Rosina Lhevinne papers

1871-1976

Rosina Lhevinne was born in Kiev on March 28, 1880, the second child of Jacques and Maria (Katch) Bessie. Her father, a Dutch merchant, moved his family to Moscow in 1881. At the age of six Rosina began piano lessons, and three years later she entered the Moscow Conservatory as a student of S. M. Remesov. When illness briefly interrupted Remesov's instruction, Rosina took lessons from the Conservatory's star pupil, fourteen-year-old Josef Lhevinne. In 1892 Josef graduated with a gold medal and Rosina began to study with his teacher, Vassili Safonoff. Josef's continued contact with the Bessie family led to a romance with their younger daughter. He and Rosina were married in 1898, the year that she, too, graduated with the Moscow Conservatory's gold medal.

Despite her obvious gifts, Rosina did not pursue a concert career. Instead, she accompanied her husband to Tiflis (Tbilisi), where he accepted a position at the local conservatory. After two years, the Lhevinnes moved to Berlin in order to advance Josef's performing career. During a short trip to Paris, Rosina made her concert debut, playing Arensky's four-hand Suite no. 2 with Josef. In 1902 the Lhevinnes returned to Moscow, where Josef taught at his alma mater while continuing to fulfill concert engagements. Although Rosina's principal occupation was Josef's career, in December of that year she performed Henselt's F-minor Concerto with Arthur Nikisch conducting. The following autumn she began teaching piano at a girls' finishing school.

In 1906 Josef made his first concert tour of the United States. The following year, the Lhevinnes moved to Paris, where their son Constantine was born. Rosina accompanied Josef on his second American tour, during which they performed two joint recitals, and Rosina herself presented a solo program. After a third American tour, Josef moved his family back to Berlin, where he continued to teach and concertize. In his absence, Rosina assumed his teaching duties and played an occasional solo recital. During World War I, the Lhevinnes, still Russian citizens, were placed under house arrest by the German government. In 1918, their daughter Marianna was born, and the following year the family left Germany to live in the United States.

The Lhevinnes settled in New York City, where they immediately attracted new students. In addition, Josef pursued his concert career, sometimes sharing the stage with Rosina, and he joined the summer faculty of the American Conservatory in Chicago. When the Juilliard Graduate School was founded in 1924, Josef became its first faculty member, with Rosina again taking charge of his students while he toured. The Lhevinnes continued their joint recital appearances, and Rosina began to perform more frequently on her own. In the summer of 1930 she was invited to teach at the Austro-American Conservatory in Mondsee, and in 1933 both Lhevinnes began giving summer master classes in Maine. In 1935 they made their only recordings together, of Debussy's "Fêtes" and Mozart's Sonata in D Major for two pianos.

For the remainder of Josef's life, he and Rosina taught and performed almost exclusively as a team. In addition to their Juilliard duties, they joined the summer faculties of the University of Colorado and the Lamont Music School (Denver), where their students included the nine-year-old John Browning. In 1939 they celebrated the fortieth anniversary of their debut as duo pianists with a gala concert. On the same program, Rosina performed a solo concerto for only the second time since her marriage. Later that year, she received an honorary doctorate from the Lamont School. The Lhevinnes gave their last concert on May 10, 1944, and seven months later Josef suffered a fatal heart attack.

After the death of her husband, Rosina was appointed to succeed him at Juilliard. At first unsure of her ability to teach without his counsel, she soon became the unofficial leader of the school's piano department. She accepted summer faculty appointments, first at the Los Angeles Conservatory, where she would receive an honorary doctorate in 1960, and later at the Aspen Music Festival, and the University of California at both Berkeley and Los Angeles. Rosina's return to the concert stage came on November 17, 1947, when she played the Mozart Triple Concerto with Vronsky and Babin. She continued to perform throughout the 1950s and 60s, and celebrated her eightieth birthday by playing another Mozart concerto with the New York Philharmonic. Three years later, her performance of the Chopin E-minor Concerto with that orchestra was broadcast nationwide.

By the mid-1950s, Rosina Lhevinne had secured her position as the dean of American piano teachers. Two of her students, John Browning and Van Cliburn, won the prestigious Leventritt Competition, and in 1956 Browning took first prize in the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Competition. The most celebrated victory by a Lhevinne pupil occurred in 1958, at the height of the Cold War, when Van Cliburn won the First International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Many other students, including Misha Dichter, James Levine, and Garrick Ohlsson, have enjoyed distinguished musical careers. In 1964 a film, Madame Rosina Lhevinne: Pianist and Master Teacher, documented her pedagogical method. She died on November 9, 1976, shortly after retiring from the faculty of the Juilliard School at the age of ninety-six.