Elisabeth Leonskaja | |
|---|---|
 Leonskaja in 2012 | |
| Born | (1945-11-23)23 November 1945 (age 80) |
| Occupation | Classical pianist |
| Awards | Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class |
| Website | www |
Elisabeth Leonskaja (born 23 November 1945) is an Austrianpianist. Born and trained inTbilisi, she won theEnesco Competition in Bucharest in 1964 which made an international career possible. She then studied at theMoscow Conservatory where she metSviatoslav Richter who performed with her and became a close friend. She has lived in Vienna since 1978. Besides the great piano concertos, she has focused on thelate sonatas by Beethoven andSchubert.
Leonskaja was born inTbilisi on 23 November 1945[1][2] to a family of Jewish and Polish origin.[3][4] Tbilisi was then the capital of theGeorgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Her parents had fledOdesa during World War II; her father was a jurist, her mother a musician.[1] When Leonskaja was six and a half, her parents were able to buy her first upright piano. At age seven, she passed the entrance exam of one of Tbilisi's sixty music schools,[5] where she studied with Rosalia Rojok und Emil Guzevitsch. She played her first concert with orchestra at age eleven, playing the first movement of Beethoven'sPiano Concerto No. 1, and at age 13 she performed her first solo recital.[1] She began an intense four-year period of study in secondary school with a new piano teacher from Kyiv at age 14. In 1964, Leonskaja won theEnesco International Piano Competition in Bucharest,[6] with the composer and conductorAram Khachaturian and the pianistArthur Rubinstein among the judges.[7]
In 1964, Leonskaja began studies in theMoscow Conservatory with Jacob Milstein.[1][6] During her conservatory years, she was supported bySviatoslav Richter who invited her to play duo concerts with him;[1] she won prizes in theLong-Thibaud-Crespin Competition in Paris and theQueen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels.[6][8]
Leonskaja left the Soviet Union in 1978 and has since resided in Vienna.[6][9] A performance at the 1979Salzburg Festival won her international recognition. A notable recording of hers is ofEdvard Grieg's arrangement for two pianos of Mozart's piano sonatasK. 545 andK. 533/494, in a duo withSviatoslav Richter, with whom she built a close friendship and collaboration.[10] She performed chamber music with string quartets such as theAlban Berg Quartett, theBelcea Quartet,Borodin Quartet,Artemis Quartet, andJerusalem Quartet.[6] She recorded many years forTeldec, now for German label MDG, and presently for several different labels including Warner, who have also re-released a number of recordings. She also gives many masterclasses.[11]
Leonskaja was married for a short time to the violinistOleg Kagan.[6][10]
