Ossip Gabrilowitsch (14 September 1936) 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-born American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 pianist, conductor and composer.

Biography

Ossip Gabrilowitsch was born in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

. He studied the piano and composition at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, with 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...

, Anatoly Lyadov, Alexander Glazunov

Alexander Glazunov

Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...

 and Nikolai Medtner

Nikolai Medtner

Nikolai Karlovich Medtner was a Russian composer and pianist.A younger contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, he wrote a substantial number of compositions, all of which include the piano...

 among others. After graduating in 1894, he spent two years studying piano with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna.

In July 1905 he recorded ten pieces for the reproducing piano 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:...

, one of the first pianists to do so.

From 1910 to 1914, he was conductor of the Munich Konzertverein (later known as the Munich Philharmonic). He was still in Munich in 1917 and was put in jail following a pogrom

Pogrom

A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...

. Through the intervention of the nuncio to Bavaria

Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria

The Apostolic Nunciature to Bavaria was an ecclesiastical office of the Roman Catholic Church in Bavaria. It was a diplomatic post of the Holy See, whose representative was called the Apostolic Nuncio to Bavaria, a state – consecutively during the nunciature's existence – of the Holy Roman Empire,...

, Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII

Pope Pius XII

The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....

), Gabrilowitsch was freed from jail, and then he headed to Zürich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

 and the United States.

He settled in the US, and in 1918 was appointed the founding director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Detroit Symphony Orchestra

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Detroit, Michigan. Its main performance center is Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit's Midtown neighborhood...

, while still maintaining his life as a concert pianist. Before accepting the conductor's position, he demanded a new auditorium be built, and this was the impetus for the building of Orchestra Hall.

On 6 October 1909, he married Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

's daughter Clara Clemens

Clara Clemens

Clara Langhorne Clemens Samossoud, formerly Clara Langhorne Clemens Gabrilowitsch , was the daughter of Samuel Clemens, who wrote as Mark Twain. She was a contralto concert singer and, as her father's only surviving daughter, managed his estate and guarded his legacy after his death.She was...

, a singer who appeared with him in recital. On 18 August 1910, their only child, Nina, was born at Mark Twain's home Stormfield, in Connecticut.
Nina, the last known lineal descendent of Mark Twain, died on 19 January 1966 in a Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 hotel. She had been a heavy drinker, and bottles of pills and alcohol were found in her room.
He composed a few works, primarily short piano pieces for his own use. He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron

Delta Omicron

Delta Omicron is a co-ed international professional music honors fraternity whose mission is to promote and support excellence in music and musicianship.-History:...

, an international professional music fraternity. He died from stomach cancer

Stomach cancer

Gastric cancer, commonly referred to as stomach cancer, can develop in any part of the stomach and may spread throughout the stomach and to other organs; particularly the esophagus, lungs, lymph nodes, and the liver...

 in Detroit in 1936 and, along with Clara and her father, is buried in the Langdon plot of the Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York

Elmira, New York

Elmira is a city in Chemung County, New York, USA. It is the principal city of the 'Elmira, New York Metropolitan Statistical Area' which encompasses Chemung County, New York. The population was 29,200 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Chemung County.The City of Elmira is located in...

.

Works

• 5 Klavierstücke, Op. 1
  • No. 3 Valse lente (c. 1897)
• Gavotte in D minor, Op. 2
• Compositions for the piano, Op. 3
  • No. 1 Caprice Burlesque (ca 1901)
  • No. 2 Mazurka Mélancolique
• Thème varié pour piano, Op. 4
• Mélodie, Op. 8, No.1
• La Czarina, Mazurka Russe (The Tsarina, Russian Mazurka)
• Three Songs, Op. 11:
  • No. 1 Good-bye (Christina Rossetti
    Christina Rossetti
    Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems...
    
    )
  • No. 2 I love her gentle forehead (Richard Watson Gilder
    Richard Watson Gilder
    Richard Watson Gilder was an American poet and editor.-Life and career:Gilder was born at Bordentown, New Jersey. He was the son of Jane Gilder and the Rev. William Henry Gilder, and educated at his father's seminary in Flushing, Queens. There he learned to set type and published the St. Thomas...
    
    )
  • No. 3 The new day (R. W. Gilder, c. 1917)
• Two Piano Pieces, Op. 12
  • No. 1 Elegy
  • No. 2 Etude for the left hand
• Near to thee ... [Song] Poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
  
  , English version by Clara Clemens (ca. 1924)

Media

• Ossip Gabrilowitsch plays for Welte-Mignon on 4 July 1905 Johannes Brahms
  Johannes Brahms
  Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
  
   Intermezzo in C major, Op. 119, No. 3