- Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven, (baptized December 17, 1770 - March 26, 1827) was a German composer. He is regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of music, and was a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music. His music and his reputation inspired — and in many cases intimidated — ensuing generations of composers, musicians, and audiences. - Franz Schubert
Franz Seraphicus Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. He wrote some 600 Lieder, seven completed symphonies, the famous "Unfinished Symphony", liturgical music, operas, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music. He is particularly noted for his original melodic and harmonic writing. While Schubert had a close circle of friends and associates who admired his work (including his teacher Antonio Salieri, and the prominent singer Johann Michael Vogl), … - George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-born British Baroque composer who was a leading composer of concerti grossi, operas and oratorios. Born in Germany as Georg Friederich Händel, he dwelt during most of his adult life in England, becoming a subject of the British crown on 22 January 1727. His most famous works are "Messiah", an oratorio set to texts from the King James Bible, "Water Music" and "Music for the Royal Fireworks". - Jean Sibelius
The core of Sibelius' oeuvre is his set of seven symphonies . Like Beethoven , Sibelius used each one to develop further his own personal compositional style. These works continue to be performed frequently in the concert hall and are often recorded. In addition to the symphonies, Sibelius' best-known compositions include Finlandia , Valse Triste , the violin concerto , the Karelia Suite and The Swan of Tuonela (one of the four movements of the Lemminkainen Suite ). - Maurizio Pollini
Maurizio Pollini (born January 5, 1942) is an Italian classical pianist. He was born in Milan, his father being the Italian rationalist architect Gino Pollini. Maurizio studied piano first with Carlo Lonati, until the age of 13, then with Carlo Vidusso, until he was 18. He received a diploma from the Milan Conservatory and won the International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1960, after which he studied with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. - John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE (born April 20, 1943, Fontmell Magna, Dorset, England) is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir (1966), the English Baroque Soloists (1978) and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (1990). Gardiner recorded over 250 albums with these and other musical ensembles, most of which have been published by Deutsche Grammophon and Philips Classics. - Claudio Arrau
Claudio Arrau León was a Chilean pianist of world fame for his deep interpretations of a huge, vast repertoire spanning from the baroque to 20th-century composers. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. - A+
Andre Levins (born August 29 1982 in Hempstead, New York) is an American rapper, also known as A+. His career began in 1995, when he won a national competition sponsored by Def Jam Records. He was discovered by Kedar Massenburg and was the first artist signed to his label, Kedar Entertainment. In 1996, at the age of 13, A+ released his first album, "The Latch-Key Child", which featured the hit single "All I See". - David Oistrakh
David Fyodorovich Oistrakh was a Jewish Soviet violinist who made many recordings and was the dedicatee of numerous violin works. His recordings and performances of Shostakovich's concerti are particularly well known, but he was also a performer of classical concerti. He worked with orchestras in Russia, and also with musicians in Europe and the United States. - Mitsuko Uchida
(born December 20, 1948) is a classical pianist. - Krystian Zimerman
Krystian Zimerman is a Polish classical virtuoso pianist. He was born in Zabrze and studied at the Katowice Conservatory under Andrzej Jasinski. His career was launched when he won the Warsaw International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in 1975. He performed with the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Herbert von Karajan in 1976 and he made his American début with the New York Philharmonic in 1979. He has toured widely and made a number of recordings. - Emanuel Ax
Emanuel Ax (born June 8, 1949) is a Jewish-American pianist. Born in Lviv, Ukraine (then a constituent republic of the Soviet Union) to parents Joachim and Hellen Ax, both Nazi concentration camp survivors. Emanuel began to study piano at the age of six and Joachim was his first piano teacher. When he has eight the family moved to Warsaw and then two years later, to Winnipeg, Canada where he continued to study music, … - Leon Fleisher
Leon Fleisher (born July 23, 1928) is an American pianist and conductor. He was born in San Francisco, California, where he started studying the piano at age 4. He made his public debut at age 8 and played with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Monteux at 16. He studied with Artur Schnabel. He made a memorable series of recordings with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra before losing the use of his right hand due to focal dystonia. - Gil Shaham
