Sergei Bortkiewicz | Little Ballade “From Old Times“

The following biography is from Prof. dr. Wouter Kalkman on Sergei Bortkiewicz (Сергей Борткевич) (1877-1952) had a wonderful musical talent, which enabled him to pour out freely a flood of the most beautiful melodies up to old age, and an extraordinary pianistic talent, which brought him great triumphs during his concert tours which he undertook in his early years. However an unkind fate did not let him rejoice in these unusual talents and heaped many a misfortune on him in the second half of his life. Sergei Bortkiewicz was an important outstanding personality both as a musician and as a person. This expressed itself, according to contemporaries, in his entire outward appearance, in his proud upright attitude and his always evident dignified earnestness, which he at times softened with a friendly smile, but hardly ever with a merry laugh. A gentle melancholy also formed a basic feature of his character, which also echoed in his music and gave it a special charm.