Artist description Vladimir Sofronitsky was a legendary Russian pianist whose stature among his countrymen, his colleagues, and musicians around the world remains undiminished today, some 40 years after his death. Sofronitsky was simply one of the towering artists of the 20th century; he was an idol of Cortot, Horowitz, Richter, Neuhaus, Fyodorova, Rubinstein and virtually every major pianist before and since.

Music Style Classical

Musical Influences Scriabin/Chopin/Nikolayev

Artist History Born in St. Petersburg in 1901, VLADIMIR SOFRONITSKY was the descendant of a distinguished family of jurists, artists and musicians. Indeed, his mother was a Borovikovsky, a noble family whose most celebrated representative was the portraitist Vladimir Borovikovsky, whose paintings are today on permanent exhibit at the Hermitage. As a child Sofronitsky had occassion to study with the noted pedagogue Alexander Michalowski in Warsaw, performing often in that time-troubled city. Returning to St Petersburg, re-named Leningrad following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, he continued his studies under Leonid Nikolayev at the Leningrad Conservatory. He toured France in 1928 to considerable critical acclaim, but that was to be only excursion abroad. For the rest of his life, he played exclusively in Russia and for Russians. Regretably, he remained virtually unknown in the west. Though he became a tenured professor at the Leningrad Conservatory, holding that post from 1938 to 1942, and later at the Moscow Conservatory from 1941 until his death, he never abandoned the concert stage. Even so, he gave remarkably few concerts; if he gave 10 a year, always to sold out houses, no matter how dire the circumstances (even in wartime), that was a lot. He evolved into somewhat of an icon for the Russian people as early as 1942, when he tirelessly and courageously gave free concerts throughout the region for the starving, the disenfranchised and the war-injured. This he did even in un-heated auditoriums where the temperature dipped to sub-freezing; undaunted, he would play with gloves on to a hall full of rapt and grateful music lovers. So touched was the public by his largesse that it never forgot it. Indeed, there is something of that affection that is palpable in his recordings, the majority of which, such as this one, were made in concert. But it was Sofronitsky's musical gifts that enthralled all who had the opportunity to hear him, as it does even today on record, nearly four decades after he was laid to rest. Sofronitsky's repertoire embraced much of the traditional western canon, with an emphasis on the music of Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and especially his beloved Scriabin. He married Scriabin's daughter, Elena, though he never met the composer, who died in 1915. And yet it was Scriabin with whom he came to be identified most strongly, not only by the public, but by his own admission. His affinity for Scriabin was uncanny; Neuhaus called it supernatural, while others, including Richter, echoed that sentiment in unbridled praise, even referring to him as a God. Sofronitsky's grasp of Scriabin was extraordinary because it was so in tune with the music's spiritual and aesthetic agenda; his sound was nothing if not rich and focused, his command of counterpoint prismatic. In his hands pianissimos floated effortlessly into space like thin wisps of smoke into chill air. Phrases were adjudicated with affective precision, but also with burning intensity and singularity of purpose. There was a genuine opulence about his sound and sensibility, such as no pianist before or since has been able to duplicate. Sofronitksy revealed, with utter transparency, the subtext behind the notes; he was a master story teller in sound whose sonorous intensity and emotional directness moves through the listener like a laser through butter, exposing at once the turbulent psychological dimensions of a composition. His playing is both sexual and analytic, refined and savage, suave and deliberate, contemplative and contradictory. No musical color, born of the text or the instrument, was foreign to him, and he exploited them all. When Glazunov, who served on the jury of Sofronitsky's graduation recital at the Leningrad Conservatory, crossed himself at the recital's conclusion, as if he had just been exposed to the Brahmin, he anticipated the reaction of the pianist's legions of future listeners. Like Scriabin, Sofronitsky was nothing if not a spiritual creature, though he also harbored superstitions: he was convinced, for example, that one of his white linen suits was a good luck charm. Sofronitsky rarely played concertos with orchestra, or even chamber music, preferring to limit his appearances to intimate recitals for small audiences at the Scriabin Museum or the Moscow Conservatory. He despised recording in a studio, as he felt this compromised inspiration. He also had little contact with western colleagues, though Van Cliburn had occassion to visit and pay homage to HIM in 1960. He developed a heart condition that was made worse by prescription drugs, and died a realtively young man, age 60. He is buried at the Novedevichi Cemetery in Moscow.

Instruments Piano

Albums Many for Melodiya which have since been re-issued on Denon, Philips, Harmonia Mundi. These recordings are the newest releases of unpublished materials on the Vista Vera label.

Location Moscow - Russia

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