Byron Janis

Byron Janis, eigtl Yankilevitch or Jankelewitsch ( born March 24, 1928 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania ) is an American pianist and composer.

Life

Janis comes from a Jewish family and was already at the age of four years of piano lessons. He is considered, along with Ronald Turini and Gary Graffman, one of the few "real" student of Vladimir Horowitz, who were kept informed of the Russian virtuoso ( in his case 1944-1947 ).

For a spectacular, politically interpreted, success was Janis ' concert tours in the former Soviet Union in the years 1960 and 1962. Janis was known for his almost flawless technique and his wide repertoire, which he, for example, allowed in a single Moscow concert three of the most difficult concertos for piano and orchestra to present: Rachmaninoff's first, third Prokofiev and Schumann's Piano Concerto in a Minor.

In 1967 he discovered in France manuscripts with two unknown waltzes by Chopin.

1985 Janis was known his long- kept secret disease to arthritis, which had forced him to the gradual withdrawal from the concert life.

The judgments about him are contradictory: while the critic Joachim Kaiser in his book " Great pianists of our time " was, Janis would have placed in him were actually not met, raised the Croatian star pianist Ivo Pogorelich in a questionnaire Janis ' Rachmaninoff recordings as unique forth.

Discography

• Byron Janis: The Complete RCA Album Collection, 11 CD and 1 DVD, RCA 88725484402 (Sony)