Heinrich Gustavovich Neuhaus (Russian: Генрих Густавович Нейгауз, Genrikh Gustavovič Nejgauz; 12 April [O.S. 31 March] 1888, Kirovohrad – Moscow, October 10, 1964) was a Soviet pianist and pedagogue of German extraction. He taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1922 to 1964. He was made a People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1956. His pedagogic book The Art of Piano Playing (1958) is regarded as one of the most authoritative and most widely used treatments on the subject.
He was born in Elisavetgrad (known since 1939 as Kirovohrad), Ukraine. Although both his parents were piano teachers, he was largely self-taught. The biggest influences on his early artistic development came from his cousin Karol Szymanowski (tutored by another relative, Gustav Neuhaus) and especially his uncle Felix Blumenfeld on his visits to his sisters' home. He also received some lessons from Aleksander Michałowski.[1] In 1902 he gave a recital in Elisavetgrad with the 11-year-old Mischa Elman and in 1904 gave concerts in Dortmund, Bonn, Cologne and Berlin. Subsequently he studied with Leopold Godowsky in Berlin and from 1909 until the outbreak of World War I at his master classes in Vienna Academy of Music.
In 1914 Neuhaus started teaching in Elisavetgrad and later Tbilisi (Tiflis) and Kiev (where he befriended Vladimir Horowitz). After having been temporarily paralyzed, Neuhaus was forced to halt his concert career in the interests of his pedagogical activities. In 1922 he began teaching at the Moscow Conservatory where he was also director between 1935 and 1937. His pupils included Emil Gilels, Radu Lupu, Sviatoslav Richter, Yakov Zak, Eliso Virsaladze, Vladimir Krainev and Lev Naumov. When the Germans approached Moscow in 1942, he was imprisoned as a "German spy" but released eight months later under pressure from Dmitri Shostakovich, Gilels, and others.
Neuhaus was renowned for the poetic magnetism of his playing and for his artistic refinement. He was a life-long friend of Boris Pasternak, and Osip Mandelshtam expressed his admiration for Neuhaus's playing in a poem. Stanislav Neuhaus, Heinrich's son by his first wife Zinaida (who married Pasternak in 1931), was also a noted pianist; Stanislav Bunin is his grandson.
Notes
- ^ J. Methuen-Campbell, Chopin Playing from the Composer to the Present Day (Gollancz, London 1981), 73.
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