Rosina Lhévinne

Rosina Lhévinne studied at Moscow Conservatory. Training under Vasily Safonov is recorded. Van Cliburn, Kun-Woo Paik and Marek Jablonski are recorded as having studied under Rosina Lhévinne. The recorded working language is Russian and English. The field of work recorded is piano performance and music education. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are classical music. Employment is recorded with University of Southern California and Juilliard School.

• Name — Rosina Lhévinne • Native Name — Розина Левина • Birth Name — Rozina Yakovlevna Bessi • Born — 29 March 1880 • Birthplace — Kiev, Russian Empire • Died — 9 November 1976 • Occupation — Pianist

Rosina Bessie was the younger of two daughters of Maria (Katz) and Jacques Bessie, a prosperous jeweller from a Dutch Jewish family who emigrated to the Russian Empire to ply his trade as a diamond merchant. There were violent anti-Semitic riots in Kiev during her first year, and the Bessies moved to Moscow in 1881 or 1882. The young Rosina began studying piano at the age of six with a teacher in Moscow, where the family had moved shortly after her birth. When her teacher became ill, a family friend suggested that she continue her studies with Josef Lhévinne, a talented student at the Moscow Imperial Conservatory, five years older than Rosina. She showed great talent and several years later was admitted to the Conservatory, where she also studied with Lhévinne's teacher, Vasily Safonov. At her graduation in 1898, she won the gold medal in piano as had Josef before her, and that year the two were married. They had two children, Constantine "Don" Lhevinne (1906–1998) and Marianna Lhevinne Graham (1918–2012).

• Illustration — Vasily Safonov (1852—1918) with his pupils from Moscow Conservatory, on the left: Rosina Lhévinne Rosina gave up her ambitions to be a solo performer to avoid clashing with her husband Josef's career as a concert pianist, a vow she kept until well after his death in 1944. Thus she confined her activities to teaching and performing on two pianos with her husband. Together they lived and taught in Moscow, Tbilisi, Georgia and later in Berlin before emigrating after World War I and the Russian Revolution to New York, where they joined the faculty of the Institute of Musical Art which later became The Juilliard School.

In 1949 Mme. Lhévinne reconsidered her decision never to play in public as a soloist, and in her 70s and 80s she made a remarkable series of appearances, first in collaboration with the Juilliard String Quartet, and later in concertos at the Aspen Summer Music Festival. Her greatest moment as a soloist came in January 1963, aged 82, with her debut at the New York Philharmonic under conductor Leonard Bernstein playing Frédéric Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1, a piece she had performed for her graduation from the Moscow Conservatory sixty-five years earlier. There are recordings of both the Chopin Concerto and Mozart's C major Concerto, K. 467.

The authorities additionally record the headings Rosina Lhevinne and Rosina Bessie. Her recorded languages were Russian and English. She married Josef Lhévinne.

Rosina Lhévinne worked in piano performance and music education. She was employed by University of Southern California and Juilliard School.