Today, August 18 2021, is the 125th anniversary of Jascha Spivakovsky’s birth. Unfortunately current global circumstances scuttled the varied plans that I had been brainstorming with the pianist’s son and grandson over the last year or more, and even our most recent remote plans got derailed due to the current lockdown in Melbourne and some technological hurdles. Until such a time that we can give this pianist the anniversary celebration he deserves, here are a few YouTube uploads together some past features in honour of this great artist.

I first encountered Spivakovsky’s playing when my friend and colleague James Irsay contacted me while I was in Tokyo and said I absolutely had to hear this CD that had been issued on the Pristine Classical label. Sure enough, I was instantly transfixed. It wasn’t long before I was in touch with the family, and within a year I was in Melbourne visiting the family to look through the archive and discuss future plans. Only two CDs had been issued by that point, and now there are eleven. During my visit I filmed this tour of the music room in which many of Spivakovsky’s home recordings were produced, with his son showing his father’s pianos and how these recordings had been made:

Irsay and I devoted some significant air time to the great artist, among them this 2017 broadcast on his Morning Irsay programme out of New York:

Gary Lemco in California is also a devoted fan of Spivakovsky’s playing and he invited me to join him as a guest on his weekly Music Treasury broadcast out of Stanford to make a programme dedicated to Jascha’s artistry:

I was commissioned to produce the booklet texts for all of the releases going forward, and produced a more detailed printed feature about the artist [click here].

Hopes for a concert or other celebrations in this anniversary year fell by the wayside due to Covid, and current lockdowns in Melbourne not only restricted access to some more archival material but made even a Zoom or podcast recording an impossibility – just a few days ago I got on a digital call with Jascha’s son Michael but the connection was so poor that neither the audio nor video would allow it to be shared.

So, for Jascha’s 125th birthday I have made three uploads: one each of solo, chamber, and concerto repertoire, one from the first issued CD, one from the last, and the other completely unreleased. Rest assured that more commemoration of this artist will be forthcoming!

One of the first performances I heard of the pianist, from the first CD issued by Pristine, was his 1967 home recording of Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata, and it is still one of my favourites and continues to amaze me. It seems almost inconceivable that Spivakovsky should have been aged 70 at the time of this reading, the first movement being taken at a remarkably brisk tempo yet played with tremendous accuracy, clarity, and rhythmic certainty. Spivakovsky uses minimal pedal (he seems almost not to be using it at all) and his articulation is incredibly clean and even, each and every note sounding clear while his exquisitely shaped phrasing highlights key musical motifs.

In the second movement, transparent voicing reveals the composer’s rich harmonic textures while polished phrasing projects melodic lines with tremendous lucidity. Particularly impressive are the pauses between phrases: the silence never leads to a loss of musical structure or tension but in fact adds to it.

In the final movement, attentive pedalling (as per Beethoven’s markings in the score) creates a haze around the main melody while the undulating left hand accompaniment is still clearly defined. Structure is revealed with uncanny transparency through the use of skilled articulation and phrasing, enabling multiple motifs to be underlined at the same time, each phrase singing while specific notes are accented without breaking the line.

An absolutely jaw-dropping performance!

From the final CD in the series we have Spivakovsky in a January 1961 concert performance of the Bach-Busoni Concerto in D Minor BWV 1052 with the Astra String Orchestra (a local ladies’ ensemble) under the direction of George Logie-Smith. This concert took place the same week as Jascha’s release from hospital after a medical emergency and just a few days after a broadcast performance of the Beethoven G Major Concerto.

Despite his poor physical health at the time, Spivakovsky rose to the occasion magnificently, as can be heard by his tremendously vivacious playing. Particularly remarkable are the scintillating cadenzas, which are very much in the spirit of Bach’s time. However, he certainly does not replicate the kind of performance one might expect to hear on a harpsichord, instead taking full advantage of the expressive means of the piano with his fluid phrasing, sumptuous tonal colours, and skillful use of dynamic gradations. This is a truly vibrant interpretation that highlights the composer’s brilliant use of counterpoint and beautiful melodic content.

Spivakovsky was one of the few to play the Busoni version of this concerto at the time: others included Alexander Borowsky, Egon Petri, and (one of Jascha’s preferred pianists) Dinu Lipatti.

As a special treat for Spivakovsky’s birthday, here is an unpublished rarity: a 1963 live performance of the Tchaikovsky Trio featuring Spivakovsky together with two members of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Although he had been in an internationally acclaimed trio with his violinist brother Tossy Spivakovsky and cellist Edmund Kurtz in the 1920s and 30s, no recordings exist of this celebrated chamber group, and beyond some short pieces recorded for Parlophone in the 1920s, no recordings have been issued of Jascha playing with Tossy (some more substantial offerings exist and will hopefully be issued in the future). As such, this is a rare opportunity to hear Jascha Spivakovsky in a major chamber work and in modern recorded sound.

Spivakovsky had been asked to perform for the Soirées Musicales series in Melbourne with two members of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 1963. Due to some struggles that his chamber partners had with the music that was new to them, Spivakovsky insisted on some long practice sessions, one day being 14 hours of rehearsal, and he needed to occasionally adopt some slower tempi to accommodate their somewhat taxed capabilities.

While this unissued, unmastered recording is not a reference reading of Spivakovsky’s ideal vision of this work, with some occasional intonation issues in the strings and the aforementioned slower pacing at points, there is still much to appreciate in this performance. As always, Spivakovsky plays with a gorgeous tonal palette, elegant phrasing, masterful weighting of chords and balance between hands, and exquisite dynamic control.

Many thanks to Michael and Eden Spivakovsky for making this recording available for sharing on the pianist’s 125th birthday. Hopefully before too long there will be some more opportunities to present even more terrific material by this superb pianist.