Some musicians are remembered for a flawless technique. Maria Yudina is remembered for something rarer: conviction. She played what she believed in, and she paid for it. She is also part of my own teaching line, which is why I have wanted to write about her for a long time.
Who she was
Maria Yudina was a Russian pianist and teacher who studied at the Petrograd Conservatory, where her teachers included Leonid Nikolayev. Her fellow students there included Dmitri Shostakovich and Vladimir Sofronitsky. Later she taught at the Moscow Conservatory and at the Gnessin Institute in Moscow, and she became known both as a performer and as a formidable, devoted teacher.
Two features of her life are well documented. First, she held deep religious convictions, which were unwelcome in the Soviet state, and they cost her teaching positions. Second, she championed contemporary composers, among them Stravinsky, Hindemith and Bartok, at a time when their music was largely discouraged in the USSR. She was also a friend of the poet Boris Pasternak and of Shostakovich, and she is known to have read Pasternak’s poetry in the course of a concert, after which she was barred from performing for a time.
You will find dramatic stories about her told online, including some involving Stalin. Historians treat several of them as unverified, so I will not repeat them. The documented facts are striking enough.
How she sounded
Accounts of her playing agree on one point: it was not neutral. Even a great colleague, Sviatoslav Richter, who admired her, is reported to have said that she did not always play what was written. You may take that as a criticism or as evidence of how personal her music making was. I prefer to see it as a reminder that interpretation is a human act, and that a performance with no personality in it is not really a performance.
My link to her
At the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music, my teacher was Yuri Vladimirovich Ponizovkin, a pupil of Maria Yudina and a scholar of Rachmaninoff. Through him, her seriousness and her insistence that music is never merely decoration reached me. I never studied with her, and I will not pretend that I did. But in a very real way, a branch of my own training grows from hers, through Leonid Nikolayev before her.
A lesson for adult learners: play as though it matters
Adult learners often play apologetically. They hit the notes carefully, hope no one is listening and stop at the first mistake. Yudina’s example points the other way. Here is what I would take from her:
- Decide what the music says. Before you perform even a simple piece for your family, decide what it is about. Is it a lullaby, a march, a prayer? Let that decision guide your touch.
- Commit to your choices. A phrase played with a clear intention, even an imperfect one, is more convincing than a safe, timid one. Make a decision, then trust it.
- Play to the end. A wrong note is not a catastrophe. A performer who keeps going with conviction is far more musical than one who stops and apologizes.
- Study the music, not only the notes. Yudina read widely and thought deeply about what she played. Read about your piece. Listen to different recordings and notice what you agree with.
- Be curious about new music. She championed composers others avoided. You, too, can venture beyond the pieces you already know.
- Be honest. Do not imitate someone else’s interpretation. Your playing should sound like a person, and that person is you.
Conviction is not stubbornness
I do not mean that you should ignore your teacher or the score. Conviction grows from knowledge: you earn the right to a strong interpretation by learning what the composer wrote and why. Within that discipline, your own voice is welcome. This balance between fidelity and personality is, I believe, what the thinking musician tradition of Leonid Nikolayev is all about.
A small exercise
Take a piece you know well. Play it three times, each time with a different clear idea: once as quiet and intimate, once as bold and open, once as a story told to a child. Record all three. You will hear at once how much the idea changes the sound, and you will discover that you already have more to say than you thought.
If you would like to begin with a teacher who takes these questions seriously, start with my free course. And when you have something you can play, send me a recording and I will write you free, honest feedback.