Pianist Maria Yudina (1899-1970)

 

Maria Yudina has been enjoying more media attention of late. For an excellent and succinct account of Yudina's work, click here by Alexander Hanslick. Now a major new biography, written by Elizabeth Wilson, is published in hardback, and with a spiffing front cover.

This biography, completed during the pandemic years, is a great achievement. It chronicles in great detail the life and times of the Russian pianist noted for her uncompromising and heroic determination to perform, even in the face of a hostile political regime. Descriptions of her interactions with leading figures of her time, including Shostakovich, Pasternak, Stravinsky are interesting, although she seems to have alienated people more easily then attracting them. 

 

Of most interest to pianists will be accounts of her playing: listen for example here to Holy Fool, a transciption by Kamensky of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. 

 

 

 

 

What are the ingredients behind the persuasiveness of Yudina's playing? As Tolstoy said, there are only three important things in art: Sincerity, sincerity, and sincerity. Yudina had so little ego, she could tap the composer's own energy instead. She viewed music as a religious service. She held her own life to little account, and clearly performed as if her hair were on fire, as if it was the last day of her life. (Listen here to the opening of Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor). She can be compared to Blanche Selva, also religious and ego-less, a severe figure on and off stage, a disciple of d'Indy. Also to Maryla Jonas, a war-time refugee, who left a gripping account of Handel Passacaglia here Of the three, Yudina had by far the greater concert exposure, although her performances were almost all in the USSR, and only gradually is her vast discography being released worldwide.

Maria Yudina and Stalin

The pianist Maria Yudina was an outspoken critic of Stalin, and was woken at night by the police who ordered her to come with them. She feared the worst; but the reason for the summons was that Stalin had heard her playing a Mozart concerto on the radio, and right now demanded to hear it again, at once, without delay. Unfortunately, what he had heard was a live radio broadcast, of which no recording had been made. So Stalin's henchmen assembled Yudina plus a motley group of musicians for a nocturnal recording session, not the most relaxing of circumstances in which to play Mozart! You can hear the performance on Youtube, that amazing free source of rare classical music. Her playing is free from the slightest trace of self-interest, as is the playing of her class-mate Sofronitsky - both are strangers to any concept of musical or personal safety. If you listen to Yudina playing the Schubert A-flat major Impromptu, again you hear someone racing toward beauty without wearing a seat-belt, or as the Americans might say, playing by the seat of her pants! A moth toward the flame...

Those interested in modern examples might be interested to check out the website of the pianist Andrei Gavrilov, while Ivo Pogorelich has some interesting political tales to tell on the political circumstances surrounding his appearance at the Tchaikovsky competition in the 1980s. Whether any modern pianist can match the golden age pianists is debatable; perhaps the concept of the sublime is being airbrushed out of contemporary vocabulary in our materialistic age, where the modern equivalent of the medieval cathedral is the shopping mall at Dubai. But at the very least these amazing musicians/technicians offer some interesting parallels of personal danger and courageous piano playing (in addition to huge piano techniques). Among the younger generation Konstantin Lifschitz is able to mine a sublime seam of Bach, as is the blind French pianist Bernard D'Ascoli. And the young Japanese pianist Aimi Kobayashi certainly looks like an inspired angel. If you copy and paste this in your browser she is playing a Chopin Impromptu.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvcMSGbKGo4&feature=PlayList&p=0635480989206E9C&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=13