Gil Shaham (born February 19, 1971) is an award-winning violinist of Israeli descent. Born in Urbana, Illinois, he moved to Israel at the age of 2 with his parents, both scientists, Jacob Shaham and Meira Diskin. At age 10, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and Israel Philharmonic orchestras, and was admitted to Juilliard, where he studied with the famed Dorothy DeLay and Hyo Kang. Both he and his sister, the pianist Orli Shaham, attended Columbia University. - Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw was an American conductor most famous for his work with his namesake Chorale, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Shaw received 14 Grammy awards, four ASCAP awards for service to contemporary music, the first Guggenheim Fellowship ever awarded to a conductor, the Alice M. Ditson Conductor's Award for Service to American Music; the George Peabody Medal for outstanding contributions to music in America, … - Thomas Quasthoff
Thomas Quasthoff (born in Hildesheim, Germany, November 9, 1959) is a German bass-baritone generally regarded as one of the finest singers of his generation. Although his reputation was initially based on his performance of Romantic lieder, Quasthoff has proven to have a remarkable range from the Baroque cantatas of Bach to solo jazz improvisations. - Richard Clayderman
Richard Clayderman is a French pianist who has released numerous albums, including renditions and arrangements of popular music, French chansons, and popular piano works of Beethoven, Chopin and Mozart. Most of his recordings focus on popular music in general and orchestral arrangements of well-known romantic songs in particular, such as Yesterday, The Sound of Silence and Memory, rather than on Jazz or Classical Music. - Friedrich Gulda
Friedrich Gulda was an Austrian pianist who performed in both the classical and jazz fields. Born in Vienna as the son of a teacher, Gulda began learning to play the piano from Felix Pazofsky at the age of 7; in 1942, he entered the Vienna Music Academy, where he studied piano and musical theory under Bruno Seidlhofer and Joseph Marx. After winning first prize at the International Competition in Geneva four years later, in 1946, … - Herbert Blomstedt
Herbert Blomstedt (b. 1927) is an American born orchestral conductor. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, his Swedish parents moved the family back to their country of origin two years after Herbert's birth. He studied at the Stockholm Royal College of Music and the University of Uppsala, followed by studies of contemporary music at Darmstadt in 1949, Baroque music with Paul Sacher at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, and further conducting studies with Igor Markevitch, … - Paul Dukas
Paul Abraham Dukas (October 1, 1865-May 17, 1935) was a Parisian-born French composer and teacher of classical music. - Mauricio Kagel
Mauricio Kagel (born Buenos Aires, December 24 1931) is an Argentine composer who has lived in Cologne, Germany since 1957. He is most famous for his interest in developing the theatrical side of musical performance. Many of his pieces give specific theatrical instructions to the performers, such as to adopt certain facial expressions while playing, to make their stage entrances in a particular way, to physically interact with other performers and so on. - Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini (September 14, 1760 - March 15, 1842) was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. Although his music is not well known today, it was greatly admired in his time. Beethoven regarded him as the greatest of his contemporaries. The most significant of Cherubini's works are his operas and sacred music. - Artur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel (April 17, 1882 - August 15, 1951) was an Austrian classical pianist, who also composed and taught. Schnabel was renowned for his seriousness as a musician, avoiding anything resembling pure technical bravura. He was said to have tended to disregard his own technical limitations in pursuit of his musical ideals. However, Schnabel is widely considered to be one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, whose vitality, … - Alfred Cortot
Alfred Denis Cortot was a Swiss pianist and conductor. He is one of the most popular 20th century musicians, renowned for his poetic insight in Romantic period piano works, particularly those of Chopin and Schumann. Born in Nyon in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, Cortot studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Emile Descombes (reputedly a pupil of Chopin) (as did Maurice Ravel), and with Louis Diémer, taking a "premier prix" in 1896. - Charles Rosen
Charles Rosen (born May 5, 1927) is an American pianist and music theorist. He was a piano student of Moriz Rosenthal. In an interview published in the June 2007 edition of "BBC Music Magazine", however, Rosen cites Josef Hofmann, whom he claims to have heard every year from age three, as a greater influence. Rosen recalls having played for Leopold Godowsky at age seven; Godowsky asked Rosen what he would like to be when he grew up, and, to Godowsky's amusement, … - András Schiff
András Schiff is a Hungarian-born classical pianist. He was born in Budapest and began piano lessons at the age of 5 with Elisabeth Vadasz. Schiff studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, and later in London with George Malcolm. He emigrated from Hungary in 1979. In 1999 he formed his own chamber orchestra, the "Cappella Andrea Barca" (the name being "Andras Schiff" in Italian). He has since appeared as a conductor with many major orchestras. - Marek Janowski
Marek Janowski has been Artistic Director of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin since 2002 and in 2005 he was also appointed Musical Director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva. - Clara Haskil
