Jascha Spivakovsky

Jascha Spivakovsky (18 August 1896 – 23 March 1970) was a Ukrainian-Australian piano virtuoso of the 20th century. He was hailed as a child prodigy in Odessa but almost murdered by Imperial Guards during the 1905 Pogrom. He fled to Berlin and was declared the heir of Anton Rubinstein and likened to Ignacy Paderewski and Teresa Carreño before being imprisoned as an Imperial Russian enemy alien during World War I. In the interwar period he became internationally recognized as one of the greatest pianists in the world and regarded in Europe as the finest living interpreter of Brahms. He also formed a trio which toured Europe with phenomenal success and was declared the finest in the world. Towards the beginning of 1933 he was warned by Richard Strauss in a musically-coded secret message that he had become a Nazi target due to his Jewish heritage. He fled to Australia a few days before the Nazi seizure of power and put his musical career on hold to help people escape the Third Reich. After World War II he returned to the stage and astounded the toughest of critics with the power, depth and maturity of his interpretations. Although his fame dimmed after he ceased touring because he had made no commercial (solo) studio recordings, his rediscovery was sparked in 2015 by the first releases of his live performances. These have caused considerable excitement among music lovers and prompted some experts to declare Spivakovsky one of the greatest pianists they have ever heard.

Jascha Spivakovsky was born in a small village near Kiev, Ukraine into a 400-year-old line of musicians. He began playing the piano unprompted at three years of age: hearing a busker in the street below his family's apartment, he reproduced the melody on the family piano and added a flawless left hand accompaniment. He was taught by his father until the age of six when the family moved to Odessa so he could receive expert instruction. The following year he was discovered by Josef Hofmann who noted his "great lyricism and great technical potential" and helped arrange an audition with the imposing Director of the Moscow Conservatory, Vasily Safonov. Safonov offered his personal tuition at the Conservatory and provided a written endorsement which began: "I today listened to Jascha Spivakovsky play and found in this child a rare, outstanding talent." However, restrictions on Jewish people entering Moscow would have prevented his family accompanying him and at seven years of age the boy was too young to take up this opportunity alone.

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