99 Facts About Leo Sirota

Leo Grigoryevich Sirota was a Russian, Austrian, Japanese, and American pianist, teacher, and conductor.

Leo Sirota became one of Busoni's favorite pupils and was later treated by him as a colleague.

Leo Sirota met and befriended Jascha Horenstein during this period, eventually marrying his sister.

The enthusiasm of the Japanese public and press was so immense, that Leo Sirota decided to move to Tokyo with his family in 1930.

Leo Sirota joined the faculty of the Tokyo Music School and became the crucial figure in the development of piano playing in Japan.

Leo Sirota returned to musical life after the war, emigrating to the United States, which became his final home.

In late 1963, Leo Sirota returned to Japan for what became his final performances there; the trip was widely reported on in the Japanese press.

Sources conflict on where Leo Sirota was born in the Russian Empire.

Leo Sirota's daughter, Beate, said he was born in Kiev, Kiev Governorate.

Leo Sirota's siblings were all musically inclined, including his two brothers; Wiktor became a conductor of operettas, Pyotr a music agent and promoter.

Leo Sirota began studying piano at age 5 with a pianist who was boarding with his family, Michael Wexler.

In 1899, Leo Sirota was appointed a repetiteur for the Kiev Civic Opera, where he accompanied visiting singers in recitals, including Feodor Chaliapin.

The rise of anti-Semitic violence in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century convinced Leo Sirota to consider emigration.

Leo Sirota's brothers had already emigrated to Warsaw and Paris.

Leo Sirota auditioned for Busoni after and chose him as a teacher.

In 1905, Leo Sirota entered the Anton Rubinstein Competition in Paris, but failed to win a prize.

Leo Sirota decided not to return to live in Russia after the competition and, instead, settle in Vienna.

Leo Sirota dedicated a copy of his Elegies to him after hearing him perform Franz Liszt's Reminiscences de Don Juan.

Leo Sirota was proud that Busoni had referred to him as a "colleague" in the inscription.

In 1910, Leo Sirota won Busoni's permission to perform the Viennese premiere of his Piano Concerto at a concert with the Tonkunstler Orchestra.

Leo Sirota later recalled his anticipation for he concert he regarded as his "true debut":.

Leo Sirota revealed to me ideas he had been thinking over.

Leo Sirota has awesome technique, a soft key touch, unbelievably sustained [phrasing], and great affection for the musical works he played.

Leo Sirota gave them very brief advice with new approaches to various styles and interpretations.

Leo Sirota praised Busoni's generosity with gifted students with limited financial means, whom he would teach without charge.

Later in 1910, Leo Sirota returned to Russia to participate in the Anton Rubinstein Competition, which was being held in St Petersburg that year.

Exceptions were made for those who, like Leo Sirota, had earned the title of "Free Artist" upon completion of their studies in Russia.

Hoehn was awarded the first prize; Leo Sirota did not place among the winners.

Leo Sirota was permitted to perform in public during the war, despite being the citizen of an enemy nation.

Leo Sirota was so moved by Sirota's performance and appearance that she forgot to applaud.

Leo Sirota was unhappy with the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy in Austria.

In spite of these and other postwar difficulties, Leo Sirota made a successful return to an international performing career.

Leo Sirota made use of his experience as a repetiteur and facility with modern music during summer 1919, when Lotte Lehmann asked him to help her prepare the role of the Dyer's Wife in Richard Strauss' new opera Die Frau ohne Schatten:.

Leo Sirota finally agreed to a divorce, leaving her son in the custody of her husband.

In 1921, Leo Sirota was invited to Berlin by Serge Koussevitzky to play concertos by Anton Rubinstein and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Leo Sirota was one of the first to recognize the importance of Schoenberg and Bartok, and invariably included works by these and other contemporaries in his annual concerts in Berlin.

Leo Sirota was so vitally concerned with young artists that he set aside daily periods in which he was available for consultation, advice, and encouragement.

Leo Sirota himself performed new music and, together with his friend Eduard Steuermann, regularly performed Schoenberg's piano works.

The tour concluded in Vladivostok, from where Leo Sirota embarked on a solo tour of Manchuria.

The circumstances of how Leo Sirota made an unscheduled trip to Japan from Manchuria are disputed.

Yamada recalled that upon arriving in Harbin, Leo Sirota sent him a letter saying he intended to visit Japan.

Thereafter Leo Sirota notified Yamada of his itinerary through Keijo, Fuzan, and Shimonoseki, until he was ready to be picked up at Tokyo Station.

For [Leo Sirota] there is no technical difficulty whatsoever; on his keyboard nothing is impossible.

Leo Sirota's advent is truly summed up in a single word: "marvelous".

Leo Sirota described to them his feelings on seeing Mount Fuji, whose shape he depicted with his hands, for the first time through his train window.

Leo Sirota informed his family that Yamada had offered him a teaching position at the Tokyo Music School with enough flexibility to schedule concerts as he pleased.

Leo Sirota began to discuss with his wife the possibility of moving permanently to Japan.

Economic and political problems at home led Gisa to suggest that Leo Sirota engage on a second concert tour of the Far East, this time for six months.

Leo Sirota had held the position since 1925 and had become the leading piano teacher in Japan.

Leo Sirota was the most popular pianist in Japan during the period before the Pacific War.

