Alexis Weissenberg

Alexis Weissenberg (born July 26, 1929) is a Bulgarian-born French pianist.

Born into a Jewish family in Sofia, Weissenberg began taking piano lessons at the age of three from Pancho Vladigerov. He gave his first public performance at the age of eight. After escaping to what was then Palestine in 1945, where he studied under Leo Kestenberg, he went to the Juilliard School in 1946 to study with Olga Samaroff. He also consulted Artur Schnabel and Wanda Landowska.

In 1947 he made his New York debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of George Szell playing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3. Between 1957 and 1966 he took an extended sabbatical for the purpose of studying and teaching.

He resumed his career in 1966 by giving a recital in Paris; later that year he played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in Berlin conducted by Herbert von Karajan, who praised him as "one of the best pianists of our time".

Bryce Morrison, in "Gramophone", described his early 1970s recording of the Liszt Sonata in B minor as one of the most exciting and also lyrical renditions of the work.[citation needed] His readings of Schumann, Rachmaninoff, and many works by Frédéric Chopin (including his complete works for piano and orchestra, Piano Sonatas No. 2 & 3, nocturnes, and waltzes) are also very well known.

Among his other notable interpretations are those of Johannes Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1, with Carlo Maria Giulini and Riccardo Muti, ("Les Introuvables d'Alexis Weissenberg", 2004), Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, as well as his Piano Concerto No. 3 with Georges Prêtre and Seiji Ozawa with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (also with Leonard Bernstein and the Orchestre National de France).

His recording of Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrushka was also highly praised.

He has given piano master classes all over the world. With his Piano Master Class in Engelberg (Switzerland), he has had as students many pianists of the new generation: Kirill Gerstein, Simon Mulligan, Mehmet Okonsar , Nazzareno Carusi, Andrey Ponochevny, Loris Karpell, and Roberto Carnevale among others.