pianist
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Robert Schumann *VI 8 1810 — The Life You Give
Robert Schumann, born Robert Alexander Schumann, June 8, 1810, in Zwickau, Saxony [Germany], is the Romantic composer renowned particularly for his piano music, songs (lieder), and orchestral music. Many of his best-known piano pieces were written for his wife, the pianist Clara Schumann. Schumann’s father was a bookseller and publisher. After four years at a…
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Martha Argerich *VI 5 1941 — La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
Martha Argerich, born June 5, 1941 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is the pianist known for her recordings and performances of chamber music, particularly of works by Olivier Messiaen, Sergey Prokofiev, and Sergey Rachmaninoff. A prodigy, Argerich was performing professionally by age eight. In 1955 she went to Europe, where her teachers included Friedrich Gulda and…
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Rubén González *V 26 1919 — The Life You Give
Rubén González was one of the last of Cuba’s great Afro-Cuban piano players. Although he had played and recorded with the band led by Enrique Jorrín, the creator of the cha-cha, for a quarter of a century, he had retired from music by the mid-’80s. Things began to change when González recorded with the Afro-Cuban…
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Alicia de Larrocha *V 23 1923 — La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
See biography in English below Alicia de Larrocha de la Calle nació el 23 de mayo de 1923, en el 4º piso de la calle Córcega nº 263 bis, esquina Calle Enrique Granados, de Barcelona. Fue la tercera de 4 hermanos (Teresa, Berta, Alicia, y Ramón). Sus padres fueron Eduardo de Larrocha y Teresa de…
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Friedrich Gulda *V 16 1930 — The Life You Give
In a career that offered striking recordings in both the classical and jazz idioms, Friedrich Gulda was alternately described as “eccentric” and even a “terrorist pianist.” He refused to stay in his lane as an interpreter of the great European composers, entering the jazz field in a period of stunning transition and making a mark…
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Maria Theresia von Paradis *V 15 1759 — The Life You Give
Maria Theresia von PARADIS (1759-1824) July 2024 (born in Vienna, baptized 15 May 1759) We feature below a contemporary account of Maria Theresia Paradis written within months of her arrival in England in 1784.An Account of Mademoiselle THERESA PARADIS, of Vienna, the celebrated blind Performer on the Piano Forte. This young person, equally distinguished by…
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Stevie Wonder *V 13 1950 — The Life You Give
Stevie Wonder, born Steveland Judkins or Steveland Morris, May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, Michigan, U.S.A., is the singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, a child prodigy who developed into one of the most creative musical figures of the late 20th century. Blind from birth and raised in inner-city Detroit, he was a skilled musician by age eight.…
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Duke Ellington *IV 29 1899 — The Life You Give
Duke Ellington, born Edward Kennedy Ellington, April 29, 1899, in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., is the pianist who was the greatest jazz composer and bandleader of his time. One of the originators of big-band jazz, Ellington led his band for more than half a century, composed thousands of scores, and created one of the most distinctive…
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Sergei Rachmaninoff *IV 1 1873 — The Life You Give
Sergey Rachmaninoff, born March 20 [April 1, New Style], 1873, in Oneg, near Semyonovo, Russia, is the composer who was the last great figure of the tradition of Russian Romanticism and a leading piano virtuoso of his time. He is especially known for his piano concerti and the piece for piano and orchestra titled Rhapsody…
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Frédéric Chopin *III 1 1810 — The Life You Give
Frédéric Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek Szopen, on March 1, 1810, in Żelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, Duchy of Warsaw [now in Poland], was the composer and pianist of the Romantic period, best known for his solo pieces for piano and his piano concerti. Although he wrote little but piano works, many of them brief, Chopin ranks as…
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Leopold Godowsky *II 13 1870 — The Life You Give
Leopold Godowsky, born February 13, 1870, in Soshly, near Vilnius, Lithuania, Russian Empire, is the renowned Russian-born American virtuoso pianist and composer, known for his exceptional piano technique. Godowsky entered the Berlin High School for Music at age 14; soon thereafter he went to the United States, where he spent most of the remainder of…
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Claudio Arrau *II 6 1903 — The Life You Give
Claudio Arrau, born February 6 1903, in Chillán, Chile, was one of the most-renowned pianists of the 20th century. Arrau’s father, an eye doctor, died when Arrau—the youngest of three children—was one year old. His mother supported the family by giving piano lessons and must have been gratified when her own son proved to be…
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Alfred Brendel *I 5 1931 — The Life You Give
Alfred Brendel, born January 5, 1931, in Wiesenberg, Czechoslovakia [now Loučná nad Desnou, Czech Republic], is a pianist and writer whose recordings and international concert appearances secured his reputation. He is best known for his interpretations of Ludwig van Beethoven’s music, recording several cycles of the composer’s piano sonatas and concertos. Brendel studied the piano…
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Ludwig van Beethoven *XII 17 1770 — The Life You Give
Ludwig van Beethoven, born on December 17, 1770, in Bonn, Germany, is the composer, and predominant musical figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras. Widely regarded as the greatest composer who ever lived, Ludwig van Beethoven dominates a period of musical history as no one else before or since. Rooted in…
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György Cziffra *XI 5 1921 — The Life You Give
György Cziffra was one of the most celebrated and individual piano virtuosos of the postwar decades in Europe, especially noted for his powers of improvisation and as a Liszt pianist. He was born in a shantytown called Angels Court on the outskirts of Budapest to a family of gypsy musicians. The family was desperately poor,…
Sila Blume 