Oleg Maisenberg (born 29 April 1945) is a Soviet-Austrian pianist and teacher.
Early life and career
Born to a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in
Odessa
Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...
, Oleg Maisenberg received his first piano lessons from his mother at the age of five. He completed his studies at the Central Music School
Kishinev and at the
Gnessin Institute
Gnesin, or Gnessin (russian: Гнесин) is a Jewish Russian surname:
* Fabian Osipovich Gnesin (1837–1891), an official rabbi of Rostov-on-Don and father of a prominent Jewish Russian family of musicians and philanthropists.
:* Sisters Gnesi ...
in Moscow with Professor Jocheles. In 1967 he won the second prize at the "International
Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
Competition" in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, where in the same year he won the first prize in the competition "Music of the 20th Century". From 1971 to 1980 he appeared regularly with the
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra The Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra is an orchestra based in Moscow, Russia. It was founded in 1951 by Samuil Samosud, as the Moscow Youth Orchestra for young and inexperienced musicians, acquiring its current name in 1953. It is most associated wit ...
and other renowned orchestras of the former Soviet Union.
Move to Vienna and international career
In 1981 Oleg Maisenberg emigrated to Vienna. Since then he has appeared with the
Israel Philharmonic
The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (abbreviation IPO; Hebrew: התזמורת הפילהרמונית הישראלית, ''ha-Tizmoret ha-Filharmonit ha-Yisra'elit'') is an Israeli symphony orchestra based in Tel Aviv. Its principal concert venue ...
, the
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the " Big Five" American orchestras, the orchestra is based at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where it performs its subscription ...
, the
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...
, the
Vienna Symphony Orchestra
The Vienna Symphony (Vienna Symphony Orchestra, german: Wiener Symphoniker) is an Austrian orchestra based in Vienna. Its primary concert venue is the Vienna Konzerthaus. In Vienna, the orchestra also performs at the Musikverein and at the Thea ...
, the
Berlin Philharmonic
The Berlin Philharmonic (german: Berliner Philharmoniker, links=no, italic=no) is a German orchestra based in Berlin. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and well-respected orchestras in the world.
History
The Berlin Philharmonic was fo ...
, with the conductors
Christoph von Dohnányi
Christoph von Dohnányi (; born 8 September 1929) is a German conducting, conductor.
Biography
Youth and World War II
Dohnányi was born in Berlin, Germany to Hans von Dohnanyi, a German jurist of Hungarian ancestry, and Christine von Dohnanyi ...
,
Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta (born 29 April 1936) is an Indian conductor of Western classical music. He is music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and conductor emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Mehta's father was the foun ...
,
Eugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy (born Jenő Blau; November 18, 1899 – March 12, 1985) was a Hungarian-born American conductor and violinist, best known for his association with the Philadelphia Orchestra, as its music director. His 44-year association wit ...
,
Herbert Blomstedt
Herbert Thorson Blomstedt (; born 11 July 1927) is a Swedish conductor.
Herbert Blomstedt was born in Massachusetts. Two years after his birth, his Swedish parents moved the family back to their country of origin. He studied at the Stockholm Ro ...
,
Stanisław Skrowaczewski
Stanislaw Pawel Stefan Jan Sebastian Skrowaczewski (; October 3, 1923 – February 21, 2017) was a Polish-American classical conductor and composer.
Biography
Skrowaczewski was born in Lwów, Second Polish Republic (now Lviv, Ukraine). His pa ...
,
Neeme Järvi
Neeme Järvi (; born 7 June 1937) is an Estonian American conductor.
Early life
Järvi was born in Tallinn. He initially studied music there, and later in Leningrad at the Leningrad Conservatory under Yevgeny Mravinsky, and Nikolai Rabinovich, ...
,
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (born Rafael Frühbeck; 15 September 1933 – 11 June 2014) was a Spanish conductor and composer. Frühbeck was born in Burgos, Spain to a family of German ancestry. He first took up conducting while on military serv ...
,
Georges Prêtre
Georges Prêtre (; 14 August 1924 – 4 January 2017) was a French orchestral and opera conductor.
Biography
Prêtre was born in Waziers (Nord), and attended the Douai Conservatory and then studied harmony under Maurice Duruflé and conducting ...
, Alain Lombard,
Michel Plasson
Michel Plasson (born 2 October 1933, Paris, France) is a French conductor.
Plasson was a student of Lazare Lévy at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1962, he was a prize-winner at the International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors. ...
,
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Johann Nikolaus Harnoncourt or historically Johann Nikolaus Graf de la Fontaine und d'Harnoncourt-Unverzagt; () (6 December 1929 – 5 March 2016) was an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music ...
,
Vladimir Fedosejev
Vladimir Ivanovich Fedoseyev ( rus, Владимир Иванович Федосе́ев, p=, links=no; born 5 August 1932, in Leningrad, Soviet Union) is a Soviet and Russian conductor, accordionist, teacher. People's Artist of the USSR (1980). ...
, and
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen (; born 30 June 1958) is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and music di ...
.
Maisenberg frequently appears with chamber orchestras such as the
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (founded 1972) is a classical music chamber orchestra based in New York City. They have won several Grammy Awards. The orchestra is known for its collaborative leadership style in which the musicians, not a cond ...
New York, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Wiener Virtuosen (members of the
Vienna Philharmonic
The Vienna Philharmonic (VPO; german: Wiener Philharmoniker, links=no) is an orchestra that was founded in 1842 and is considered to be one of the finest in the world.
The Vienna Philharmonic is based at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. It ...
), and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra.
He has devoted much of his time to
chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...
