Anatol Ugorski

1942 (Rubtsovsk) — 2023 (Lemgo)

Anatol Ugorski was a Soviet and German pianist and music educator. He was born in 1942 in Rubtsovsk, where his parents had been evacuated, and was the fourth of five children in a Jewish family. The family returned to Leningrad in 1945. He began learning the xylophone and, from the age of six, attended the special music school attached to the Leningrad Conservatory, graduating in 1960.

Ugorski studied piano at the Leningrad Conservatory with Nadezhda Golubovskaya, graduating in 1965, and continued postgraduate study with her until 1968. While still a student, he focused on avant-garde music, including works by Berg, Messiaen and Boulez. With his wife, Maya Elik, who translated the text into Russian, he staged Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. In 1968 he placed third at the International George Enescu Piano Competition. After graduating, he worked for ten years as accompanist to the Young Pioneers’ Choir.

Ugorski began teaching at the Leningrad Conservatory in 1982. From 1986 to 1988 he gave a series of concerts at the Small and Great Halls of the Leningrad Philharmonic. His repertoire included Couperin, Scarlatti and Bach, and he also performed as a harpsichordist. Recordings released in the Soviet Union included Bach cello sonatas arranged for viola and harpsichord, Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata in D minor, Sviridov’s Piano Partita in F minor, and Rein Laul’s Piano Sonata No. 3. He gave the premieres of a sonata by Orest Yevlakhov, six concert pieces by Vladimir Tsytovich and preludes by Galina Ustvolskaya. In the 1960s he performed in a piano duo with Gabi Talrose.

In 1990 Ugorski and his family emigrated to Germany and settled in Detmold. The following year he recorded Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations for Deutsche Grammophon and signed an exclusive contract with the label. He went on to record works by Beethoven, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Schubert, Schumann, Messiaen, Brahms and Scriabin, as well as Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet. His recording of Scriabin’s Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Boulez, received a Grammy nomination in 2000.

Ugorski began his professional touring career in 1992, at the age of 50. He gave solo recitals and appeared with orchestras including the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He also recorded concertos for two pianos by Bach, Mozart and Shostakovich with his daughter, pianist Dina Ugorskaya. Known for his distinctive and eccentric interpretations of the classical piano repertoire, he was a professor at the Detmold University of Music until 2007 and served on the jury of the ARD International Music Competition. A 13-album set of his complete Deutsche Grammophon recordings was released in 2018. Ugorski died in Lemgo in 2023, aged 80.

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