Clara Haskil (January 7, 1895 - December 7, 1960) was a classical pianist. A celebrated interpreter of classical and early romantic repertoire, Haskil was particularly noted for her performances and recordings of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Many considered her the foremost interpreter of Mozart in her time. She was also noted as a superb interpreter of Beethoven, Schumann, and Scarlatti. - Nelson Freire
Nelson Freire is a Brazilian classical pianist. Freire began playing the piano when he was three years old, amazing everyone around him by replaying from memory pieces his elder sister had just performed. His teachers in Brazil were Nise Obino and Lucia Branco, who had studied with a pupil of Liszt. For his first public recital at the age of five, Freire chose Mozart’s Sonata in A major, K. 331. In 1957, Freire's performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. - Gundula Janowitz
Gundula Janowitz (born August 2, 1937 in Berlin, Germany) was one of the greatest lyric sopranos in modern history, renowned for her magnificent tone -- often described as "creamy" or "silvery" -- and her vocal control at the top of her range. She studied at the Graz Conservatory and, in 1960, made her debut in Vienna. Popularity came quickly for her. She was especially admired, and often cast, by Herbert von Karajan. - Gianandrea Noseda
Gianandrea Noseda is an Italian conductor. He studied piano, composition and conducting in Milan. His further conducting studies have been with Donato Renzetti, Myung-Whun Chung and Valery Gergiev. Gergiev invited him to be Principal Guest Conductor at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg in 1997. He was later appointed Principal Conductor of the Orquestra de Cadaqués, … - Aldo Ciccolini
Aldo Ciccolini (born August 15, 1925), is a French pianist of Italian origin. He was born in Naples where he began his career playing at the Theater San Carlo at the age of 16. In 1949, he won the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud competition in Paris. He became a French citizen in 1969 and taught at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1970 to 1983. Ciccolini is a celebrated interpreter and advocate of the piano music of the French composers Maurice Ravel, … - Fernando Sor
Fernando Sor (baptized Joseph Fernando Macari Sors or José Fernando Macarurio Sors February 14, 1778 - July 10, 1839) was a Spanish guitarist and composer, born in Barcelona. In Spain he is sometimes known as the "Beethoven of the Guitar". - Uri Caine
Uri Caine (born June 8, 1956 in Philadelphia) is an American classical and jazz pianist and composer. Caine began playing piano at seven and studied with French jazz pianist Bernard Peiffer at 12. He later studied at the University of Pennsylvania where he came under the tutelage of George Crumb. He also gained a greater familiarity with classical music in this period and worked at clubs in Philadelphia. - Boris Berezovsky
Boris Berezovsky works regularly as concerto soloist with orchestras including the Concertgebouw, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre de la Monnaie, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Hamburg, Hessischer Rundfunk, New Japan Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and with conductors such as Kurt Masur, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Mikhail Pletnev, Antonio Pappano. - Felix Weingartner
Felix Weingartner, Edler von Münzberg (June 2 1863 - May 7 1942) was an Austrian conductor, composer and pianist. Weingartner was born in Zara, Dalmatia (today's Zadar, Croatia) to Austrian parents, and the family moved to Graz in 1868. His father died that same year. He studied with Franz Liszt in 1883 and was among Liszt's later pupils. Liszt helped produce Weingartner's opera "Sakuntala" for its world premiere in 1884 with the Weimar orchestra. - Barry Douglas
Barry Douglas (born April 23, 1960) is a British classical pianist. Born in Belfast, he won the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1986, the first non-Russian pianist to do so since Van Cliburn. Barry Douglas received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2002 New Year's Honours List for services to music. He also received a Fellowship of the Royal College of Music where he is Prince Consort Professor of Piano and an Hon. - Paul Badura-Skoda
Paul Badura-Skoda is an Austrian pianist. He won first prize in the Austrian Music Competition in 1947. In 1949, he performed with distinguished conductors like Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan. He has specialized in works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, but has an extensive repertoire, with a vast amount of recordings, including more than 200 LPs. Together with his wife Eva Badura-Skoda, he has also produced musical scholarship of impressive quality. - Ferenc Fricsay
Ferenc Fricsay was a Hungarian conductor. Fricsay was born in Budapest in 1914 and studied music under Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Ernst von Dohnányi, and Leo Weiner. Fricsay had a meteoric rise to fame, making his first appearance as a conductor at age 15. He became music director of the then newly formed RIAS Symphony Orchestra in Germany in 1949. He was musical director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra in 1954. - Kurt Sanderling
Kurt Sanderling is a German conductor. He was born in Arys in East Prussia. After early work at the Berlin Städtische Oper, Sanderling left for Russia in 1936, where he worked with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra. From 1942 to 1960 he was joint principal conductor (with Evgeny Mravinsky) of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. He then returned to Germany (now East Germany) where he conducted the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the Dresden Staatskapelle.
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