Heinrich Neuhaus is a
legendary musician and pianist. Up to some year ago we would have
added "Soviet". But we are today a little bit in
embarrassment defining this man, born in Ukraine from German father
and Polish mother, who lived in Pietrograd, Kiev, Georgia and Moscow,
pupil of Leopold Godowsky, merely a
Russian. Perhaps it is more correct to consider him as belonging to a
universal culture.
His students, of all nationalities, are scattered
around the whole world: United States, France, Italy, Germany,
Switzerland, Israel, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania,
Japan.
Here,
in an unpublished photo, Neuhaus is surrounded by students of various
countries of the world. From left to the right: Gérard Frémy
(France), Gabriel Amiras (Romania), Snezhanka Barova (Bulgaria),
Maria Vlad (Romania), Lenina Popova (Russia), Maria Kruscelnycka.
His students, among which great pianists like
Sviatoslav Richter, the Romanian Radu Lupu, the French Gérard Fremy,
the Czech Zdenek Hnat, the Bulgarian Ganev, Lazarova, the Hungarian
Gaby Amiras, and so many ex-Soviets, continue to spread the teaching
and to remember him. Many of his students have operated and continue
to operate in Russia, such as Emil Gilels, Jakov Zak, Anatolij
Vedernikov, his son Stanislav Neuhaus, Teodor Gutman, Evgenij Malinin,
Lev Naumov, Vera Gornostaeva, Vladimir Krajnev, Evgenij Mogilevskij
and many others. Some of them wanted to accomplish a far-reaching
achievement. Esja Elinajte has established an Association Heinrich
Neuhaus in Switzerland. Elisso
Wirsaladze has annually organized In Georgia a Festival devoted to
Heinrich Neuhaus - until the civil war made it impossible.
In Italy our musical manager Valerij Voskobojnikov,
another Heinrich and Stanislav Neuhaus pupil, with a group of young
pupils, promoted an Association in 1990 to further develop a set of
cultural activities around Neuhaus that he had already developed
various years before. In 1985 he edited one of the books written by
Heinrich Neuhaus "The art of Piano
playing" for the Italian publisher Rusconi. On "Piano
Time" he edited "The unpublished Pasternak" (about the
relationships between the Russian writer and Heinrich Neuhaus). In
collaboration with RAI in 1981 he devoted a cycle of transmissions to
the pianistic art of Neuhaus. In the past year with the Chigiana
Academy he devoted to Neuhaus father and son a touching recollection
"In souvenir of Stanislav Neuhaus".
It is important to recall that, for almost twenty years, master
classes are held in Rome, Palermo, Asolo, Siena, Perugia, in which
Stanislav Neuhaus himself, Vera Gornostaeva, Lev Naumov and Valerij
Voskobojnikov teach piano.
For many years the Neuhaus Association has promoted festivals first at
the Musical Instruments Museum in Rome (Piazza Santa Croce in
Gerusalemme) then at the Romania Academy, and finally at the American
Academy in Rome. In 1990 in a program of sharp Russian flavor he made
the audience listen to some unpublished excerpts, among which the work
of Boris Pasternak (whose musical activity as a composer is almost
completely unknown out from Russia). In 1991 the cycle devoted to
Prokofiev, in the centennial of his birth, showed for the first time
works and authors contemporary to him, such as Mjaskovskji and Mosolov,
which are very loved in Russia, but almost completely unknown to us.
We also have not neglected to promote Italian contemporary composers,
such as
Aldo Clementi, Stefano Pelegatti, Donato Russo, Lino
Liviabella, Luca
Lombardi, Ugalberto De Angelis, Sylvano
Bussotti, besides the famous Hungarian Georgy
Ligeti, the Russian Sofia
Gubaidulina. Besides the organization of festivals, we promoted a
competition for young pianists, piano Master classes held by Gérard
Frémy, Valerij Voskobojnikov, De
Moura Castro, Anatolij Katz. In 1996,
finally, the Association promoted at the American Academy in Rome a
Master class-audition for string quartets, held by the Borodin
Quartet.
The Association is now shut down, but a group of
active supporters yet takes initiatives in order to spread the
teaching of the Maestro. This site is one of this initiatives.
