From Australia’s Jewish past

Jascha Spivakovsky – Russian Empire-born Australian piano virtuoso of the 20th century

Jascha was born on 18 August 1896 at Smela, near Kiev, Russia (Ukraine). He was the fifth of nine children of David, a synagogue cantor, and his wife, Rahel.

The family descended from generations of musicians. Jascha demonstrated musical ability at a very early age and began learning the piano at the age of three.

In 1905, Jascha was almost murdered when a racist mob massacred the Odessa Jewish community in the Pogrom.  When this mob stormed their apartment block and murdered the ground-floor tenant, the Spivakovsky family climbed onto the roof, where they could see Cossack Imperial Guards approaching on horseback. Instead of quelling the violence, the guards opened fire on them, and a desperate shove from his sister saved Jascha by a split second from a bullet aimed at his head. The family tumbled down a fire-escape and hid under straw in the basement of their Polish Catholic landlord for five days. When they emerged, they found all their belongings had been looted and the grand piano thrown from their fifth-floor balcony and smashed to pieces.  Following this most traumatic experience, the family fled to Berlin, and the young pianist was admitted to the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatorium.  The family survived the pogrom and later moved to Germany.

Jascha studied in Berlin with Professor Moritz Mayer-Mahr at the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatorium.  His career as a concert performer blossomed with concerts in Odessa, and he was widely celebrated as a child prodigy.  It was reported that a few of the local community felt his astonishing musical gifts must be the product of witchcraft.  After one sold-out concert, he was presented with a grand piano by the wife of the Governor of Odessa.  In 1910, at the age of thirteen, he outclassed an adult field to win the coveted Bluethner Prize, for which he was awarded a gold-engraved piano that he kept his entire life, and is still in the family’s collection today.  Blüthner has been manufacturing the finest pianos in the world for the last 170 years. Since 1853, the family-owned company has been exclusively manufacturing pianos in Leipzig, Germany.

Jascha gave concerts to support his now penniless family and save money for them to move to a safer country. In 1906, he played again for Josef Casimir Hofmann, a Polish-American composer, music teacher, and inventor, who noted the “remarkable ability of this young pianist in the use of pedal.”  The following year, he played to a packed house at the Odessa City Theatre, and the Odessa News Section published an article praising the amazing talent of this nine-year-old pianist.

Unfortunately, at the time of World War I, Jascha and members of his family were interned as enemy aliens.  Following the war, he presented a series of concerts in Berlin, tracing the historical development of the concerto from Bach to Brahms.  His performances were so successful that he became one of Europe’s foremost pianists. By 1920, he was appearing as a soloist with leading orchestras in Europe, Scandinavia, and Britain. He and his brother Nathan (‘Tossy’), a violin prodigy, formed the Spivakovsky Duo and gave recitals of the violin and piano repertoire across Europe.  Jascha made two triumphant Australasian tours in 1921 and 1929, performing demanding programs.  He had made a huge impression in 1922 when he made Australia’s first live broadcast of a musical performance.  He was mobbed by appreciative crowds, and his stately Melbourne home became a hub for visiting musicians.  He married in 1926, in Krantz, Czechoslovakia, having met his wife in Adelaide.  The couple had a daughter and two sons.

In 1930, Jascha, his brother Tossy, and the cellist Edmund Kurtz established the Spivakovsky-Kurtz Trio, a highly regarded ensemble renowned for its flawless musicianship. The trio left Germany to tour Australia in 1933, shortly before Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor.  Jascha and his family settled in Melbourne, and he joined the staff of the University of Melbourne Conservatorium.  He introduced new methods of teaching, including master classes and performed regularly on the radio for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Jascha put his career on hold for the next twelve years, working tirelessly to help people, including family members, desperate to escape from Germany and to aid the war effort.

Meanwhile, the Nazis did everything in their power to erase him from history and declared him officially eliminated from German culture in 1937. In 1938, he became a proud Australian citizen. During the war, he served as an air-raid warden and gave charity concerts for the Australian Red Cross Society and allied troops.

Following a successful Australian tour in 1947, Jascha returned to the international stage. He played in New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, Europe, Israel, and Africa.  In performance, Jascha’s extraordinary legato technique, extensive tonal command and remarkable intellectual and physical powers were all employed to convey the emotion and passion of the music. His expressive interpretations of works from the Baroque period to the twentieth century won acclaim from audiences and critics. Even with the most complex and difficult pieces, he brought out the lyrical and emotional aspects in a way that made sense.  He excelled in communicating with his audience and made a significant impact on the musical life of Australia, particularly in Melbourne.

Jascha had a powerful build, standing 173 cm tall, and his hands were unusually large, with chunky fingers, which necessitated the use of unconventional fingering patterns when playing the piano.  His handshake discomforted those who felt his ‘vice-like’ grip when he shook their hand.  Although he presented with a ferocious appearance, he was kind, gentle and good-humoured.  He was fluent in five languages.  English was not one of his native languages, although he later improved noticeably.  Unfortunately, illness curtailed his international career in 1960, but he continued to perform in Australia.

Jascha died on 23 March 1970 at Toorak, Melbourne and was survived by his wife and their two sons.  At the time of his passing, he was planning to record Beethoven’s violin and piano sonatas with his brother Tossy.

Despite having a glorious international career spanning six decades, Jascha never issued a solo commercial record during his life. In 2015, piano connoisseurs were intrigued when recordings made in his home were released for the first time, revealing mesmerising playing: a magnificent singing sonority, exquisitely shaped phrasing, and probing interpretations, with an approach that paradoxically fused nineteenth-century Romantic freedom with the post-war ideal of fidelity to the score. One copy of the record is known to exist today, in the family archives. Jascha’s grandson, Eden, tried in vain to get his father Michael, to consider issuing it alongside the later tape recordings but he refused for years, and when Eden became part of the project, he attempted to do the same, but Michael still felt, as Jascha did, that the recordings did not do his father justice. Damian Thompson wrote in Spectator Australia – Jascha Spivakovsky: the great lost pianist we can finally hear.  He was ‘the greatest pianist you’ve never heard of’ seems fair: he may well be one of the greatest I’ve ever heard.

The Spivakovsky Music Foundation was recently established by Eden to preserve the music and memory of his grandfather for future generations.

The AJHS acknowledges the following references in the preparation of this story:

Australian Dictionary of Biography – Catherine J Stevens; Wikipedia, The Piano Files; Spectator Australia – Damian Thompson; The Spivakovsky Music Foundation

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