Maria Yudina was born to a Jewish family in Nevel, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire.
11 Facts About Maria Yudina
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Maria Yudina was the fourth child of Veniamin Yudin, a renowned physiologist and forensic expert, and his first wife, Raisa Yakovlevna Yudina.
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In 1936, on Heinrich Neuhaus's suggestion, Maria Yudina joined the piano faculty of the Moscow Conservatory, where she taught until 1951.
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From 1944 to 1960 Maria Yudina taught chamber ensemble and vocal class at the Gnessin Institute.
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In 1960 Maria Yudina was fired from the Gnessin Institute because of her religious attitudes and advocacy of modern Western music.
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Maria Yudina continued to perform in public, but her recitals were forbidden to be recorded.
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Maria Yudina's playing was marked by great virtuosity, spirituality, strength and intellectual rigor, with a highly idiosyncratic style and tone.
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Maria Yudina was immensely talented and a keen advocate of the music of her own time: she played Stravinsky, whom she adored, Hindemith, Krenek and Bartok at a time when these composers were not only unknown in the Soviet Union but effectively banned.
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Maria Yudina was portrayed as a character in Aleksei Losev's novel Woman as Thinker.
10.
Maria Yudina was offended by the book and ended their friendship in 1934.
11.
Maria Yudina appears in the French graphic novel La mort de Staline, which retells the concerto story from Solomon Volkov's book Testimony and fictitiously portrays her writing a castigating letter to Stalin that prompts his death.