Alexis Weissenberg

Biography

Alexis Sigismund Weissenberg (26 July 1929 – 8 January 2012) was a Bulgarian-born French pianist.

Born into a Jewish family in Sofia, Weissenberg began taking piano lessons at the age of three from Pancho Vladigerov, a Bulgarian composer. He gave his first public performance at the age of eight.

In 1941, he and his mother tried to escape from German-occupied Bulgaria for Turkey, but were caught and imprisoned in a makeshift concentration camp in Bulgaria for three months. A German guard – who had enjoyed hearing Alexis play Schubert on the accordion – hurriedly took him and his mother to the train station, throwing the accordion to him through the window and told them, "Good luck". They sa...