He was hailed for a huge, thunderous technique that made him a thrilling interpreter of Liszt and Rachmaninoff and a late representative of the grand school of Russian Romantic pianism.

The jury under the chairmanship of Leonid Nikolaev noticed the child's "rare exceptional case of musical and piano skills".

[This quote needs a citation] Now, after being officially given title "prodigy" at the age of four, he started studying with Leningrad State Conservatory professor, Samariy Savshinsky.

Living conditions were so poor that his mother had to cut the fingers from a pair of gloves to allow him to continue to practise without freezing his hands.

His now legendary New York debut at the 92nd Street Y, where he played Liszt's Transcendental Études, struck the music world like lightning.

Before that, he had been generally restricted to the Soviet concert circuit, playing on old and decrepit pianos to audiences of varied degrees of interest.

He recorded the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto with Herbert von Karajan, as well as broadcasting it on international television with Antal Doráti, to mark United Nations Day in 1976.

His students included Sonya Bach, Italian pianists Giuliano Mazzocante, Maurizio Baglini, Enrico Elisi, and Enrico Pace, Vladimir Stoupel, Rutsuko Yamagishi, Ioana Lupascu, Gintaras Januševičius, Vardan Mamikonian, Victor Chestopal [ru], Rueibin Chen, Antonio Formaro and Viktoriya Yermolyeva, as well as Korean pianist Chong Park and Japanese pianist Chiharu Aizawa, who later got married and perform as the piano duo “Duo VIVID” Berman is buried at the Cimitero delle Porte Sante in Florence.