Johann Nikolaus Harnoncourt was an Austrian conductor, known for his historically informed performances. He specialized in music of the Baroque period, but later extended his repertoire to include Classical and early Romantic works. Among his best known recordings are those of Bach, whose 193 cantatas he recorded with Gustav Leonhardt.
Malcolm Bilson is an American pianist and musicologist specializing in 18th- and 19th-century music. He is the Frederick J. Whiton Professor of Music in Cornell University, Ithaca, New York Bilson is one of the foremost players and teachers of the fortepiano; this is the ancestor of the modern piano and was the instrument used in Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven's time.
Rudolf Serkin was a Bohemian-born Austrian-American pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Beethoven interpreters of the 20th century.
Peter Adolf Serkin was an American classical pianist. He won the Grammy Award for Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist in 1966, and he performed globally, known for not only "technically pristine" playing but also a "commitment to contemporary music". He taught at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Bard College.
Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25, was written in 1830–31, around the same time as his fourth symphony ("Italian"), and premiered in Munich on 17 October 1831. This concerto was composed in Rome during a travel in Italy after the composer met the pianist Delphine von Schauroth in Munich. The concerto was dedicated to her. Mendelssohn attended one party after another in Munich in October 1831, the month of the premiere, but he also played chamber music and taught double counterpoint. He performed the piece himself at the premiere, which also included performances of his Symphony No. 1 and the Overture from Midsummer Night's Dream. He had already written a piano concerto in A minor with string accompaniment (1822) and two concertos with two pianos (1823–24).
Robert David Levin is an American classical pianist, musicologist, and composer who served as the artistic director of the Sarasota Music Festival from 2007 to 2017.
Ruth Laredo was an American classical pianist.
Paul Badura-Skoda was an Austrian pianist.
Bart van Oort is a Dutch classical pianist.
Steven Lubin is an American pianist and musical scholar. He is best known for his performances on the fortepiano, the early version of the piano.
The Piano Concerto No. 6 in B-flat major, K. 238, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in January 1776. His Concerto No. 7 for three pianos and his Concerto No. 8 in C major would follow within three months. The three works share what Cuthbert Girdlestone refers to as a galant style.
Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto in E flat major, WoO. 4, is one of his earlier works, written in 1784 when he was only 14. Only the solo piano part survives today, although there are some indications in the manuscript for orchestral cues. On the occasions when the work has been performed, the orchestral part has had to be arranged beforehand. The concerto is sometimes referred to as Piano Concerto No. 0, as it came before all of Beethoven's other piano concertos. It is rarely performed. Pianists Howard Shelley, Ronald Brautigam and Philippos Tsalachouris, as well as the Swiss musicologist and composer Willy Hess, have each made their own reconstructions of the concerto.
Conrad Graf was an Austrian-German piano maker. His pianos were used by Beethoven, Chopin, and Robert and Clara Schumann, among others.
Gabriel Anton Walter was a builder of pianos. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes him as "the most famous Viennese piano maker of his time".
Leonard Hokanson was an American pianist who achieved prominence in Europe as a soloist and chamber musician.
Viviana Sofronitsky is a Russian and Canadian classical pianist. Born in Moscow, her father was the Soviet-Russian pianist Vladimir Sofronitsky.
Paul McNulty is a builder of historical pianos, described by the New Grove as "famous for the high standard of [his] instruments." Within the community of builders, McNulty is noted for his efforts to extend the production of historically informed instruments later into history: while he has built many fortepianos in 18th-century style, he has also progressively sought to span the gap between the fortepiano and the fully modern piano that emerged around the last third of the 19th century. The expanding diversity of McNulty's productions has thus helped "provide an opportunity to extend keyboard performing practice to include the piano repertory of the 19th century".
Anthony Newman is an American classical musician. While mostly known as an organist, Newman is also a harpsichordist, pianist, composer, conductor, writer, and teacher. He is a specialist in music of the Baroque period, particularly the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, and has collaborated with such noted musicians as Kathleen Battle, Julius Baker, Itzhak Perlman, Eugenia Zukerman, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Leonard Bernstein, Michala Petri, and Wynton Marsalis, for whom he arranged and conducted In Gabriel’s Garden, the most popular classical record of 1996.
Die Kölner Akademie - Damals und Heute is a German baroque and classical music orchestra founded in 1996 and based in Cologne, Germany. It was founded in 1996 by the American conductor Michael Alexander Willens, who studied at the Juilliard School in New York and still leads the orchestra.
Kristian Bezuidenhout is an Australian pianist, who specializes in performances on early keyboard instruments.
