Josef Lhévinne was a Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

 and piano teacher.

Joseph Arkadievich Levin (the name was altered in western Europe by a manager who thought "Lhévinne" more distinctive and less Jewish) was born into a family of musicians in Oryol

Oryol

Oryol or Orel is a city and the administrative center of Oryol Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River, approximately south-southwest of Moscow...

 and studied at the Imperial Conservatory in Moscow

Moscow Conservatory

The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...

 under Vasily Safonov. His public debut came at the age of 14 with Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

's Emperor Concerto

Piano Concerto No. 5 (Beethoven)

The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto, was his last piano concerto. It was written between 1809 and 1811 in Vienna, and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven's patron and pupil...

in a performance conducted by his musical hero Anton Rubinstein

Anton Rubinstein

Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...

. He graduated at the top of a class which included both Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...

 and Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...

, winning the Gold Medal for piano in 1892.

In 1898 he married fellow Moscow Conservatory student Rosina Bessie

Rosina Lhévinne

Rosina Bessie Lhévinne was a Russian American pianist and famed pedagogue....

, also a pianist and winner of the Gold Medal for piano in her year, and the two began to give concerts together, a practice that lasted until his death. Faced with anti-semitism

Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

 and the political turbulence

Russian Revolution of 1905

The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...

 of the period, they moved to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 in 1907 where Lhévinne gained a reputation as one of the leading virtuosi and teachers of his day. Trapped there as enemy aliens at the outbreak of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, having lost what money they had saved in Russian banks in the 1917 Revolution and unable to concertize due to the war, they endured years of considerable hardship surviving on the income from a handful of students.

At last free to leave Germany, in 1919 the couple moved to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where Lhévinne continued his concert career and taught piano at the Juilliard School

Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

. Regarded as one of the supreme technicians of his day by virtually all of his more famous contemporaries (even Vladimir Horowitz

Vladimir Horowitz

Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz    was a Russian-American classical virtuoso pianist and minor composer. His technique and use of tone color and the excitement of his playing were legendary. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.-Life and early...

 admired his vast pianistic command), he never achieved their level of success with the public, perhaps because he made it look and sound so easy, but mostly because he enjoyed teaching more than performing. He settled into a life of concert tours and teaching which continued until his sudden death from a heart attack in 1944 a few days short of his 70th birthday.

He left only a handful of acoustic recordings which are truly breathtaking examples of perfect technique and musical elegance. The discs of Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

 Etudes Op. 25. Nos. 6 and 11 and Schulz-Evler's arrangement of Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...

's Blue Danube Waltz

The Blue Danube

The Blue Danube is the common English title of An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 , a waltz by the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II, composed in 1866...

are legendary among pianists and connoisseurs. His piano roll of Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

's Papillons

Papillons

Papillons, Op. 2, is a suite of piano pieces written in 1831 by Robert Schumann. Meaning 'butterflies', Papillons is meant to represent a masked ball and was inspired by the novel Flegeljahre by Jean Paul....

, Op. 2, is considered one of the definitive performances of that work. In the words of Harold Charles Schonberg: "His tone was like the morning stars singing together, his technique was flawless even if measured against the fingers of Hofmann

Józef Hofmann

Josef Casimir Hofmann was a Polish-American virtuoso pianist, composer, music teacher, and inventor.-Biography:...

 and Rachmaninoff, and his musicianship was sensitive." Lhévinne made a number of piano rolls in the 1920s for Ampico

Ampico

American Piano Company was an American piano manufacturer located in East Rochester, New York, which was known from the beginning for the production of high quality player pianos. The company was established in 1908 under the aegis of Wm. Knabe & Co...

, a collection of which were superbly recorded and released on the Argo

Argo Records

Argo Records was started in December of 1955 to accommodate some of the rapidly growing recording activity at Chess Records. Originally the label was called Marterry, but bandleader Ralph Marterie objected, and within a couple of months the imprint was renamed Argo.Initially, Argo offered a...

 label in 1966. Lhévinne also recorded three times for the Welte-Mignon

Welte-Mignon

M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach by Michael Welte in 1832.-Overview:...

 reproducing piano.

Lhévinne wrote a short book in 1924 that is considered a classic: Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing.

Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest

Literary Digest

The Literary Digest was an influential general interest weekly magazine published by Funk & Wagnalls. Founded by Isaac Kaufmann Funk in 1890, it eventually merged with two similar weekly magazines, Public Opinion and Current Opinion.-History:...

it was lay-VEEN. (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)