Brailovsky, Alexander Petrovich

Brailovsky was born in Kiev into a Jewish family (some sources, however, speak of Polish origin). In 1907, he began to study music with Vladimir Pukhalsky . Father, the owner of a small music shop in Podil , giving the boy the first lessons in playing the piano, soon felt that his son was really very talented, and in 1911 he took him to Vienna, to the famous Theodore Leshetitsky . Alexander studied with him for three years, and when the world war broke out , the family moved to neutral Switzerland ; later in 1926, Brailovsky will assume French citizenship. Ferruccio Busoni became the new teacher, completing the “polishing” of his talent.

In 1919, Brailovsky made his debut in Paris and caused such a sensation with his virtuosity that contracts literally fell on all sides. One of the invitations was, however, unusual: it came from a passionate music lover and amateur violinist Queen of Belgium Elizabeth , with whom he has often played music since then.

His first recordings were made in Berlin from 1928 to 1934 (78 records). In 1938, he recorded in London for the HMV. Later records were recorded on RCA Victor, and the most recent in the 1960s were recorded on CBS. In addition to his beloved Chopin, Brailovsky also included in his repertoire Rachmaninoff , Saint-Saens , Liszt , Debussy and others.

It took the artist just a few years to gain world fame. In 1924 in Paris, Brailovsky played the first ever concert exclusively from the works of Chopin, using the piano belonging to the composer for part of his solo performances. Later he traveled with concerts around the world, visiting New York in 1938, then Paris , Brussels , Zurich , Mexico City , Buenos Aires and Montevideo . So he became the first European pianist to “discover” South America - no one had played so much before him. Once in Buenos Aires alone, he gave 17 concerts in two months! In many provincial cities of Argentina and Brazil, special trains were introduced that brought people who wanted to listen to Brailovsky to the concert and back.

In 1960, he decided to repeat concerts in Brussels and Paris.

The triumphs of Brailovsky were associated, first of all, with the names of Chopin and Liszt. Leshetitsky instilled in him love for them, and he carried it through his whole life.

In 1961, when the artist, whitened by gray hair, toured for the first time in the USSR, Muscovites and Leningrad residents were able to verify the truth of these words and try to solve the “Brailovsky riddle”. The artist appeared before them in excellent professional form and in his crown repertoire: he played Chacon Bach - Busoni, Scarlatti's Sonatas, Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words, Prokofiev’s Third Symphony, Liszt Sonata in B Minor and, of course, many pieces by Chopin, and with the orchestra - concerts of Mozart (in A Major), Chopin ( in E minor ) and Rachmaninov ( in C minor ). The audience appreciated the artist’s enormous professional skill, the “strength” of his play, sometimes its inherent brilliance and charm, and undoubted sincerity. All this made a meeting with Brailovsky a memorable event in musical life.

Subsequently, he almost stopped speaking to the public and recording on records. His last recordings - Chopin's First Concert and Liszt's Dance of Death - made in the early 1960s, confirm that the pianist did not lose his inherent qualities until the end of his professional career.

Alexander Brailovsky died in New York at the age of 80 from pneumonia .

• Brailovsky Alexander // Grigoryev L., Platek J. Modern pianists. - Moscow: Soviet composer, 1990.
• Don Michael Randel. The Harvard concise dictionary of music and musicians . - Harvard University Press, 1999. - S. 88. - ISBN 978-0-674-00084-1 . (eng.)

• Russian abroad in France. 1919-2000 : biogr. dictionary: in 3 t. / under. total ed. L. Mnukhina, M. Avril, V. Lossky. - Science: House-Museum of Marina Tsvetaeva
• Interview with Felicia Karzmar Brailowsky, ca. 1982