Prize when he was just nine years old. He studied with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna from 1904 to 1908, then joined his own family in England, making his English debut at Reading in 1908, his London debut the following year. While in Dublin during the war he met another Leschetizky student, Mabel Lander, and they began plans to establish a piano school together in London that would use the Leschetizky method. But the plans had to be abandoned due to Moiseiwitsch's increasingly heavy international concert schedule. He toured the United States (first in 1919), Australia, India, Japan, and South America. Moiseiwitsch was invited by Director Josef Hofmann to teach at the Curtis Institute of Music in 1927. He settled in England and took British citizenship in 1937.
Moiseiwitsch was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1946 for services to music during the Second World War, having performed hundreds of recitals for servicemen and charities.
He married Daisy Kennedy, an Australian concert violinist, and had two daughters, Sandra and the set designer, Tanya Moiseiwitsch. He and his second wife Anita had a son, noted New Zealand National Radio broadcaster Boris Moiseiwitsch.
He was a friend of Nikolai Medtner and commissioned the Piano Concerto No. 3 "Ballade" (1940–43). Like his friend Mark Hambourg he was a member of the Savage Club. He was also a skilled wrestler, and arranged several friendly matches with the critic Ralph Hill, also a wrestling enthusiast.
Moiseiwitsch was particularly known for his interpretations of the late Romantic repertoire, especially the works of Sergei Rachmaninoff (who was an admirer of his playing and referred to Moiseiwitsch as his "spiritual heir") and Robert Schumann, whose piano music gave Moiseiwitsch "more emotional and spiritual satisfaction than anyone else.
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