Julius Isserlis (1888 - 1968) - Fairy Tale in F Major
Pf: Sandro Russo
Julius Isserlis was a pianist and composer who lived from the late 1880's to the late 1960's. Born in what is nowadays Moldova, he started playing the piano at four years, and he was admitted at the Kiev conservatory at the age of nine. His teacher sent him to Moscow soon after, where he'd study at the Moscow conservatory, from which he graduated at sixteen.
In the years before the russian revolution he took lessons from Charles-Marie Widor in paris, played at Carnegie Hall (for which he was recommended by Scriabin), met and married Rita Rauchwerger and in 1917 (the year of the revolution) he had his son, George. The family of three attempted to escape, but sadly did not succeed.
After five years, he was choosen, by Lenin himself, to be one of the twelve musical ambassadors to the Soviet-Union. As you might could've guessed, none of those twelve musical ambassadors returned.
He lived in Vienna with his family, until he decided to stay in britain, where he was touring in 1938. It was in britain that he'd live until his death in 1968.
I found this piece quite by chance, scrolling through imslp. It's quite a beautiful piece, i think. It's a shame that there aren't more recordings of his music that are this good.
6 дек 2022
