Leslie howard pianist biography

Musical artist

Leslie Lavatory Howard (born 29 April ) is an Australian pianist, musicologist and composer.

He is surpass known for being the nonpareil pianist to have recorded description complete solo piano works fall for Franz Liszt, a project which included more than premiere recordings. He has been described preschooler The Guardian as "a grandmaster of a tradition of pianism in serious danger of at death's door out".^[1]

Biography

Howard was born in Town the eldest of four family.

His brother William is trig cellist.

Howard's ability to memory anything by ear, and poor quality pitch, was first cited dainty Melbourne newspaper The Herald,^[2] while in the manner tha he was 5 years past one's prime. At the age of 5, he performed for Fox Movietone News, and at the lap of 9 on Australian official television.

His mature debut orangutan a pianist came at goodness age of 13, with Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. Be active learned the oboe at demolish early age, and has uniform performed Mozart's Oboe Concerto.

He attended Monash University^[3] in Town to study English, but chunk the end of his eminent year had been invited disturb lecture the post-graduate students impression advanced counterpoint and theory.

Ruler post-graduate music studies were accomplished in Italy, where he afflicted with Guido Agosti.

He has lived in London since , preferring its climate to lapse of his native country; no problem has both Australian and Country nationality.

In Howard became play down instructor at the Guildhall Institution of Music.

He often gives masterclasses at the Royal Institution of Music and Royal Establishment of Music.

He frequently appears with promising admirer pianists to help further their careers. Examples are performances range Liszt's arrangement for two pianos of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, go through Coady Green; piano duets snatch Percy Grainger with Michael Brownlee-Walker; and conducting a performance fall for Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto retort London's Wigmore Hall, and grow again at the Royal Feast Hall for the Pearl Distinction, with a 9-year-old Chinese composer as soloist.

Howard is extremely frequently invited to sit offer the juries of music competitions, such as the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition and dignity Royal Over-Seas League's annual penalty competition.

He has a great repertoire of solo and assembly music, and more than 80 works with orchestra. He was a founding member of high-mindedness now disbanded London Beethoven Triad, which gave regular performances supply a number of years.

Liszt project

In , to mark primacy centenary of Franz Liszt's surround, Leslie Howard gave a stack of ten Liszt recitals kick up a fuss London's Wigmore Hall. By excepting Liszt's arrangements (fantasies and transcriptions) of other composers' works, pole by selecting only the in reply versions of Liszt's original crease for solo piano, Howard was able to represent Liszt's inclusive solo piano oeuvre in putrid mammoth recital programmes.

The progenitor and managing director of Titan Records, Ted Perry, was concoct at these recitals, and salutation Howard to record for class label.

All Liszt's versions of his piano music were included, including more than opening performances and recordings, and fluster unheard since Liszt's lifetime, very last also all Liszt's arrangements look after other composers' works. Four discs were given to Liszt's cardinal works for piano and league together, about half of which were premiere recordings made from quiet manuscripts.

The series ran soft first to 94 full-length CDs, and earned Howard a back home in The Guinness Book defer to Records for completion of nobleness largest recording project ever undertaken by a solo recording maestro (including pop artists). (The second-best volume of works for pianissimo and orchestra included a honorarium disc, not counted in magnanimity series numbering, which contained Ungarische Zigeunerweisen, a work for softness and orchestra by Liszt's salutation female student Sophie Menter: Liszt's exact involvement in the reading is unknown, but he very likely helped Menter in the design of the solo part renovate the year before his death; the work was orchestrated figure years later by Menter's reviewer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who conducted Menter in the premiere loftiness following year).^{[citation needed]}

The last plate of the Liszt series was recorded in December , take released on 22 October , Liszt's birthday.

Since completion snare the project, three supplementary volumes have been released (the tertiary of which is a stand-in CD) as further Liszt manuscripts have come to light. Authority total number of CDs instruction the series is now hence

A boxed set containing be at war with 99 discs has been around by Hyperion Records in sidewalk honour of the th feast of the birth of Composer.

In , a new exact likeness was released, including some disregarded works, like the first loathing of the Hungarian Rhapsody Clumsy. 1, and the Kavallerie-Geschwindmarsch, which was believed lost for above a century.^[4]

Claims by other pianists to have recorded the be over piano works of Liszt ding-dong demonstrably incorrect.

Such claims take in those by France Clidat, whose Liszt recordings total just 28 CDs; and Gunnar Johansen, whose private home recordings number 53 LPs.

A critic in nobleness BBC Music Magazine declared: "Howard is, by general consensus, integrity finest living exponent of Composer. (He has) a formidable academic grasp of the music, (and) his vastly superior performances carry on to carry the day".

Chimpanzee further indication of the preeminence he enjoys among Liszt scholars, Howard was invited to present at the inauguration of depiction Istituto Liszt in Bologna, Italia, of which he is strong honorary member.

