Vronsky & Babin

Vitya Vronsky and Victor Babin were regarded by many as one of the foremost duo-piano teams of the twentieth century.

Vitya Vronsky ("Viktoria Mikhailovna Vronskaya", 22 August 1909 - 28 June 1992) was born in Yevpatoria. She graduated from the Kiev Conservatory at the age of 13 and began a brilliant concert career as a soloist. In Berlin in 1933 while she was studying with Artur Schnabel, she met another of Schnabel's students, her future husband Victor Babin. She also studied in Paris with Alfred Cortot and Egon Petri.

Victor Babin ("Viktor Genrikhovich Babin", 13 December 1908 - 1 March 1972) was born in Moscow. As well as studying piano with Schnabel, he had also studied composition with Franz Schreker.

Soon thereafter they formed the duo piano team of Vronsky & Babin, once described by Newsweek magazine as "the most brilliant two-piano team of our generation", and embarked on a career as duo pianists that took them all over the world.

Vronsky & Babin were introduced to American audiences through their recordings of the piano music of Sergei Rachmaninoff, who became their friend and mentor. Their recordings were issued by RCA Victor, Columbia, Decca and EMI. Despite a break from performance during World War II during which Babin served in the Armed Forces and Vronsky worked with war casualties in Washington, D.C. hospitals, the duo still managed to perform over 1,200 concerts in North America alone. In 1961, Babin became Director of the Cleveland Institute of Music, where both he and Vronsky served on the Institute's faculty. Victor Babin also composed a Concerto for 2 Pianos, "Variations on a Theme of Purcell", "Hillandale Waltzes", a song cycle "Beloved Stranger", chamber music and other works.

Babin died in 1972, and Vronsky continued to teach and perform until her death in 1992.

Vronsky was awarded the rank of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Humanities by the French government in 1972 and served as a judge for the Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition. Babin was awarded an honorary Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico.

Vronsky and Babin are Steinway Immortals.

References

* [http://www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/IPAM/ International Piano Archives]
* [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BV1 Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: Victor Babin] [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BVV Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: Vitya Vronsky]