Pinchas Zukerman is 70 today. Tell that to Bella Davidovich. The formidable pianist has just turned 90.
Davidovich first attained international recognition through a shared first prize at the 1949 Warsaw Chopin Competition. This was the launch of a successful career that took her all over the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. She played with every major Soviet conductor. She was soloist with the Leningrad Philharmonic for 28 consecutive seasons.
In 1978, she emigrated from the USSR to the United States, where she became a naturalized American citizen. Prior to the move, she taught at the Moscow Conservatory for sixteen years. She has taught at the Juilliard School since 1982. Her son (with the late violinist Julian Sitkovetsky) is Dmitry Sitkovetsky.
I don’t think a month goes by without someone at the station playing one of her superlative Chopin recordings. We’ll sample her artistry – though not to the neglect of Zukerman – today between 4 and 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Davidovich plays Chopin’s Grande valse brillante:
And the Scherzo No. 2:
