Alexander Borovsky (1889-1968) was a Russian-American pianist who first gathered attention by winning the 1912 Anton Rubinstein competition. Following his initial success he subsequently devoted himself almost exclusively to presenting the works of Johann Sebastian Bach which he presented world-wide. Deciding to leave Russia after the October Revolution he started touring in Europe and eventually made his American debut in Carnegie Hall in 1923. He became a US national in 1941 and a professor at the Boston University in 1956. During his 47 years of concertizing, Borovsky performed more than 2500 concerts from Helsinki to Singapore, Buenos Aires, London, Mexico, Copenhagen, Boston, New York and Paris. He was a soloist with all the major orchestras in Europe and North and South America, appearing as soloist in more than 30 concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. At the same time he began to record some of the significant works of Bach and Liszt and he was the first artist to record Bach's 30 Inventions and all of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies. Some of the conductors that Borovsky worked with were Eugen Jochum, Leopold Stokowski, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Erich Kleiber, Ferenc Fricsay and many others.
Photo: © C. Bechstein Archiv
