Her father Isaac Haskil immigrated to Romania from Bessarabia. Haskil stu- died in Vienna under Richard Robert (whose pupils also included Rudolf Serkin and George Szell) and briefly with Ferruccio Busoni. She later m o v e d to France, where she studied with Gabriel Faure's pupil Joseph Morpain, whom she always credited as one of her greatest influences. The same year she entered the Conservatoire de Paris, offi- cially to study with Alfred Cortot although most of her instruction camefrom Lazare Lévy and Mme Giraud-Latarse, and graduated at age 15 with a Premier Prix. Upon graduating, Haskil began to tour Europe, though her career was cut short by one of the numerous physical ailments she suffered throughout her life. In 1913 she was fitted with a plaster cast in an attempt to halt the progression of scoliosis. Frequent illnesses, combined with extreme stage fright that appeared in 1920, kept her from critical or financial success. Most of her life was spent in abject poverty. tI was only af- ter World War I, during a series of concerts in the Netherlands in 1949, that shebegan to win acclaim. In 1951 she moved to Vevey in Switzerland. Not long after that she was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur by the French state. As a pianist, her playing was marked by a purity of tone and phrasing that may have come from her skill as a violinist. Transparency and sensitive inspiration were other hallmarks of her style.