By what piano piece is Balakireff best known?
What Russian pianist has visited America?
Name two young Russian composer pianists.
Give some account of Henselt.
Who made the piano score of Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung”?
Name some successful teachers of the piano at the Paris Conservatory. Which one has twice visited America? Which has published many valuable sets of exercises?
LESSON XLVIII.
Pianists and Teachers Since Liszt. II.
One of the greatest living teachers in authority and breadth of influence is Theodor Leschetizky, born in 1831. A pupil of Czerny, he began to teach at the age of fifteen, having played in public since 1842. He became a teacher in the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he taught for many years. Soon after 1880 he settled in Vienna, where he has lived ever since. Since the success of his pupil Paderewski, Leschetizky has been the most sought-after teacher in the world. He has been obliged to have assistants to prepare pupils for him. Students have come to Vienna from all parts of the world. A brilliant pianist, he has written piano music and even an opera, but his merit as a teacher is due to the foundation given him by Czerny, who acquired his traditions from Beethoven, to the keenness of his ability to prescribe for the individual needs of the pupil and the simplicity and directness of his “method.” His pupils have met with great success, although he has not yet produced a second Paderewski.
Ignaz Paderewski, probably the greatest pianist since Liszt, although like him excelled in some respects by others, was born in 1859. A pupil of the Warsaw Conservatory, he also studied at Berlin. He taught piano at the Warsaw Conservatory from 1878-83, and also at Strassburg. Later he went to Leschetizky for a thorough course of study. After his début at Vienna, in 1887, he conquered by degrees Paris and London. His first visit to America was in 1891, when he carried all before him. Since then he has visited the United States three times, he has traveled over all Europe, and has visited Australia with overwhelming success, financial and artistic. His most noticeable qualities are a magnetic personality, a virtuoso technic, the color and piquant rhythm of his playing, and the poetry and deep human intensity of his interpretations. He has written several sets of pieces for the piano, a concerto, and a fantasy with orchestra, and an opera. His generous gift of the endowment of triennial prizes to American composers is an admirable instance of his warm-heartedness.
Josef Slavinski, born 1865, who studied with Stroeble, Anton Rubinstein and finally Leschetizky, is a pianist of great ability who came to the United States in 1873, and again in 1901. Other Leschetizky pupils are Ossip Gabrilowitsch, born 1878, also a pupil of Anton Rubinstein and the St. Petersburg Conservatory, who came to America in 1900 and 1902; Mark Hambourg, born in 1879, who first studied with his father, and after a tour of the United States in 1900, has had brilliant successes in Europe and England; Martinus Sieveking, born 1867, a pupil of Röntgen at Leipzig, who visited America in 1895 and again in 1896-97 and afterwards went to Vienna. There are many other brilliant pupils of Leschetizky, but the foregoing are some of the best known.