Yudina, Maria

Yudina, Maria, eminent Russian pianist and pedagogue; b. Nevel, near Vitebsk, Sept. 9,1899; d. Moscow, Nov. 19, 1970. She took piano lessons in Vitebsk with Frieda Teitelbaum-Levinson, then enrolled at the Petrograd Cons., where she studied piano with Anna Essi-pova, Vladimir Drozdov, and Leonid Nikolayev, theory with Maximilian Steinberg and J. Wihtol, and score reading with N. Tcherepnin and Emil Cooper. In 1921 she joined the piano faculty of the Petrograd Cons., holding this position until 1930. From 1932 to 1934 she taught at the Tiflis Cons. From 1936 to 1951 she was a prof. at the Moscow Cons., and from 1944 to 1960 taught piano and chamber music performance at the Gnessin Inst. in Moscow. Among her students was Andrei Balanchivadze. Yudina began her career as a pianist in 1921, and gave her last concert in Moscow on May 18, 1969. She also was a guest artist in East Germany (1950) and in Poland (1954). She publ. memoirs and reminiscences of famous composers she had met in Russia. Yudina enjoyed great renown as an intellectual musician capable of presenting the works she performed with a grand line, both didactic and inspired. But rather than accepting the traditional interpretation of classical music, she introduced a strong personal element differing from accepted norms, so that her performances of works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms were revelations to some listeners, and abominations to the old school of pianism. Yudina was also an ardent champion of modern music, placing on her programs compositions by such masters of new techniques as Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, and Bartók at a time when their works were not acceptable in Russia. She also played piano pieces by Soviet composers, particularly Prokofiev and Shostakovich. She gave numerous concerts of chamber music. A vol. of her articles, reminiscences, and materials was publ. in Moscow in 1978.

—Nicholas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire