Having demonstrated promise, at 6 she enrolled in the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory's Central Music School for gifted children, where she studied for eight years in Evgeny Timakin's piano class.
[1][6] Billboard wrote in its review: "This LP shows why [Novitskaya won the top prize in 1968 Queen Elizabeth contest].
[10] "Against the stiff recorded competition of Richter, Rubinstein, and Sandor, Novitskaya manages to do better than just hold her own in her performance of Visions," wrote one of the reviewers.
[11] In 1978, Novitskaya emigrated from the Soviet Union to marry Belgian François-Emmanuel Hervy, whom she first met back in 1968 during the Queen Elisabeth Competition that she won.
[12] The New York Times published a cautious review, stating that Novitskaya "didn't make a strong impression" and that "(knowing of her earlier successes) one began speculating on reasons".
The reviewer stated that "she showed good basic technical proficiency", but employed "some cautious tempos" and "it was hard to account for the static quality of her phrasing.