David Helfgott

David Helfgott (born May 19, 1947 in Melbourne ) is an Australian pianist . His life inspired the Australian film director Scott Hicks to write the Oscar- winning film Shine (1996).

Life

David Helfgott grew up as the son of Polish- Jewish parents and was discovered as a child prodigy after receiving piano lessons from his father from the age of six . As a short eight-year-old he held out in a competition despite his seat slipping and received a “special prize for courage ”. At the age of ten he studied with Frank Arndt, a piano teacher from Perth, and won numerous local competitions, both alone and with his older sister Margaret.

At the age of 14 he got the offer to study in the USA , but his father forbade him. In 1966, at the age of 19, he won a scholarship to study with Cyril Smith at the Royal College of Music in London . Four years later, he joined the Royal Albert Hall on where he met the 3rd Piano Concerto by Rachmaninov achieved a triumphant success. During his time in London, symptoms of schizoaffective disorder emerged . Among other things, he suffered a severe nervous breakdown . In 1970 he therefore returned to Perth , where he married his first wife Clara a year later. Shortly afterwards, he suffered another breakdown and was admitted to a mental hospital. He remained in psychiatric treatment for the next ten years. In the 1980s and 1990s, Helfgott went on concert tours in Australia and Europe. In 1984 he married the astrologer Gillian Murray, with whom he now lives in The Promised Land, a valley near Bellingen in New South Wales .

Helfgott prefers to play works of romantic music , for example by Frédéric Chopin , Franz Liszt , Modest Mussorgski , Sergei Rachmaninow , Nikolai Rimski-Korsakow or Robert Schumann .

documentary

On January 7, 2016 the documentary Hello I Am David! A trip with David Helfgott from Cosima Lange to German-speaking Switzerland and to German cinemas on January 21. The documentary accompanies Helfgott's European tour with the Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra in 2012. In his film review for Programmkino.de , Christian Horn describes Helfgott as an “extraordinary musician who understands life as a short magic piece”.

literature

Gillian Helfgott, Alissa Tanskaya: David Helfgott. The biography . Heyne Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-453-12799-4

Web links

Commons : David Helfgott - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Stuttgarter Symphoniker, archive accessed on October 8, 2017
↑ Hello I Am David! A trip with David Helfgott. A film by Cosima Lange. In: website for the film. Retrieved November 20, 2015 .
↑ Film review at Programmkino.de. Retrieved January 31, 2016 . | work = www.programmkino.de
↑ He assesses the documentary positively: “With a great sense for interpersonal tones, the director Cosima Lange stages a straightforward filmed portrait of the pianist that brings a smile to the audience more than once.” See the film review at Programmkino.de. Retrieved January 31, 2016 .

personal data
SURNAME	Help God, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Australian pianist
DATE OF BIRTH	May 19, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH	Melbourne , Australia

[1] Stuttgarter Symphoniker, archive accessed on October 8, 2017

[2] Hello I Am David! A trip with David Helfgott. A film by Cosima Lange. In: website for the film. Retrieved November 20, 2015 .

[3] Film review at Programmkino.de. Retrieved January 31, 2016 . | work = www.programmkino.de

[4] He assesses the documentary positively: “With a great sense for interpersonal tones, the director Cosima Lange stages a straightforward filmed portrait of the pianist that brings a smile to the audience more than once.” See the film review at Programmkino.de. Retrieved January 31, 2016 .