Pianist Alexis Weissenberg dies

Bulgarian-born pianist Alexis Weissenberg, whose musical talent as a youngster probably prevented his life, and his mother’s, from ending in a World War II concentration camp, died Sunday at age 82.

Weissenberg was born in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, in 1929, and began piano lessons at age three. As a 10-yearold, he gave his first recital.

It was in 1941 during the war, as he recalls on his web site, that he and his mother landed in “an improvised concentration camp” in Bulgaria for people crossing the border illegally.

They arrived with few belongings other than a small bag, a large cardboard box, a few sandwiches and an old accordion given him as a birthday gift by a wealthy aunt. And they were lucky: After three months in the unspecified camp, a German guard who enjoyed listening to him play Schubert on the accordion helped them escape by train.

They wound up in Israel where he performed Beethoven with the Israel Philharmonic led by Leonard Bernstein. After the war, he moved to New York to study at the Juilliard School of Music.

Weissenberg’s career swayed high and low. At its peak, he made recordings with Bernstein and Herbert Von Karajan and was hailed as a distinctive virtuoso. At rock bottom, Weissenberg, weary from too much fame too fast, took a 10-year break, reemerging with a Paris recital in 1966 and successful performances of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Karajan.