MARIA YUDINA (1899-1970)
Russian Pianist

Dmitri Shostakovich and Vladimir Sofronitsky were Maria Yudina's classmates at the Petrograd Conservatory. She studied with Anna Yesipova and Felix Blumenfeld. And yet, I had not heard of her. Heinrich Neuhaus recommended her for a position on the faculty of the Moscow Conservatory, Sviatoslav Richter called her "immensely talented". Yet she was hidden behind Soviet Russia's iron curtain during her lifetime and was unknown to what is now a rapidly growing and wildly enthusiastic international audience.

Maria Yudina was a remarkable woman of unimaginable courage who knew her own mind and was not afraid to use it, or speak it. She once said while cleaning up after dinner, "I've got two enemies in this world - crumbs and the Soviet Power. I want to have heaven above my head." She was a passionate Christian; an advocate of modern Western music including the works of Bela Bartok, Paul Hindemith, Ernst Krenek, Igor Stravinsky, and les enfants terribles of the 1950s, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez; a supporter of modern Russian writers and poets; and an outspoken critic of the crushing political system under which she lived her entire adult life.

In his Memoirs, Dimitri Shostakovitch wrote that living under Soviet rule was like living in an insane asylum. On numerous occasions, Maria Yudina was banned from public performance, relieved of her teaching positions, and forbidden to make recordings.

It is certain that because Stalin adored her playing, reportedly her playing would bring tears to his eyes, she suffered much less than she otherwise would have at the hands of one of history's most murderous tyrants. Even after she donated the money she received upon being awarded the Stalin Prize to the Russian Orthodox Church for "perpetual prayers for Stalin's sins", she was left relatively untouched.

Maria Yudina was most highly praised for her performances of the great German classics, her playing of Bach, which was anticipatory of Glenn Gould's approach, Mozart, and Beethoven. And while her interpretations of Romantic piano music were considered impressive, she was accused by Richter and others of not playing what was written in her performances of Brahms, Liszt, Chopin, and even Schubert. Who cares? It's beautiful playing. Listen to her performance of Schubert's late Bb major sonata. Stylistically, it's all wrong, and I love it!

Happily, her admirers have made a great many of Maria Yudina's recordings available to us on YouTube. You can judge for yourselves.

On this page she plays the music of Russian and "modern" composers.  On related pages she plays Bach, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms and Debussy, and Beethoven, and Mozart, Haydn and Schubert.

And here are live recordings of several of her complete recitals.

Mussorgsky  Pictures at an Exhibition

1 Promenade - 2 Gnomus
3 Promenade - 4 Il Vecchio Castello
5 Promenade - 6 Tuileries