Isabelle Vengerova ( be, Ізабэла Венгерава; 7 February 1956) was a Russian, later American,

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, j ...

and

music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

. She was born Izabella Afanasyevna Vengerova (Изабелла Афанасьевна Венгерова) in

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative stat ...

(now in

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

) in the family of Pauline Vengerova and her husband Chonon. Her elder brother Semyon Vengerov was a venerable literary historian. She studied the

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a musica ...

at the

Vienna Conservatory Vienna Conservatory may refer to: *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 ...

with Josef Dachs, and privately with

Theodor Leschetizky Theodor Leschetizky (sometimes spelled Leschetitzky, pl, Teodor Leszetycki; 22 June 1830 – 14 November 1915 was an Austrian- Polish pianist, professor, and composer born in Landshut in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, then a crown land ...

; in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

she studied with

Anna Yesipova Anna Yesipova (born ''Anna Nikolayevna Yesipova'' '' russian: Анна Николаевна Есипова">/nowiki>russian: Анна Николаевна Есипова', — ) was a prominent Russian pianist. Her name is cited variously as ' ...

. In Vienna she was a good friend of

Arthur Schnitzler Arthur Schnitzler (15 May 1862 – 21 October 1931) was an Austrian author and dramatist. Biography Arthur Schnitzler was born at Praterstrasse 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, capital of the Austrian Empire (as of 1867, part of the dual monarch ...

. From 1906 to 1920 she taught at the Imperial Conservatory in St Petersburg and then toured the USSR and Western Europe from 1920 to 1923, when she settled in the USA. While still in St. Petersburg in 1910, she recorded three pieces on

Welte-Mignon M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach by Michael Welte (1807–1880) in 1832. Overview From 1832 until 1932, the firm produced mechanical mus ...

player piano A player piano (also known as a pianola) is a self-playing piano containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism, that operates the piano action via programmed music recorded on perforated paper or metallic rolls, with more modern i ...

music rolls. In 1924 she helped found the

Curtis Institute The Curtis Institute of Music is a private conservatory in Philadelphia. It offers a performance diploma, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music in opera, and a Professional Studies Certificate in opera. All students attend on full scholarship. H ...

and in 1933 joined the faculty of the Mannes College, teaching at both institutions until her death in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

in 1956. She made her debut with the

Detroit Symphony Orchestra The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) is an American orchestra based in Detroit, Michigan. Its primary performance venue is Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit's Midtown neighborhood. Jader Bignamini is the current musi ...

in 1925. Vengerova was also known for her painstaking attention to detail and for a psychological insight that brought out the best in each pupil. While she denied having a particular method, she drilled all students in techniques designed to achieve expressive playing and beautiful tone, keeping the fingers close to the keys for evenness and a seamless

legato In music performance and notation, legato (; Italian for "tied together"; French ''lié''; German ''gebunden'') indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, the player makes a transition from note to note w ...

; playing deeply in the keys while using the weight of the forearm and a flexible wrist to achieve a full singing tone without harshness, and controlling tone by higher or lower positions of the wrist. Among her pupils were Blanche Abram, Stanley Babin,

Samuel Barber Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. The music critic Donal Henahan said, "Proba ...

, Ralph Berkowitz,

Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...

, Anthony di Bonaventura,

Lukas Foss Lukas Foss (August 15, 1922 – February 1, 2009) was a German-American composer, pianist, and conductor. Career Born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922, Foss was soon recognized as a child prodigy. He began piano and theory lessons with Ju ...

Gary Graffman Gary Graffman (born October 14, 1928) is an American classical pianist, teacher and administrator. Early life Graffman was born in New York City to Russian-Jewish parents. Having started piano at age 3, Graffman entered the Curtis Institute of M ...

, Lilian Kallir,

Gilbert Kalish Gilbert Kalish (born July 2, 1935) is an American pianist. He was born in New York and studied with Leonard Shure, Julius Hereford and Isabelle Vengerova. He was a founding member of the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, a pioneering new music g ...

Jacob Lateiner Jacob Lateiner (March 31, 1928 – December 12, 2010) was a Cuban-American pianist. Early life and studies Though born on March 31, 1928, Lateiner's father did not get around to registering his birth until May 31 the same year. He was the br ...

Julien Musafia Julien Musafia (1925 – November 14, 2015) was an American pianist and musicologist. He was born in Bucharest, Romania, in 1925. After an adventurous escape from his native country, he moved to the United States in 1950, where he attended the Uni ...

Leonard Pennario Leonard Pennario (July 9, 1924 – June 27, 2008) was an American classical pianist and composer. He was born in Buffalo, New York, and grew up in Los Angeles, attending Los Angeles High School remaining in L.A. for his entire career. He fi ...

Menahem Pressler Menahem Pressler ( he, מנחם פרסלר; born 16 December 1923) is a German-born Israeli-American pianist. Pressler is Jewish. Following Kristallnacht, he and his immediate family fled Nazi Germany in 1939,

Carl Schachter Carl E. Schachter (born June 1, 1932"Carl E. Schachter," in "New Jersey, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1956-1964" on ''Ancestry.com'') is an American music theorist noted for his expertise in Schenkerian analysis. Born in Chicago, he attended Austin H ...

Abbey Simon Abbey Henry Simon (January 8, 1920 – December 18, 2019) was an American concert pianist, teacher, and recording artist. He was a protégé of Josef Hofmann at the Curtis Institute of Music and a winner of the Naumburg International Piano Com ...

Dimitri Tiomkin Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin (, ; May 10, 1894 – November 11, 1979) was a Russian-born American film composer and conductor. Classically trained in St. Petersburg, Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution, he moved to Berlin and then New York City ...

Ronald Turini Ronald Turini (born 30 September 1934) is a Canadian pianist, and the first Canadian artist to win a prize at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition, the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and the Geneva International Music Competition. E ...

, Leon Whitesell, and Sylvia Zaremba. Isabelle was the sister of

Zinaida Vengerova Zinaida Vengerova (April 19, 1867 – 1941) was a Russian literary critic and translator. She is considered one of the few women who were highly educated during her time, having studied in universities in Russia, France, and England. For her work ...

, a noted literary critic, and Semyon, a literary and intellectual historian. She was the maternal aunt and first teacher of

Nicolas Slonimsky Nicolas Slonimsky ( – December 25, 1995), born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy (russian: Никола́й Леони́дович Сло́нимский), was a Russian-born American conductor, author, pianist, composer and lexicographer. B ...

, who reports in his autobiography ''Perfect Pitch'' that as a young girl his aunt was kissed on the forehead by

Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...

.Slonimsky, Nicolas (1988). Perfect Pitch. A Life Story. London, England: Oxford University Press. p. 68. ISBN 0-19-315155-3

References

# R. Gerig. ''Famous Pianists and their Technique'' (Washington DC, 1974) # G. Graffman. ''I Really should be Practicing'' (New York, 1981) # R.D. Schick.
The Vengerova System of Piano Playing
' (University Park, PA, 1982) # J. Rezits. ''Beloved Tyranna: the Legend and Legacy of Isabelle Vengerova'' (Bloomington, IN, 1995) {{DEFAULTSORT:Vengerova, Isabelle 1877 births 1956 deaths Musicians from Minsk People from Minsky Uyezd Belarusian Jews Soviet emigrants to the United States American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent Jewish classical pianists Russian classical pianists Russian women pianists American classical pianists American women classical pianists Women music educators Pupils of Theodor Leschetizky Saint Petersburg Conservatory academic personnel American women academics