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Prof. Heinrich
(Harry) NEUHAUS
- a teacher of the Masters.
Heinrich Neuhaus was born on April 12, 1888 in
Elisavetgrad, today Kirovograd, in the West Ukraine. His father was Gustav Neuhaus,
the German pianist and a teacher of the German language, who arrived to
Ukraine from Rheinland (Germany) in 1870; G. Neuhaus
studied the piano in Köln (Germany) by Ferdinand Hiller. The future Great Neuhaus'
mother was Olga Blumenfeld, a highly talented pianist (hers mother, so -
Harry's Grandmother - was born Szymanowska; she belonged to the same family Karol Szymanowski was born in It should be apparent that in such family as was the Neuhaus', the
future Professors' and even Rector's of the P. Tchaikovsky Conservatory one, relations with music were
very close, intensive and fruitful. As Prof. Neuhaus later said, he became
"infected with music just from the early childhood". The decisive
impact on his musical development he got from his uncle, a legendary teacher Feliks Blumenfeld
(among his students were Simon
Barere and Vladimir Horowitz);
thinking about his musical growth yet, we should not disregard the powerful
influence of generous atmosphere ruling the Neuhaus family's life. The
Neuhaus' have used to play chamber music together, they friendly and actively
supported each other to become better in performing, deeper learned, more
enlightened, etc. All these took place in truly friendly, informal, warm and
deeply human atmosphere created in their home by Neuhaus' themselves and by
their such brilliant musical friends as violinist Paweł Kochański, singer Stanislawa Szymanowska, pianist Feliks Szymanowski, who both were the siblings of
Karol
Szymanowski; of course Karol by himself participated very actively in these
family music making, as well as a poet and writer Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz and the future worldwide known virtuoso
pianist Arthur
Rubinstein, too. The piano education of Harry Neuhaus become finalized in 1915 in the Conservatory of Music of St.
Petersburg; Harry prepared the diploma exam under artistic guidance of his
uncle, Feliks Blumenfeld and got at last the title "Liberated
artist". This diploma formalized the Harry's former musical studies
in Berlin, where he studied the theory of music by Max Bruch and Engelbert Humperdinck and by Karl H. Barth - piano and organ.
Within 1912 - 1914 he studied the piano under Leopold Godowski in Vienna. At the same time he studied musical
aesthetic, acoustic, harmony, piano literature, instrumentation, analyze of
musical forms and history of music; young Harry participated as well in the
seminar of solo performance with orchestra led by Ferdinand Löwe. The diploma exam he passed through on the 6-th of
April 1914 and had been honored by the Austrian State Award (Staatspreis).
On the 12-th of January 1914 Neuhaus gave a recital
in the Bechstein-Hall in Berlin, playing 6 Choral
Vorspiele of Bach-Busoni, 3 Intermezzi op. 117 and Rhapsody
op.119 of Brahms, Sonata op. 58 of Chopin and of Karol Szymanowski -
II Sonata in A Major. Within years of his studies in Berlin and Vienna
he visited Kalkar n. Köln,
a hometown of his father Gustav, and (in 1908) – together with his cousins, Karol and Feliks Szymanowski –
he went to visit Italy. Young tourists, Harry was 17 years old, started from Nervi, Genova, Rome
and Naples. In Autumn of 1908 Harry Neuhaus traveled to Ukraine
and back to the Central Europe via Lviv, Budapest and Fiume - to Venice and Firenze.
These journeys were not the concert tours: young Neuhaus just saw museums,
went sightseeing, listened to concerts and operas, went to theatres and saw
exhibitions. He actually tried to absorb as much as possible from the
culture, he liked to live and work in; from the culture, he becomes so
suddenly and brutally separated from... Immediately after his studies in Vienna, when the
First World War begun, Neuhaus, the genuine European, humanist and artist -
had to come back to Ukraine, which was a part of the Imperial Russia and his
own words "got stuck into piano pedagogical mud". He started
teaching the piano in Elizavetgrad, after then he has been invited to the
musical conservatories of Tbilisi and Kiev, and after - while extremely positive resonance on his
piano pedagogic talent "went before him" - he became invited to and
started his work in the P.
Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Music in Moscow
(in the 40-ties interrupted by more than a year long imprisonment in the famous
Soviet punitive complex Lubianka). Despite the horrible war circumstances Neuhaus gave
concerts; at one evening he could play all the Sonatas of Skriabin; his interpretation of the 24 Preludes of Debussy has been approved in Moscow
as the real artistic wonder. But before all he was the pedagogue, by whom liked to
study all the most talented young pianists from the whole Soviet Union. Harry
Neuhaus becomes the greatest piano teaching authority not only because of his
great piano instrumental and piano pedagogical skills, but as well due to the
fact, he - living in circumstances no one of us today could even
superficially imagine - represented the values of the truly interminable
quality: Professor
Neuhaus, due to the place of birth, thanks to
kind of received education and because of his profoundly personal
convictions, was the representative of traditional European thought, idea, civilization and culture. And, however, without doubts, in many meanings of the
word he must accept the circumstances he was forced to live in, in my opinion
- he offered his students such kind of feeling of mental and moral STABILITY in the world, which could destroy the life of tens of
millions human beings, openly said - in minutes, and due to this truly rare
ability of him - to be morally STABLE, his students become able to work more
creatively and more strongly than they, who were guided by just the
"pure artists"... The list of Prof. Neuhaus' students, who made a huge
international piano career, could be very long. In my opinion it would be
much enough to maintain the two of them only - Sviatoslav Richter and Emil
Gilels - to understand, who was the
teacher we now are speaking about. His importance has been built not only via
his students: his writings, and especially, his legendary book, The Art of Piano
Playing, translated not only into main
languages of the World, but as well into - I suppose - any language the
civilized nation might like to speak and write in, persistently do its
encouraging work. It gives pianists the definitely incomparable possibility
to prolong the contact with so open-minded piano teaching idea, shaped by
Prof. Neuhaus, in spite of the question of its belonging to any "piano
school". Of course, working in Russia, and being deeply acquainted with
great Russian literature, music and poetry, he - in certain sense of world -
belongs to the Russian
piano tradition, but as well he belongs to
the German
cultural tradition. The Polish cultural
sphere was apparently very present in Prof. Neuhaus' artistic life, and not
only the family ties connect him to the Polish piano tradition; his intellectual formation has happened in the same
field that shaped such different personalities as Arthur
Rubinstein, Ignacy
J. Paderewski or maintained above Karol
Szymanowski. It is, maybe, worth to say that
he not only very fluently spoke Polish language, but as well could recite
much more Romantic Polish poetry than many "genuine" Poles would
able to... I would like to stress again the Neuhaus' piano
pedagogic connections with the Chopin's Piano Method. Prof. Zbigniew Drzewiecki in his introduction to Polish
edition of the Neuhaus' book wrote: "The uncommonly large learning and erudition of Prof.
Neuhaus could be approved by the fact, his piano instrumental technique and
teaching were grounded on these not numerous still representing the genius
dimension guidelines, given by Chopin" (introductory words to the Polish
edition of The Art of Piano Playing by H. Neuhaus, PWM, Kraków 1970,
p. 9). Neuhaus was the greater admirer of poetry of Adam Mickiewicz, he actively propagate the works of Szymanowski; Prof.
Drzewiecki remembered the evening spent together with Prof. Neuhaus in Warsaw
in 1937, when he, declaimed ex tempore large fragments of Polish
national poem "Pan Tadeusz" by hearth (H.N. was a member of the
jury of Third International Chopin Piano Competition). Not many contemporary Polish
Professors, even of the Polish literature, I suppose, would be ready to do
the same today... Henryk to Polish people, Heinrich - to Germans, Gienrich Gustawowitch - to Russians, Harry - at home, Neuhaus died in one
of the Moscow hospitals on 10th of October 1964. Literally some hours before
his death Arthur Rubinstein came and saw him, giving nearly symbolical goodbye
to this greater Artist in the name of tradition and culture, the whole
refinement, fullness, taste and charm Prof. Neuhaus so generously sowed around
in his legendary lessons. His book, translated into majority of languages the
manhood is used to speak in, should been not only read, but as well understood:
Prof. Neuhaus' work should actually be continued; its Author strongly
believed in possibility to make better, make more and generally – to develop
anybody and anything. His optimism should work in us, too. As Vladimir Horowitz said, I cite after the David
Dubal's book, "After
Blumenfeld - Neuhaus was the artist, whom I owe most of all". Writing these comments, I would like to express my
very profound esteem and love to Professor Neuhaus and his great piano idea.
At the end of this very short notice I would like, Dear Reader, to invite you
to the Internet Site that publishes some thoughts of V. Horowitz, related to refining of technique of playing the
piano. His point of view represents equally the same great line in thinking
about our instrument that could be found in the whole positive piano
tradition from Bach, via Mozart, Chopin, older (so, not young) Liszt,
Debussy, Anton Rubinstein, Joseph Hofmann and other great masters. Lately, I
have found the actually parallel phrases reading the introductory article to
the Maestro Lang Lang's
DVD, recorded in Carnegie
Hall in 2004. Mr. Lang Lang considered his
American mentor, Prof. Gary Graffman, a former student of Vladimir Horowitz, who spoke to
him about extraordinary significance of making clear the Idea of the
performed piece and necessity to convey it to the listeners. One could say:
nothing new, factually...! This is, factually - the truth, but as well, this
idea probably is the most forgotten thing in the piano education worldwide.
The Site you actually visit tries to change such upsetting situation. Even a
little bit... Thank you for your visit on this page - SK
Published:
2005-10-24 |
