Yelena Bekman-Shcherbina

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Yelena Alexandrovna Bekman-Shcherbina (January 12, 1882 - September 30, 1951): pianist, composer and teacher.

Born Yelena Kamentseva, she was adopted by her mother's sister after the death of her mother. In gratitude, she took her adoptive mother's name, Shcherbina. At the age of six she started studying with Nikolai Zverev, whose preparatory classes had been attended by such luminaries as Scriabin and Rachmaninov. She subsequently studied with Paul Pabst and Vasily Safonov, graduating from the Moscow Conservatory with a gold medal.

Yelena Bekman-Shcherbina became involved in the performance of contemporary music, and was an advocate of the music of Scriabin. She also introduced many unfamiliar works to the Russian public, championing the music of Claude Debussy and Albéniz. She took part in the first Russian performance of Maurice Ravel's piano trio.

As a composer, she wrote a number of pieces for children, of which one song - "A little fir tree grew in the forest" - remains popular as a New Year's song.

Her teaching career started at the age of 12. In 1912 she founded her own music school which lasted until 1918. She was appointed Professor at the Moscow Conservatory in 1940, where she taught until her death.

Her playing is full of the stylish grace of the Russian salon of the last years of the tsarist era. It is characterised by clarity and a luminous sound which are undimmed even in her last recordings. Unlike some of her more mannered contemporaries, her sense of rubato is never at the expense of the coherence of the music, as her readings of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin eloquently attest.