14 Facts About Lazar Berman

Lazar Naumovich Berman was a Soviet Russian classical pianist, Honoured Artist of the RSFSR.

Lazar Berman was hailed for a huge, thunderous technique that made him a thrilling interpreter of Liszt and Rachmaninoff and a late representative of the grand school of Russian Romantic pianism.

Lazar Berman introduced her son to the piano at the age of two.

Lazar Berman entered his first competition at the age of three, and recorded a Mozart fantasia and a mazurka that he had composed himself at the age of seven, before he could even read music.

Lazar Berman was first noticed while participating in city young talents competition.

In 1939 when Lazar Berman was nine, the family moved to Moscow so that he could study with Aleksandr Goldenweiser, first at Central Musical School, and then at the Moscow Conservatory, where he graduated in 1953.

From 1959 to 1971 Lazar Berman was not allowed to travel abroad due to his marriage to a French national ; however, he continued to tour around Soviet Union, and did some recordings at Melodia studio, including Liszt's Transcendental Etudes.

Lazar Berman lived in a tiny two-room apartment in Moscow, with a grand piano occupying an entire room.

Lazar Berman recorded the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto with Herbert von Karajan, as well as broadcasting it on international television with Antal Dorati, to mark United Nations Day in 1976.

Lazar Berman's playing of Chopin is well documented, in both a concert film and a Deutsche Grammophon recording of the polonaises from the 1970s.

In 1980, at the height of his popularity, Lazar Berman again was barred from leaving the Soviet Union.

Lazar Berman often performed along with his son, violinist Pavel Berman.

Lazar Berman died in 2005, survived by his second wife, Valentina Sedova, a pianist, and their son, talented violinist and conductor Pavel Lazar Berman.

Lazar Berman is buried at the Cimitero delle Porte Sante in Florence.