Maria Yudina

Maria Yudina was a titan of the piano who spent her entire career in Soviet Russia; her recordings did not find circulation in the West until long after she died. A devout Russian Orthodox Christian born into a Jewish household, Yudina never renounced her religious convictions and remained rather forthright about expressing them throughout her lifetime, an unusual and dangerous position to maintain during the Soviet period. Watched very closely by Soviet state officials, Yudina was censured several times for her outspokenness and repeatedly passed over for promotions and conve...