Biography
Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Moiseiwitsch began his studies at age seven at the Odessa Music Academy. He won the Anton Rubinstein Prize when he was just nine years old. He later took lessons from Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna. He first appeared in London in 1909 and made his American debut in 1919. He settled in England and took British citizenship in 1937.
Moiseiwitsch was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1946, for his consistent contributions during the Second World War, performing hundreds of recitals to servicemen and charities.
He married Daisy Kennedy, an Australian concert violinist, and had two daughters, Sandra and the set designer, Tanya Moiseiwitsch.
He was a friend of Nikolai Medtner and commissioned the Piano Concerto No. 3 "Ballade" (1940-43).
Read more about this topic: Benno Moiseiwitsch
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“A biography is like a handshake down the years, that can become an arm-wrestle.”
—Richard Holmes (b. 1945)
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)