Mark Hambourg

Mark Hambourg (Russian: Марк Михайлович Гамбург, 1 June 1879 – 26 August 1960) was a Russian-British concert pianist.

Mark Hambourg was the eldest son of the pianist Michael Hambourg (a pupil of Anton Rubinstein), and was brother of the cellist Boris Hambourg and the violinist Jan Hambourg (with whom he played in chamber ensemble as the Hambourg Trio), and of the musical organiser Clement Hambourg (1900–1973). His father was principal of the Voronezh Conservatory, and later a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, so that Mark continued his studies with his father even when he attended that academy.

The family moved to London in 1889, as refugees from the Tsarist regime. There, having been heard by Paderewski, Mark made a debut at the old Princes Hall in July 1890. This was a success, and there was another concert there, and a tour of the provinces. The family was too poor to turn down these opportunities, though they would gladly have protected the boy from public life. As a child he was billed as Max Hambourg. He was invited into the circle of the painter Felix Moscheles (son of the pianist Ignaz Moscheles), in London, where he often met Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, Ellen Terry and others. It was in this period that he became tired of elderly ladies wanting to kiss him, and permitted them to do so only in exchange for a large box of chocolates. In 1890 Shaw, hearing him play, felt that the Lyric Theatre was merely exploiting children, but late in 1891 he was admiring his performance of Bach at the Steinway Hall and wrote that, with suitable training, "this Russian lad might astonish the world some day."

Sponsored largely by Paderewski, Hambourg was sent to study under Theodor Leschetitzky in Vienna for three years, arriving there in autumn 1891. There he won the Liszt Scholarship of 500 marks, and made a large number of friends among the artistic circles of Vienna. He made his first appearance as an adult pianist in early 1895, playing Chopin's Concerto No. 1 in E minor under the baton of Hans Richter, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Then, while still a student with Leschetizky, he stood in at short notice (on his master's recommendation) to play Liszt's Hungarian Fantasia under Felix Weingartner, in place of Sophie Menter, who was indisposed. The audience, at first disappointed, was completely won over, and at the banquet which followed, Brahms himself proposed the toast to the young pianist.

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