Shura Cherkassky

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Shura Cherkassky with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv (1954)

Shura Cherkassky ( Russian Александр Исаакович (Шура) Черкасский / Alexander Issaakowitsch (Shura) Cherkassky ; born October 7, 1909 in Odessa ; † December 29, 1995 in London ) was a Jewish pianist from southern Russia. He came to the United States as a child and spent the last 34 years of his life in London.

Life

Fled to the United States with his family before the October Revolution , Cherkassky studied with Józef Hofmann at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia . He made his debut in Baltimore when he was 11 years old . He started touring at the age of 16 . He performed with the New York Symphony Society under Walter Damrosch and played in the White House in 1923 . In 1928 he made a concert tour to Australia and New Zealand. He came to real world fame only after the Second World War, when the epigones of Franz Liszt and Moritz Moszkowski no longer set the tone. In 1946 he moved to California . The marriage with the Lithuanian Genia Ganz , which was concluded in the same year , only lasted two years. From 1961 he lived in London . He toured the Soviet Union in 1976, 1977 and 1987. He gave many piano recitals in New York's Jewish cultural center on Y 92nd Street . It honored him in 1986 with the Shura Cherkassky Recital Award for talented young pianists. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery .

Cherkassky's repertoire ranged from Johann Sebastian Bach to Charles Ives , Paul Hindemith , Luciano Berio and György Ligeti . This versatility was particularly evident in pictures at an exhibition . On his “80th” (actually 82nd) ​​birthday in 1991 he played Schumann, Chopin, Bach-Busoni and Tchaikovsky-Pabst at Carnegie Hall . Since the great Hamburg success with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (November 1949) he was very popular in West Germany and Austria until the end of his life.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Elizabeth Carr: Shura Cherkassky - The Piano's Last Czar (2006)
  2. ↑ a b Shura Cherkassky (Bach Cantatas)
  3. ↑ Bach-Busoni (YouTube)
  4. ↑ Tchaikovsky-Pabst (YouTube)
personal data
SURNAME Cherkassky, Shura
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shura Cherkassky, Alexander Isaakowitsch
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jewish pianist
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Odessa
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 1995
Place of death London