Ossip Gabrilowitsch

Ossip Gabrilowitsch was born on 7 Feb. 1878 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Aged ten and considered a child prodigy, he was admitted to the St. Petersburg Conservatory to study piano and later took lessons with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna. When the Clemens family stayed in Vienna, Clara Langdon Clemens became one of Leschetizky’s pupils as well and  she met Gabrilowitsch for the first time at a dinner party in April 1898 (see Dolmetsch 147). Afterwards, Ossip Gabrilowitsch and Clara Clemens met repeatedly and got engaged, but the death of Olivia Langdon Clemens in 1904 put a halt to the relationship until Clara Clemens re-established the connection in 1909, when she invited Gabrilowitsch to Stormfield to recuperate after a surgery (see Rasmussen et al. 2:692). Shortly after, the couple renewed the engagement and the marriage ceremony followed on 6 Oct. 1909.

The couple decided to live in Europe, where Gabrilowitsch had a promising career as a pianist and conductor. They returned to the US briefly in 1910 to be with Samuel Clemens when he died, to arrange his funeral, and to close down the house. The Gabrilowitsch’s only child, a girl named Nina, was born during this time at Stormfield.

Back in Europe, Ossip Gabrilowitsch resumed his work as a conductor in Munich for a few years before the beginning of the First World War convinced him to return to the US with his wife and daughter. There, he worked for the Philadelphia Symphony and later the Symphony Orchestra in Detroit, earning enough to “allow Clara to save what she received from her father’s estate” (Rasmussen et al. 2:693).

Ossip Gabrilowitsch died on 14 Sep. 1936, aged 58, from stomach cancer and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Elmira.

Article Pages

linked to Ossip Gabrilowitsch (12)

• MD-336 • Mark Twain's Tochter heirathet • 7 Oct 1909
• MD-337 • Todt in Badewanne • 25 Dec 1909
• MD-339 • Mark Twain todt • 22 Apr 1910
• MD-347 • Mark Twain's Testament • 5 May 1910
• ND-002 • [Death of Jean Clemens] • 6 Jan 1910
• ND-004 • Mark Twains Nachlaß • 1 Dec 1910
• NE-039 • Mark Twains Nachlaß • 18 Nov 1910
• OH-049 • [Death of MT] • 28 Apr 1910
• OH-053 • Ossip Gabrilowitsch Vater geworden • 20 Aug 1910
• TX-073 • [MT’s estate] • 31 Oct 1910
• WI-022 • Heirath in Künstlerkreisen • 8 Oct 1909
• WI-023 • Heirath in Künstlerkreisen • 10 Oct 1909