Maria Yudina was born in 1899 and died in 1970. She studied with Frida Teitelbaum-Levinson, a pupil of Anton Rubinstein, and with Anna Esipova, a pupil of the great keyboard lion Theodor Leschetizky. Her studies included composition, conducting, organ, philosophy, languages and literature – augmenting all of this with extra studies with Felix Blumenthal, teacher of Vladimir Horowitz. She herself spent most of her life teaching. She was a persistent thorn in Stalin’s side – she is quoted as saying to him that she ‘would pray for his salvation’. Banned from performing for five years for reciting Pasternak in place of giving encores, during the 1930s, she was forced to sleep rough in Moscow. She did, however, manage to escape the Gulags, and during the 1948 purges defended Shostakovich. For some reason Stalin turned a blind eye on her. Following the death of Stalin, she was permitted to tour ‘safe’ countries in the Eastern Bloc – often with Shostakovich. As a result of all this she remains an elusive figure in the history of pianists, absent altogether from Harold Schonberg’s respected ‘The Great Pianists’ of 1963. This 8CD set is a unique opportunity to experience a great artist who suffered deprivation, and political and artistic repression. A fearless character and tenacious spirit can be heard in these recordings. Her repertoire ranged from her beloved Bach, to Bartok, Hindemith and Xenakis via the classical and Russian schools.
Extensive booklet essay by Ates Orga.
A fascinating discovery and of interest to all scholars and enthusiasts of the piano.
Recordings date from the 1940s, 50s and 60s.
Few of her recordings remain available, so this release fills an important gap in the catalogue, and provides a fascinating insight of the life of an artist during the darkest years of the Soviet Union.
