Prodigy of the Revolution

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 529, 12 August 1949, Page 24

Prodigy of the Revolution

LEKSANDR HELMANN, the A overseas guest artist who will play a series of piano concertos with the National Orchestra, starting 6n August 23 and 25 in the Wellington Grand Opera House (not the Town Hall as previously announced), and continuing in the South Island, will also be heard in

several studio recitals during his visit to New Zealand. At present he is engaged on a_ four months’ concert tour of Australia. Helmann is regarded as one of the greatest pianists of his generation. Elegance, forcefu!ness, and sensitiveness to fine shades of expression are the characteristics of his playing, and his brilliant technique permits him an almost unlimited choice of material. He is not only a virtuoso of great technical facility, but an interpreter of unusual depth and richness as well. He is also one of the few pianists to have fulfilled in maturity the promise shown as a child prodigy. He was born in 1912 at Vilna (which was then in Russia), his father being a concert pianist and professor of pianoforte, and his mother a distinguished singer. This musical background encouraged the early development of his talents, and when only : three years old he began ee extemporise at the

piano. He was taught by his father, and at seven he gave his first public performance, meeting with a success which would in normal times have marked the beginning of an international career as a prodigy. But this was the second year of the Russian Revolution, and Hel- | mann’s family, driven by the spreading | famine, was forced to move from one area to another in search of better living conditions. In spite of the turbulent times, however, Aleksandr appeared in a number of Russian cities and was received with enthusiasm. The Land of Promise In 1921, the Helmann family left Russia, and ‘the father conducted Aleksandr on a concert tour of Poland and Germany. But for them, as for many other European émigrés, America was the land of promise,.and in 1923 they decided to move to the United States. They also decided that it was time for ‘Aleksandr to abandon his career as a prodigy in order to develop his musical talents and broaden his cultural background, and except for a period under Moriz Rosenthal, he continued to study with his father, while in composition he

became the pupil of Joseph Schillinger. In 1930, he made his debut in New York as a mature artist, and during the next few years toured the United States. He gave his first recital in London in 1934, and soon afterwards appeared as soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He gained a wide British audience, and in 1938 was engaged twice in the same series of concerts by the

London Symphony Orchestra. Afterwards he toured extensively in Holland, France, Norway and Sweden. During’ the war he was not accepted for service on medical grounds, and he gave numerous recitals in the United States, including concerts for the armed forces. On his first post-war tour of Europe in 1947, he was again received with great enthusiasm, Helmann’s repertoire is unusually wide. Hé has been praised not only for his presentation of the great concertos and other solo works of the concert pianist’s repertoire, but for his playing of forgotten or unpublished compositions of the 17th and 18th Centuries. A composer himself, he usually includes in his programmes some outstanding contemporary works. Among his Australian performances were those of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3, the ProKofieff No. 3, and the Mozart Concerto in A Major, K488, which were played at Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide respectively. At his two Wellington concerts this month-his first New Zealand appear-ances-he will play, with the National Orchestra, Tchaikovski’s Concerto No. 1 in B Flat Minor, and the Mozart, K488.