The Shanghai Marriage of Benno Moiseiwitsch

Benno Moiseiwitsch was born in 1890 in Odessa and soon emerged as a talented pianist. He made his London debut in 1909 and his American debut in 1919. His first marriage, to the Australian violinist Daisy Kennedy, broke down after their hectic tour schedules proved incompatible. In 1928 he toured Australia and then headed back to England, which was by then his adopted country (he would become a British subject in 1937). He stopped off in Shanghai late that year.

In Shanghai he fell in love with Anita “Annie” Gensburger, the French-born daughter of a prosperous Franco-Russian family living in Shanghai. They met in the green room after one of Benno’s concerts in the city. Anita was Russian and her mother, Sarah, cooked Benno Russian food while he was visiting. Her father, Henri, apparently invariably fell asleep at concerts. It was, so it seems, a whirlwind romance and on December 30th they announced their engagement.

They married in 1929 in Shanghai. A couple of years later they had a son, Boris. They left Shanghai in January 1929 to continue Benno’s world tour.  En-route he appeared in Singapore, just a week after the marriage. They then went to Kuala Lumpur and on to India. Then it was down to South America and then to the USA.Talking in the 1930s Anita recalled that two hours after their marriage she started acting as Benno’s secretary and answering his fan mail.

The marriage lasted until Anita’s death in 1956; Benno died in 1963.