, collaborating with such artists as
Hermann Prey
Hermann Prey ( Berlin, 11 July 1929 – Krailling, 22 July 1998) was a German lyric baritone, who was equally at home in the Lied, operatic and concert repertoires. His American debut was in November 1952, with the Philadelphia Orchestra an ...
, Robert Holl,
Heinz Holliger
Heinz Robert Holliger (born 21 May 1939) is a Swiss virtuoso oboist, composer and conductor. Celebrated for his versatility and technique, Holliger is among the most prominent oboists of his generation. His repertoire includes Baroque and Classic ...
,
Sabine Meyer
Sabine Meyer (born 30 March 1959) is a German classical clarinetist.
Biography
Born in Crailsheim, Baden-Württemberg, Meyer began playing the clarinet at an early age. Her first teacher was her father, also a clarinetist. She studied with Otto ...
,
András Schiff
Sir András Schiff (; born 21 December 1953) is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist and conductor, who has received numerous major awards and honours, including the Grammy Award, Gramophone Award, Mozart Medal, and Royal Academy of Musi ...
, Renaud und Gautier Capuçon. His continuing collaboration with the violinist
Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer ( lv, Gidons Krēmers; born 27 February 1947) is a Latvian classical violinist, artistic director, and founder of Kremerata Baltica.
Life and career
Gidon Kremer was born in Riga. His father was Jewish and had survived the Holoc ...
commenced during his early years in Russia.
Maisenberg has appeared at most of the major festival venues in
Salzburg
Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872.
The town is on the site of the ...
, Vienna, Lockenhaus,
Lucerne
Lucerne ( , ; High Alemannic German, High Alemannic: ''Lozärn'') or Luzern ()Other languages: gsw, Lozärn, label=Lucerne German; it, Lucerna ; rm, Lucerna . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking po ...
, Berlin,
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
,
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
, Piano Festival Ruhr and Sviatoslav Richter Festival in Moscow, among others, and has performed as a recitalist throughout the world. His repertoire encompasses all stylistic epochs - his particular preference being the music of the 19th century.
Recordings
Maisenberg has participated in numerous recordings and TV productions including LPs and CDs with compositions by Schubert,
Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
,
Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
,
Rachmaninov
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of ...
,
Scriabin
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (; russian: Александр Николаевич Скрябин ; – ) was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. Before 1903, Scriabin was greatly influenced by the music of Frédéric Chopin and composed ...
,
Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
,
Berg Berg may refer to:
People
*Berg (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name)
*Berg Ng (born 1960), Hong Kong actor
* Berg (footballer) (born 1989), Brazilian footballer
Former states
*Berg (state), county and duchy of the Holy ...
,
Webern
Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and stead ...
,
Schönberg, and
Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud (; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as ''The Group of Six''—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions ...
have appeared under the Orfeo, Harmonia Mundi, Teldec and
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...
labels, and recordings in the field of chamber music have been released by ECM,
Preiser Records
Preiser Records is an independent Austrian record label. It was founded in 1952 by Otto G. Preiser (1920–1996).
The label is particularly important for recordings from the Viennese cabaret scene, especially from the 1950s and 1960s (Helmut Qua ...
and the Philips labels.
One unique event in Maisenberg's career was his 12 concert recital series at the
Wiener Konzerthaus
The Konzerthaus is a concert hall located in Vienna, Austria, which opened in 1913. It is situated in the third district just at the edge of the first district in Vienna. Since it was founded it has always tried to emphasise both traditional and ...
in the 1994/95 season in which each concert was dedicated to a different composer. A commemorative edition of five CDs, which include selections of these live performances, was issued by the Wiener Konzerthaus and more recently on the Glissando label.
Teaching and adjudication
Between 1985 and 1998, Oleg Maisenberg was Professor of Piano at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart. As of 2008 he is listed as a Professor in the Institute of Keyboard Instruments (''Tasteninstrumente'') at the
University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna
The University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, abbreviated MDW) is an Austrian university located in Vienna, established in 1817.
With a student body of over three thousa ...
.
Former students include
Till Fellner
Till Fellner (born 9 March 1972) is an Austrian pianist.
Biography
Till Fellner was born in Vienna and studied at the Konservatorium der Stadt Wien with Helene Sedo-Stadler, and subsequently with Alfred Brendel, Meira Farkas, Oleg Maisenberg ...
,
Moto Harada,
Hyung-ki Joo
Hyung-ki Joo () is a Korean-British pianist, composer, comedian and one half of the comedy-musical duo Igudesman & Joo. Billy Joel chose Joo to arrange and record his classical piano pieces for the album '' Fantasies & Delusions''. It was rec ...
and
Khatia Buniatishvili
Khatia Buniatishvili ( ka, ხატია ბუნიათიშვილი, ; born 21 June 1987) is a Georgian concert pianist.
Early life and education
Born in 1987 in Batumi, Georgia, Khatia Buniatishvili began studying piano under her ...
Honours
In April 1995 Oleg Maisenberg was awarded the title of "Honorary Member" of the Wiener Konzerthaus Society.
Federal Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art to Oleg Maisenberg in 2005.
[Oleg Maisenberg receives Cross of Honour for Science and Art]
- Federal Chancellery, Austria
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maisenberg, Oleg
1945 births
Living people
Austrian classical pianists
Male classical pianists
Gnessin State Musical College alumni
Musicians from Odesa
Soviet classical pianists
20th-century classical pianists
Jewish classical pianists
21st-century classical pianists
20th-century male musicians
21st-century male musicians
Jewish Ukrainian musicians
Odesa Jews
Ukrainian classical pianists