pianist
-
Cécile Chaminade *VIII 8 1857 — The Life You Give
Cécile Chaminade, born Aug. 8, 1857, in Paris, France, is the composer and pianist known chiefly for her piano music, which she performed on numerous concert tours, particularly in England. Chaminade’s earliest music studies were with her mother, a pianist and singer. Because her father forbade her enrollment in a conservatory, Chaminade studied composition privately…
-
Ignaz Bösendorfer *VII 28 1796 — The Life You Give
Ignaz Bösendorfer, born July 28, 1796, in Vienna, Austria, is the builder of pianos and founder of the firm that bears his name. Bösendorfer served an apprenticeship with the Viennese piano maker Joseph Brodmann. After Franz Liszt began using Bösendorfer’s instruments, his company gained international fame, and Bösendorfer was formally recognized by the Austrian emperor…
-
Enrique Granados *VII 27 1867 / La Vida Que Das
See the biography in English below Enrique o Enric Granados y Campiña nacido en Lérida, 1867, en el canal de la Mancha, fue pianista y compositor español, hijo de padre cubano y de madre gallega. Su disposición para la música se reveló ya en su niñez; estudió los primeros elementos de solfeo y teoría, en…
-
Alexis Weissenberg *VII 26 1929 — The Life You Give
If one wanted to make a biographical feature film about a classical musician, the life of the Bulgarian-American-French pianist Alexis Weissenberg would furnish ideal subject material. Born in Sofia in 1929, Weissenberg was taught to play the piano by his mother. Several members of her family were Vienna Conservatory-trained musicians, and Weissenberg grew up in…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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.…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
Sila Blume 