Julius Isserlis

Julius Isserlis (26 October (OS) / 7 November 1888 – 23 July 1968) was a pianist and composer. He was born in Kishinev, Russian Empire (now Chișinău, Republic of Moldova), to a Jewish family. His father was cantor in a synagogue, and also worked as an itinerant dentist; his mother was a midwife. He started playing the piano at the age of four, and showed such precocity that he was entered into the Kiev Conservatory when he was nine; but his professor there, Włodzimierz Puchalski, soon sent him to Moscow to study with Vasily Safonov at the Moscow Conservatory.