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In 1958, the Helfgotts financial situation improved and the family was able to settle into a comfortable house in Highgate, Australia. “Living vicariously through his brilliant son, Peter Helfgott became his son ’s tutor, mentor and, as the filmgraphically and controversially shows, tormentor. Wilmoth commented of Scott ’s treatment of this period of Helfgott ’s life in Shine. The elder Helfgott expected his son to win and was personally wounded when he failed. Starting at the age of nine with a performance at a country festival, Helfgott received his first major approbation from his father when he failed to win. Spent learning the difficult works of Russian composer and pianist Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) and Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt (1811-1886), as well as preparing for or performing in piano competitions. and undertook world concert tour, 1997.Īwards: Marmaduke Barton Prize, Hopkinson Silver Medal, 1969.Īddresses: Record company -RCA Records, 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036. 3 in D, and David Helfgott Plays Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff, 1996 released David Helfgott Plays Liszt. 1962 last major exhibition before his breakdown, 1964 returned to playing in wine bars, then concert halls in Australia, 1980s released CDS Shine: The Soundtrack, David Helfgott Plays Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 1961 eventually left to study at the Royal College of Music in London, c. 1962.įirst performance at a country festival, 1955 was offered an invitation from Professor Isaac Stern to study music in the United States, c. Education: studied at Royal College of Music in London, c. David ’s childhood years were often For the Record …īorn in 1947, in Perth, Australia son of Elias Peter and Rachel (maiden name, Granek) Helfgott married his first wife, Clara, 1971 (divorced, 1974) married Gillian (an astrologer), Auglate 1980s, became naturalized citizen of Tasmania. Peter Helfgott, a failed violinist for whom music was a great passion, prompted his son to develop his talent from an early age. In 1953, the year David started grade school, he began to develop frequent bladder control problems that may, even at the age of five years, have been related to stress in the family home. The early 1950s were financially dark times for the Helfgott family. Perhaps it was the loss of his family and the associated guilt he felt for his treatment of that family that led the elder Helfgott to alternately cherish and abuse his son as his love gradually gave way to a deeper envy throughout his life. In 1944 he married the then 24-year-old Rachel Granek, a Jewish girl from Czestochowa whom he had met while working with her father Mordecai and brother Morry. ” The elder Helfgott ran away from home when he was 14 and eventually learned that both of his parents had died in the Holocaust. In Love You to Bits and Pieces, Gillian Helfgott ’s memoir of Helfgott ’s life, Helfgott recounts wistfully: “He chased his father around the table with scissors, because my father wasn ’t scared of his father, you see. Raised in a region then under Jewish occupation, Peter grew to despise his father and his religion, even going so far as to try to cut off his beard. Elias, who was generally known by his middle name, Peter, was the son of a Hassidic rabbi born in 1903 in the Jewish settlement of Kamyk, near Czestochowa, Poland. argue that the seeds of the son ’s later illness were first evident in the father. The second of five children born to Elias Peter and Rachel (Granek) Helfgott, he was a delicate child who early on exhibited signs of agitation. 3, and in 1997 embarked on a world wide concert tour to sold-out audiences.ĭavid Helfgott was born in 1947 in Perth, Australia, two hours northwest of Sydney. Following the success of the much-acclaimed Shine, Helfgott released a highly popular CD recording of his rendition of Rachmaninoff ’s Concerto No. After more than a decade in and out of mental institutions, during which he underwent electroshock therapy and was forbidden to play the piano due to his delicate health, Helfgott gradually recovered, first playing piano in a wine bar in his native Perth, then returning to concert halls in Australia with the help of his wife, Gillian. A child prodigy, Helfgott eventually suffered a mental breakdown after his overbearing father forbade him to accept an invitation from Isaac Stern to study music in the United States.

Helfgott became known to international audiences as the troubled Australian pianist depicted in Australian director Scott Hicks ’ 1996 film Shine.