An étude or study is an instrumental musical composition, usually short, designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill. The tradition of writing études emerged in the early 19th century with the rapidly growing popularity of the piano. Of the vast number of études from that era some are still used as teaching material, and a few, by major composers such as Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt and Claude Debussy, achieved a place in today's concert repertory. Études written in the 20th century include those related to traditional ones and those that require wholly unorthodox technique.
Constantin "Dinu" Lipatti was a Romanian classical pianist and composer whose career was cut short by his death from effects related to Hodgkin's disease at age 33. He was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy. He composed few works, all of which demonstrated a strong influence from Hungarian composer Béla Bartok.
Jorge Bolet was a Cuban-born American concert pianist, conductor and teacher. Among his teachers were Leopold Godowsky, and Moriz Rosenthal – the latter a renowned pupil of Franz Liszt.
Karl Tausig was a Polish virtuoso pianist, arranger and composer. He is generally regarded as Franz Liszt's most distinguished pupil and one of the greatest pianists of all time.
Murray David Perahia is an American pianist and conductor. He has been considered one of the greatest living pianists. He was the first North American pianist to win the Leeds International Piano Competition, in 1972. Known as a leading interpreter of Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, among other composers, Perahia has won numerous awards, including three Grammy Awards from a total of 18 nominations, and 9 Gramophone Awards in addition to its first and only "Piano Award".
John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.
Alexis Sigismund Weissenberg was a Bulgarian-born French pianist.
Nikolai Demidenko is a Russian-born classical pianist.
Grigory Romanovich Ginzburg was a Soviet pianist.
Sandro Ivo Bartoli is an Italian pianist.
Sergio Fiorentino was a 20th-century Italian classical pianist whose sporadic performing career spanned five decades. There is quite a bit of footage of his playing that survives, in addition to audio recordings. Recently, a complete concert recorded on video in 1994 has surfaced.
Valerie Tryon, is an English classical pianist. Since 1971 she has resided in Canada, but continues to pursue an international performing and recording career, and spends a part of each year in her native Britain. Among her specialisms is the music of Franz Liszt, of which she has made a number of celebrated recordings. Currently 'Artist-in-Residence' at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Tryon is active as a concerto soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, accompanist and adjudicator.
Kun-woo Paik is a South Korean pianist. He has performed with multiple orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic.
While a concerto is generally a piece for an instrument or instruments with orchestral accompaniment, some works for piano alone have been written with the seemingly contradictory designation concerto for solo piano.
Alexander Raab was a Hungarian-American pianist and distinguished piano teacher.
Ferruccio Busoni discography is a list of recordings of music composed or adapted by Ferruccio Busoni. For recordings of music with Busoni as pianist, see Ferruccio Busoni discography.
The Klavierübung, by the Italian pianist-composer Ferruccio Busoni, is a compilation of piano exercises and practice pieces, comprising transcriptions of works by other composers and original compositions of his own.
Francesco Libetta is an Italian pianist, composer and conductor.
Ian Hobson is an English pianist, conductor and teacher, and is a professor at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and at Florida State University. His pianistic repertoire spans the baroque to the contemporary, but he specialises in the Romantic repertoire. Starting September 1st 2023 he will be serving as a guest conductor of Sinfonia Varsovia.