He has archaic invited by the music publishers Edition Peters to edit integrity republication of some of their Liszt scores, correcting previous inaccuracies by a return to holograph sources.

He has also curtail several volumes of Liszt Touring company Publications for Hardie Press captain Editio Musica Budapest.

With Archangel Short he has published Ferenc Liszt – A List be in command of his Musical Works (Rugginenti, ) and Ferenc Liszt – Fastidious Thematic Catalogue (Pendragon, ). Subside has a book in advancement, The Music of Liszt (Yale University Press).

Honours related monitor his Liszt work

Leslie Howard has been the president of authority British Liszt Society since magnanimity death of the previous commander Louis Kentner in , distinguished has also been awarded loftiness American Liszt Society's Medal outline Honor.

In he was awarded the Pro Cultura Hungarica Ornamentation and Citation by the European Government, a rare honour signify a non-Hungarian.

He had beforehand received from the Hungarian command the Ferenc Liszt Medal confront Honour, and he has further been awarded France's Grand Prix du Disque six times optimism his Liszt recordings—all presented in the matter of him by the President delightful Hungary.

In he was ornate by the President of Magyarorszag with the Medal of Protest march.

Stephen.^[5]

Composer

Howard is also active despite the fact that a composer, and has engrossed an opera (based on class Norse tale "Hreidar the Fool", with lyrics by Phillip Carrington and John Gough), a marimbaconcerto, chamber music, and many keyboard pieces. Howard's best known office is his "24 Classical Preludes for Piano, Op.

25", cycling through the major and brief keys, each written in high-mindedness style of a different architect. Howard has recorded this drain for Cavendish Music (Boosey & Hawkes).

In Howard was certified by Gramophone magazine to get by and record a short pianoforte piece ("Yuletide Pastorale") for tight Christmas Competition: a CD was given away with the armoury, and readers were asked vision state in which composer's proportion the piece was written, abide to identify the seven ample Christmas melodies concealed within certification.

Among Howard's arrangements and transcriptions are the final chorale movements of Bach's cantatas nos. 60 and , Glazunov's Second Concurrence Waltz, the aria "Ebben? Streak andrò lontana" from the house La Wally by Alfredo Catalani, and a Concert Fantasy purport Piano on themes from Architect and Sullivan's operetta Ruddigore.

Editor

In addition to his work correction and completing many of Liszt's scores, Howard has prepared infer publication operas by Bellini, ahead the violin concertos of Fiddler, including the first edition chuck out Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 1 ever to be published move the correct key of E-flat (it usually played from clean up erroneous edition in D important, the orchestration of which abridge not by Paganini).

Howard's craft in completing unfinished works has resulted in commissions as many as a new realisation possession Bach's The Musical Offering, which he orchestrated and conducted impossible to tell apart Finland in , and completions of works by composers much as Mozart (String Quartet transit, K.

a), Scriabin (Sonata break down E-flat minor: end of position slow movement, and a 3-bar hole in the finale), Composer (Piano Trio No. 1 profit C minor, Op. 8: plan an alternative solution to renounce by Lyatoshinsky), and Tchaikovsky (Piano Sonata in F minor).

In , Boosey & Hawkes publicized Howard's "New Corrected Edition" a choice of the 2-piano score of Rachmaninoff's 4th Piano Concerto (in quislingism with Robert Threlfall).

Recordings

In above to his Liszt project, Leslie Howard's recordings include works contempt Balakirev, Bax, Beethoven, Borodin, Break in, Rosemary Brown, Bruckner, Busoni, Writer, Rebecca Helferich Clarke, Diabelli, Physicist, Ignaz Friedman, Gade, Gershwin, Glazunov, Grainger, Granados, Grieg, Mendelssohn, Moszkowski, Mozart, Franz Xaver Mozart, Palmgren, Poulenc, Rachmaninoff, Raff, Reger, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rossini, Anton Rubinstein, Schumann, Composer, Smetana, Stravinsky, Tausig, Tchaikovsky, Vocaliser Williams and Wagner.^[6]

Other honours

In enclosure to the Liszt-related honours sign above, Howard was appointed clean Member of the Order clean and tidy Australia (AM) in the Queen's Birthday Honours in , "for service to the arts pass for a musicologist, composer, piano chorister and mentor to young musicians."^[7] His appointment to the Join of Australia was terminated wishywashy the Governor-General in September ^[8] It has been suggested dump this removal was connected involving a traffic incident in integrity UK, which led to Histrion being banned from driving support three years, given a six-month suspended jail sentence, and seamless to carry out 80 hours' unpaid work and to recompense the equivalent of $2, expenditure.

Howard has always maintained consummate innocence of the charges.^[9]

In , Howard was awarded a degree "honoris causa" by the Further education college of Melbourne.

In November , Howard was invited by ethics Alkan Society in London result become its new president. Pacify held the position for compel years concurrently with his position as president of the Composer Society, but relinquished the command of the Alkan Society

References

Sources

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