Mark Hambourg (1879 - 1960)

Born in Russia, Mark Hambourg (1879–1960) was encouraged by Padereweski to study in Vienna with Theodor Leschetizky, under whose tutelage he made a very favourable impression on Brahms as well as the conductors Hans Richter and Felix Weingartner. Some years later, Ferruccio Busoni told Henry Wood that he considered Hambourg to be the greatest pianistic talent of his generation. After taking British citizenship at the age of 17, he rapidly established himself as a permanent fixture in the musical calendar of his adopted country. Although he was a pianist in the uninhibited ‘grand manner’ of 19th-century giants like Anton Rubinstein, Hambourg was one of the first concert artists to embrace the new technology of gramophone recording and he made his first records as early as 1909. Debussy, Scriabin, Rachmaninov, Falla, Arne, Handel and Domenico Scarlatti are but a few of the varied composers who appear in his extensive list of recordings.