For decades the Hochhauser name has been synonymous with the visits to London of the greatest Russian ballet companies and musicians. In conversation with Hilary Condron, Lilian Hochhauser explains how she and her husband, the late Victor Hochhauser, became involved in artistic management. The indomitable Lilian also talks about her friendship with Mstislav Rostropovich, especially after he left the USSR, and about working with Rudolf Nureyev, both of whom hold special places in her hear

The interview is introduced by Anthony Russell Roberts in conversation with Natalie Steed was recorded before Anthony Russell Roberts death in 2024.

Lilian Hochhauser was born in London in 1927 of Russian immigrant parents, and brought up in the East End according to orthodox Jewish principles. She began to work for the charismatic Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld, who was responsible for rescuing many Jewish children from the Holocaust. Also working for Schonfield was Victor Hochhauser, who was to become her husband a few months after their first meeting, and with whom she had four children.

At Schonfeld’s request Victor promoted a concert with the great pianist Solomon Cutner, to raise money for charity. It was a huge success. From 1945 on the Hochhausers together put on innumerable concerts and eventually ballet performances, 1460 at the Royal Albert Hall alone. To begin with they concentrated on music and worked with many of the most famous musicians in this country, such as Myra Hess, Adrian Boult, Malcolm Sargent and Ida Haendel. In 1953 Igor Oistrakh, the son of the great David Oistrakh, was performing in London, as a result of which the Hochhausers started negotiations with the Russian authorities to see if they could bring David over. This duly happened in 1954, David Oistrakh being the first of a chain of great Russian musicians to be brought over by the Hochhausers: Emil Gilels, Sviatoslav Richter, the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra, and Mstislav Rostropovich, among many others. Richter and Rostropovich in particular became close friends of the Hochhausers, so much so that when Rostropovich defected from the USSR in 1974, he stayed with the Hochhausers for a year. This led to a breaking off of relationships with the Russians until the fall of the Soviet Union. During this time they turned to China for events.

The Hochhausers’ involvement in ballet started early in their career as promoters. In the 1950s they promoted what they called ‘ballet for the masses’ at the now defunct Empress Hall in London. Among those who worked for them in this were the young Svetlana Beriosova, Léonide Massine, Alexandra Danilova and Frederic Franklin, but it was in 1960 that they began working with the Russians, bringing over a group of dancers from the Bolshoi in Moscow, followed in 1961 by the whole Kirov Ballet Company, the first of many such tours, which resumed after Perestroika, and continue well into the 21st century.

Victor Hochhauser died, at the age of 95, in 2019, but the work had not stopped, and it continues with Lilian, who was awarded CBE in the New Year’s Honours List for that year. ‘As long as I can keep going, and enjoy it, I will’, which sums up her attitude for almost a century.

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