Moiseiwitsch on Rachmaninoff 

+operafanatic1 Thank you for your comment. I envy your meeting with him. It would be a great pleasure to me to read any more memories of him that you might share.

+operafanatic1 Wonderful. Thank you. I once exchanged emails with Benno Moiseiwitsch, the nephew, who is a professor of physics in Northern Ireland. He recalled his father playing two-piano pieces with his uncle-namesake when he was a boy. Benno the physicist is a professor at Queens University in Belfast. Tanya was Benno Moiseiwitsch's daughter, and although not a musician, she was considered one of the top set- and costume-designers in England and Canada. She did theatre and opera sets. One production that was seen by many was the for-television _King Lear_ starring Lawrence Olivier in his late years; Tanya did the costumes. Tanya was the child of Benno's marriage to Australian violinist Daisy Kennedy. They divorced and she married a poet, John Drinkwater. Daisy's cousin was a cellist, and HER grandson is the well-known violinist Nigel Kennedy. I think the biography was by another cousin of yours--I forget. I have not read it. Benno was great friends with Dame Myra Hess, a great pianist, who had organized the famous lunchtime concerts in London during the war. My father was a young soldier at the time, and attended as many of Benno Moiseiwitsch's performances as possible. He was also good friends with the great pianist Solomon. There are some delightful photos of the two of them playing cards. There is a poignancy to those photographs. Solomon had a stroke when quite young and that ended his career. Though posed casually, Solomon's right hand is slack and all his action in the photos is with his left hand. cache1.asset-cache.net/gc/3279331-23rd-december-1958-the-english-pianist-solomon-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=Zu0rqrbb5aecGuylTK4Mwx%2BbguBoTX%2FapSAjAPB4ykBMvscU71D63a9kRPdIzxp9

You are welcome. I hope you enjoyed this treasure of piano history. I love this opportunity to hear Moiseiwitsch speak, and to recall, with such fondness, his old friend, and their remarkable artistic relationship.

Wonderful! It is moving to me to hear from his close relatives. Thank you for commenting.

My introduction to classical music, nearly 70 years ago, was a 78 RPM recording of Moiseiwitsch playing the Beethoven PC No.5 (the Emperor). That recording is available somewhere on YT now. I've heard Barenboim, Rubinstein, Kempff and others, but brilliant as they are, none seem to quite match BM, especially in the slow movement. All that proves, I guess, that impressions formed in our earliest years last a lifetime

His Schumann is really wonderful, Carneval for example. Builds to a wonderful climax.

Perhaps they were old time friends

@@andream.464 Yep, interviewer even mentions it at the onset, "friend & bridge partner"

When Abram Chasins did a radio interview with Horowitz, he addressed him as Volodya on the air. Chasins knew all the great pianists socially.