Leo Sirota performed and taught in major cities as well as rural areas, putting special effort into the latter as Western classical music was rarely heard live there.

Leo Sirota often performed as a soloist and chamber music partner for the radio.

Leo Sirota's fame was such that one of his concerts was referenced in the first installment of Tanizaki Jun'ichiro's The Makioka Sisters.

Leo Sirota lived comfortably in Japan and integrated into its society.

Leo Sirota was relieved that anti-Semitism was a very fringe notion in early 1930s Japan, stating to Polish journalists that it had "absolutely no Jewish issue".

Leo Sirota himself commented to the European press that Japan was "generous" to its Jewish residents and that the country "would never discriminate against them or restrict their freedom".

In spite of these and the goodwill Leo Sirota had developed, he and his family came under scrutiny.

Leo Sirota was given low marks at the end of the school year in 1936 because she had been overheard to have said that the Saarland should have remained a League of Nations mandate, instead of being returned to Germany.

Leo Sirota transferred her to the American School in Nakameguro the following school year.

Leo Sirota obtained permission for her to do so with great difficulty; he was assisted by Hirota and Joseph Clark Grew, both of whom were personal friends.

Leo Sirota discovered that a former pupil who had by then become a diplomat for Czechoslovakia was on board.

Leo Sirota later told the San Francisco Examiner that he did it:.

Leo Sirota explained that he felt he had to honor his obligations to the Tokyo School of Music and his students.

Leo Sirota then addressed the growing tensions between the United States and Japan, said that neither of its peoples wanted to wage war against the other, and affirmed his belief that war would not happen.

Leo Sirota, who was still aboard the Taiyo Maru at the time, was left stateless.

Leo Sirota maintained a busy performing and teaching schedule, playing in public until January 1944, when he appeared on the same Japan Symphony Orchestra program as harpsichordist Eta Harich-Schneider.

Leo Sirota had a summer house there, but it was not well-equipped for the winter.

Leo Sirota explained to a reporter for the St Louis Globe-Democrat in 1947:.

Leo Sirota did this despite his wife's concerns that he could injure his hands.

Leo Sirota recalled one such episode in a 1954 interview with Theatre Arts:.

Leo Sirota's students provided him with supplies throughout the war.

That day coincided with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima; a Swiss diplomat privately disclosed the news to Leo Sirota, adding that the end of the war was imminent.

On November 17,1945, Leo Sirota performed his first postwar concert: a program of music by Busoni, Franz Liszt, and Carl Maria von Weber, conducted by Joseph Rosenstock.

Hecht arranged for Leo Sirota to perform a recital at the base he was stationed at in Kumagaya.

Pringsheim, who lobbied for Leo Sirota to be rehired by the school, became entangled in administrative politics.

Leo Sirota was eventually approached with an offer for reinstatement by the school's new director, but he declined.

Leo Sirota felt betrayed by actions taken against him during the war.

News reports emerged in January 1946 that Leo Sirota was preparing to move to the United States.

Leo Sirota played his New York debut at Carnegie Hall on April 15,1947.

Leo Sirota, who had not yet obtained an apartment of his own, practiced several hours a day on pianos at the homes of friends.

Olin Downes of the New York Times admonished Leo Sirota for choosing an ambitious program that he felt delivered "insufficient results".

Leo Sirota played them diabolically, at tremendous speed and in the grand manner.

Leo Sirota's public elicited repeated ovations from the audience, but the reaction from critics was muted.

Leo Sirota commanded a powerful tone, employed a wide range of dynamics, and made a free use of the sustaining and the damper pedals in obtaining coloristic effects.

Leo Sirota settled down comfortably in St Louis, where he kept a balance of teaching and concertizing that was agreeable to him.

Leo Sirota, who had long been a devotee of the sport, expressed his enthusiasm passionately; he jumped and screamed atop the bleachers, which amused Horenstein.

In 1964, Leo Sirota attended the American premiere of Busoni's Doktor Faust, which was produced by New York Opera and conducted by Horenstein.

Leo Sirota expressed the desire to revisit Japan several times during the 1950s and 1960s, including to Kaneko when she visited St Louis in December 1961.

Leo Sirota proposed the idea of a Sirota concert to impresarios in Japan, but was rejected; one dismissed him as a "man of the past".

Leo Sirota accepted the offer and made preparations for a three-week visit scheduled for the end of 1963.

Leo Sirota sent a message back to his friends in Japan soon after the call, wherein he assured them that he was looking forward to his trip back to "a place of happy memories".

Leo Sirota played music by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Chopin, Stravinsky, Yamada, and Samuel Barber.

Leo Sirota's playing was characterized by absolute clarity and his extremely delicate touch.

Leo Sirota's program avoided showiness and excessive gorgeousness, but it revealed the artistic wisdom of old age.

Leo Sirota said that he was proud that young pianists in Japan had reached a level of skill equal to their peers anywhere else in the world and noted that the enrichment of musical culture was comparable to that of the United States.

When Leo Sirota returned to the United States, he told the press the trip had been like a "wonderful dream", and that "every hour of every day" he was constantly occupied.

Leo Sirota's daughter believed the concerts and journey had allowed him to "make his peace with Japan".

Leo Sirota performed his final recital in St Louis in June 1964.

Leo Sirota is buried next to his wife at Ferncliff Cemetery.