Flier, Yakov Vladimirovich

Jacob Flier was born in the town of Orekhovo-Zuyevo near Moscow in the Jewish family of a large watchmaker Vladimir Mikhailovich Flier (1867-1937) and Elizabeth Lazarevna Flier (1871-1942) ^[1] .

Until 1923 he was engaged in the piano playing with S. N. Korsakov. Since 1923 he lived in Moscow.

In 1934 he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in piano and graduate school with her (1937) under the direction of K. N. Igumnov .

Since 1935 he led an active concert activity, performed in many cities of the country as a soloist of the Moscow Philharmonic .

In 1936, he won the international competition in Vienna , ahead of the second-place winner E. G. Gilels . In 1938, at the International Piano Competition. E. Izai in Brussels took third place, losing to E. G. Gilels.

In 1949, due to hand illness, he stopped his solo concert activity, limiting himself to playing in chamber ensembles, but in 1959 he resumed performances ^[2] .

In 1960-1970 he toured abroad: in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Japan, England, France, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, USA, Italy, Poland, Greece, Iceland, Germany, Holland.

Since 1937 he taught at the Moscow Conservatory, since 1945 - professor, since 1965 - head of the piano department.

He died on December 18, 1977 in Moscow. He was buried at Kuntsevsky cemetery .

Family

• Son - Andrei Flier (born 1950), a culturologist .

He was considered one of the best Soviet pianists, but he devoted most of his time to teaching and until 1962 did not perform abroad, which is why he remained in the shadow of Svyatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels almost all the time.

According to contemporaries, he was a virtuoso pianist with a noble romantic sound. The basis of his repertoire was composed by romantic composers - R. Schumann , f. Chopin , F. Liszt , S.V. Rachmaninov , however, he also performed the works of some modern authors, for example, D. B. Kabalevsky . Among the few records of the pianist is a concert for piano and orchestra by A.I. Khachaturian, conducted by the author.

It was of great importance as a teacher. When working with students, he paid great attention to sound quality and the development of the student’s own view of a work. Over the years, Lev Vlasenko , Bella Davidovich , Irina Zaritskaya, Victoria Postnikova , Mikhail Pletnev , Sergey Musaelyan , Vladimir Feltsman , Rodion Shchedrin , Mark Zeltser , Nina Kogan, Nedda Ayazyan and other famous pianists studied in his class.

• 1st prize at the 2nd All-Union competition of musicians in Leningrad (1935)
• 1st prize at the International Piano Competition in Vienna (1936)
• 3rd prize at the International Piano Competition. E. Izai in Brussels (1938)
• Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1947) ^[3]
• People's Artist of the RSFSR (1962)
• People's Artist of the USSR ( 1966 )
• Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1946)
• Two orders of the Badge of Honor (1937, 1954)
• 1 order
• Medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."
• Medals.

• 1940 - Land of Youth (short)
• 1941 - 1941 film concert - in the piano duet with Emil Gilels perform Navarra by I. Albenis
• 2007 - “ Jacob Flier. Knight of Romanticism ”- a documentary, 2007, 52 min., Director Nikita Tikhonov

The following are named after the pianist:

• street and children's art school in Orekhovo-Zuevo, next to which in 2012 a monument was erected
• children's music school in Moscow on Marshal Novikov street .

• Jacob Flier. Articles, memories, interviews. Compiled by E. B. Dolinskaya, M. M. Yakovlev. M .: Sov. composer, 1983.
• Tsypin G.M. Ya. V. Flier. M .: Music, 1972.
• Chernikov O. Royal and voices of the great. Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 2011 .-- 224 pp. ISBN 978-5-222-17864-5

• Chernikov O. Knight of Romanticism. Magazine " Music and Time ". 2001. No. 6.
• Jacob Flier. To the 100th anniversary of his birth. Collection. M.: Piano Art Development Fund. Ya. V. Flier, Moscow Institute of Music named after A. G. Schnittke, Moscow State Conservatory named after P.I. Tchaikovsky. Compiled by E. B. Dolinskaya and others. ed. E. B. Dolinskaya. 2012 .-- 326 p. ISBN 978-5-4254-0051-2

Sections (articles) devoted to J. Flier can be found in the books:

• Tsypin G.M. Portraits of Soviet pianists. M .: Sov. composer, 1990
• Vitsinsky A.V. Conversations with pianists. M .; Classic - XXI, 2004.
• The brochure “E. Gilels, J. Flier. Towards the Results of the International Piano Competition in Brussels ”, published in Rostov-on-Don in 1938. This is a reprint of essays from Literaturnaya Gazeta and Izvestia essays on pianists of journalists K. Gollar, E. Krieger and T. Tess .

• Jacob Flier on the Allmusic website
• Jacob Flier on the site Orekhovo-Zuevo