From the desk of Alexis Weissenberg...Paris, 23 July 1991
A quick glance at the biographies of today's performers, with the exception of their date and place of birth and some minor details, reveals a strange similarity between all of them. In my case, work has truly been the most important element in my life. It has been the essential and constant attribute of my central nervous system, the vertebrae of my career, and the passageway to all my preoccupations. I was born in Sofia in 1929, where I began my study of the piano and composition with Wladjgueroff. A few years later in 1946, at the age of 17, I completed my musical education in New York at The Juilliard School, under the excellent supervision of Olga Samaroff. Some important advice from Schnabel, and above all, the unforgettable example of Landowska, were guideposts along the path I chose to follow. Despite a precocious start of my career in my homeland, as well as concerts in Bulgaria, Turkey, Palestine, Egypt, and a first concert tour in South Africa, the real debut of my career came with my first concert in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of George Szell, as a result of having won the International Levintritt Competition in 1947. I won the youth competition of the Philadelphia Orchestra in the same year, permitting me to perform there under the direction of Eugene Ormandy, as well. Since then, I have come to know the routine as my colleagues: the many fears and rewards of building a career; the doubts and joys stemming from the inevitable conflict between instinct and artistry; the enormous personal responsibility of reconciling a knowledge of the piano with spiritual expression; the monotonous life of concert halls and suitcases; but also and above all, those few marvelous moments when communication - that magical and unearthly transfusion between the public and an artist, between a conductor and a soloist, between one sensitive soul and another - occurs!
It is a life in which choice is the predominant element, a life in which striving to improve, perfect, simplify, revise, relearn, reinterpret, is the most important, as well as the only means of obtaining an ever-elusive hope.
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