Last Neuhaus pupil is 100 today

Roman Mints informs us that Lidia Fikhtengoltz, last surviving Moscow student of the legendary Genrikh Neuhaus, reaches her century today. She gave her last concert nine years ago.

But the legend lives on in the playing.

UPDATE: Her grandson writes:
Today is a big event in our family – my grandmother Lydia Israelvna Fichtenholz turns 100. Exclamation marks swarming in my head. A hundred!!!
I have never called her grandma a day in my life – maybe because she is officially my cousin’s grandmother, not my own (my grandfather’s sister), but most likely because she doesn’t fit the typical grandmother’s image (by the way, she has no grandchildren). She is Lidusia for all our family members. In this diminishing-flattering form of her name as in a capsule all the traits of her character, as I see and feel them – tenderness, mischief, lightness and even some frivolity – and again tenderness.
Amazing pianist, a fragment of the old Russian piano school, because she was lucky with teachers (Bertha Reingbald in Odessa and Henrich Neigaus in Moscow). Awesome subtle musician who never knew about his uniqueness. First-class piano and chamber ensemble teacher. In private life – the kindest, naive person, whose own kindness and openness have been surprisingly carried away, intact and unharmed, despite the ugly soul of the Soviet system of world understanding, and general human cynicism and meanness…

On the day of her centenary as I write this, she is lying in her bed in a snowy Strogino, probably taking a nap, not realizing how excited we all are for this round date. Or not: she, a little mischievous girl, runs along the sunny Odessa street, runs home, her beloved brother Misha and her parents are alive and well, the ringing voice of her mother comes across the yard and calls for lunch, at dinner dad will ask what she learned today. Her life is beautiful and full of hope. She’s not a hundred, she’s ten, where did the extra zero come from.