Dr Maria Razumovskaya

Key details:

Department:
Academic Studies
Role:
Professor of Academic Studies
Photo of academic Maria Razumovskaya standing with a piano

Described as a ‘virtuoso story-teller of the piano’ (Le Courrier), Dr Maria Razumovskaya has performed extensively in major festivals and venues across the United Kingdom and internationally, and has given masterclasses in Italy, France, Russia and Germany. Her live performances have been recorded and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 where she was selected as part of their highly coveted ‘BBC Introducing’ scheme with further performances and interviews for the ‘In Tune’ programme featured as highlights in their ‘Performing Miracles’ series, and RTS Espace 2. 

Razumovskaya’s debut disc, Liszt B Minor Piano Sonata and Other Works (Malachite), recorded by Tony Faulkner, was received with critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the Liszt Disque Grand Prix.  Her subsequent recording of works of Busoni, Liszt, CPE Bach and Rachmaninov, supported by an Arts Council England grant, reflects her exploration of artistic subjectivity through the synthesis of music and words that derives from the concept of Romantic ‘autopsychography’.

Maria Razumovskaya received her pianistic training in the class of Rustem Hayroudinoff at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and furthered her studies with Professor Dmitri Alexeev as an Arts and Humanities Research Council doctoral scholar at the Royal College of Music. Her playing has been especially commended for its power, dramatic tension and poetic lyricism by critics in Gramophone, Pizzicato, American Record Review, and Limelight magazines. Following the completion of her PhD thesis on Heinrich Neuhaus in 2015 she has published her first monograph: the first critical study of the legendary pianist-pedagogue, Heinrich Neuhaus: A Life beyond Music (Boydell & Brewer: 2018). Her focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian music and performance, with a particular interest in pianism, has led to further writings including a chapter on Nikolai Medtner’s songs for Indiana University Press, articles for academic journals including the Journal of the Royal Musical Association and 19th-Century Music. She has also written for BBC Music Magazine, Pianist and International Piano. Maria Razumovskaya is a Steinway Artist.

 

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Recent Research Outputs

Schumann’s Piano Music: A Short Introduction

Razumovskaya, M. (Accepted/In press). Schumann’s Piano Music: A Short Introduction. Bloomsbury Academic.

2027

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Symbolism in the Pianistic Process of Maria Yudina: Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat major D. 960 as the Silver-Age Feminine Voice

Razumovskaya, M. (Accepted/In press). Symbolism in the Pianistic Process of Maria Yudina: Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat major D. 960 as the Silver-Age Feminine Voice. Music & Musical Performance .

2026

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Expressing the ‘soul’ of a Russian pianist: Anton Rubinstein’s interpretation of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas as the making of a performer-centred classic.

Razumovskaya, M. (2025). Expressing the ‘soul’ of a Russian pianist: Anton Rubinstein’s interpretation of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas as the making of a performer-centred classic. Nineteenth-Century Music Review. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479409825000047

2025

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Musical Enactments of Saint Petersburg: Symbolism and Psychology in the Pianistic Processes of Maria Yudina

Razumovskaya, M. (Accepted/In press). Musical Enactments of Saint Petersburg: Symbolism and Psychology in the Pianistic Processes of Maria Yudina. Interdisciplinary Humanities.

2025

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Heinrich Neuhaus: A Life Beyond Music

Razumovskaya, M. (2018). Heinrich Neuhaus: A Life Beyond Music. Boydell & Brewer Limited.

2018

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I wish for my life’s roses to have fewer thorns’: Heinrich Neuhaus and Alternative Narratives of Selfhood in Soviet Russia

Razumovskaya, M. (2018). I wish for my life’s roses to have fewer thorns’: Heinrich Neuhaus and Alternative Narratives of Selfhood in Soviet Russia. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 143(2).

2018

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Emil Gilels: Centenary Portrait

Razumovskaya, M. (2016). Emil Gilels: Centenary Portrait. BBC Music Magazine, 301, 37-42.

2016

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Emil Gilels: Learning is changeable — like the weather

Razumovskaya, M. (2016). Emil Gilels: Learning is changeable — like the weather. Pianist , 89, 80-84.

2016

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In & Out of Time: Bach-Busoni, Liszt, CPE Bach and Rachmaninov

Razumovskaya, M. (2016). In & Out of Time: Bach-Busoni, Liszt, CPE Bach and Rachmaninov. Digital or Visual Media, Malachite Records.

2016

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Neuhaus, Heinrich Felix Gustavovich

Razumovskaya, M. (2016). Neuhaus, Heinrich Felix Gustavovich. Grove Music Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.19771

2016

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