Roy Howat (born 1951) is a Scottish pianist and musicologist, who specializes in French music. Howat has been Keyboard Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music in London since 2003, [1] and Research Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland since 2013.
Howat was born in Ayrshire, Scotland. [2] . His mother was Czech, his father Scots. He was educated at Ardrossan Academy in Ayrshire and King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a first-class degree in Music in 1974. [3] He has also studied under Vlado Perlemuter in Paris.
He is married to the Australian pianist and musical writer Emily Kilpatrick. [4]
He is one of the founding editors, with Pierre Boulez, François Lesure and others, of the Paris-based Complete Debussy Edition (Œuvres Complètes de Claude Debussy), for which he has edited much of the piano music. His other publications include the books, Debussy in Proportion and The Art of French piano music, Urtext volumes of Chabrier and Fauré, an English edition of Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger's Chopin, Pianist and Teacher, and chapters in numerous other books on Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, Ravel, Bartók and others.
His recordings include major piano and chamber works by composers including Debussy, Chabrier, Fauré and Pierné. [5] In 2001 he toured in Egypt as both pianist and violist with the Sarastro Ensemble. More recent performances include those with the Panocha Quartet in Japan, the Czech Republic and the UK (including the Wigmore Hall).
(Achille) Claude Debussy was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his most highly regarded works in his later years, in a more harmonically and melodically complex style.
A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. While, during the Baroque era, for example, it may have served as an introduction to succeeding movements of a work that were usually longer and more complex, it may also have been a stand-alone piece of work during the Romantic era. It generally features a small number of rhythmic and melodic motifs that recur through the piece. Stylistically, the prelude is improvisatory in nature. The term may also refer to an overture, particularly to those seen in an opera or an oratorio.
Alfred Denis Cortot was a French pianist, conductor, and teacher who was one of the most renowned classical musicians of the 20th century. A pianist of massive repertory, he was especially valued for his poetic insight into Romantic piano works, particularly those of Chopin, Franck, Saint-Saëns and Schumann. For Éditions Durand, he edited editions of almost all piano music by Chopin, Liszt and Schumann.
Alexis-Emmanuel Chabrier was a French Romantic composer and pianist. His bourgeois family did not approve of a musical career for him, and he studied law in Paris and then worked as a civil servant until the age of thirty-nine while immersing himself in the modernist artistic life of the French capital and composing in his spare time. From 1880 until his final illness he was a full-time composer.
Angela Hewitt, is a Canadian classical pianist. She is best known for her Bach interpretations.
Claude Debussy's Préludes are 24 pieces for solo piano, divided into two books of 12 preludes each. Unlike some notable collections of preludes from prior times, such as Chopin's Op. 28 preludes, or the preludes from Johann Sebastian Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Debussy's do not follow a strict pattern of tonal centers.
Vladislas "Vlado" Perlemuter was a Lithuanian-born French pianist and teacher.
Marguerite Marie-Charlotte Long was a French pianist, pedagogue, lecturer, and an ambassador of French music.
Isidor Edmond Philipp was a French pianist, composer, and pedagogue of Jewish Hungarian descent. He was born in Budapest and died in Paris.
Albert Ferber was a Swiss pianist who had an international performing career that spanned four decades and took him across the world.
Dezső Ránki is a Hungarian virtuoso concert pianist with a broad repertoire and a significant discography of solo, duo and concerto works.
Carol Rosenberger is a classical pianist. In 1976, Rosenberger was chosen to represent America's women concert artists by the President's National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. She has given performance workshops for young musicians on campuses nationwide. Rosenberger recorded over 30 albums on the Delos Productions, Inc. recording label. Rosenberger's memoir, To Play Again: A Memoir of Musical Survival was published in 2018 by She Writes Press.
The French composer Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) wrote in many genres, including songs, chamber music, orchestral pieces, and choral works. His compositions for piano, written between the 1860s and the 1920s, include some of his best known works.
Elizabeth Sombart is a French classical pianist. In her youth she studied at the Strasbourg Conservatory where her first public performance was at the age of 11. She won first prize in National Piano Awards and Chamber Music Awards, and left France at age 16 to study with several classical piano masters on various continents. She has been a featured soloist in concerts with orchestras at well-known performance halls in Europe and the U.S. In addition to her concert performances, master classes, and recordings she has authored three books. In 1998, she created the Fondation Résonnance, a philanthropic organization which provides free music education and concerts with the goal of bring classical music to places it would not typically reach, including orphanages, hospitals, prisons and refugee camps. In 2006, Sombart was awarded one of the highest civilian honors France can bestow, the National Order of Merit for Lifetime Achievement for her humanitarian work, and in 2008 was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her artistic achievements.
Madeleine (Hsu) Forte is a Franco-American pianist, recording artist, and Professor Emerita of Piano at the Morrison Center for the Performing Arts at Boise State University.
Dominique Marie-Joseph Merlet is a French contemporary pianist, organist and music educator.
Claude Kahn was a French classical pianist, internationally known for his interpretations of especially the music of Chopin, but also of French music as soloist or accompanied by great orchestras in the world. He founded and directed a piano competition in 1970, to become international as the Concours International de Piano Claude Kahn. He founded the conservatoire of Antibes in 1971 and directed it until 1991.
The French composer Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–1894) wrote music in many genres, including opera and operetta, piano, orchestral music, and songs with piano accompaniment. The songs cover most of his creative years, from the early 1860s to 1890, when the illness which would kill him prevented much composition. He came late to music as a profession, but – although being an exceptional pianist – he had no trappings of a formal training: no conservatoire studies, no Prix de Rome, "none of the conventional badges of French academic musicians, by whom he was regarded as an amateur".
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