Walter Wilhelm Gieseking (November 5, 1895 – October 26, 1956) was a French-German pianist and composer. is the 309th day of the year (310th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1895 (MDCCCXCV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A pianist is a person who plays the piano. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ...

Walter Gieseking

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Biography

Walter Gieseking is said to have been a natural and intuitive pianist. According to legend, he never practised except in his own mind. He apparently would study the score, imagine playing it, and then perform it flawlessly. His habit of spending hours in total silence as he pored over scores is said to have frustrated his wife greatly.

Born in Lyon in France, Gieseking was largely self-taught as a pianist until he studied at the conservatorium in Hanover. He remained in Germany during World War II, and also performed sometimes in Nazi-occupied France; these things led to accusations of collaboration with the Nazi Party. A number of his concerts, particularly in the United States, had to be cancelled because of protests against him. Eventually he was cleared of any wrongdoing by an Allied court. He died in London during a recording of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No 15 for HMV. He had completed the first three movements and, the following day, was due to record the fourth. He died during the night. HMV released the unfinished recording. This article is about the French city. ... , Hanover(i) (German: , IPA: ), on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The National Socialist German Workers Party (German: , or NSDAP, originally known as the DAP (this changed in 1920) and commonly known as the Nazi Party), was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945 that was known as the German Workers Party before the name was changed in 1920. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... Ludwig van Beethovens fifteenth sonata of Op. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

Gieseking had a very wide repertoire, ranging from the core works by Ludwig van Beethoven through to more modern works by the likes of Ferruccio Busoni, Paul Hindemith, Arnold Schoenberg, and the lesser-known Italian Goffredo Petrassi. He gave the premiere of the Piano Concerto by Hans Pfitzner in 1923. Today, though, he is primarily remembered as one of the great interpreters of Mozart, Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel. He recorded the complete piano works of Debussy. His recordings of Debussy's Préludes, done in 1953 and 1955, have been re-released by EMI Classics in their "Great Recordings of the Century" collection. Many of his later recordings were made in both monaural and stereo. Music and Arts has released Gieseking's historic 1944 stereo recording of Beethoven's "Emperor" piano concerto. Although some of his recordings - particularly the live ones - are erratic and riddled with wrong notes, when Gieseking was in form he exhibited a superb technical equipment.^[1] “Beethoven” redirects here. ... Ferruccio Busoni Ferruccio Busoni (April 1, 1866 – July 27, 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, music teacher and conductor. ... Paul Hindemith aged 28. ... Arnold Schoenberg, Los Angeles, 1948 Arnold Schoenberg (the anglicized form of Schönberg — Schoenberg changed the spelling officially when he left Germany and re-converted to Judaism in 1933), (September 13, 1874 – July 13, 1951) was an Austrian and later American composer. ... Goffredo Petrassi (July 16, 1904 – March 3, 2003) was an Italian composer of modern classical music. ... Hans Pfitzner (May 5, 1869 - May 22, 1949) was a German composer and self-described anti-modernist. ... “Chopin” redirects here. ... Claude Debussy, photo by Félix Nadar, 1908. ... Maurice Ravel. ... Claude Debussys Préludes are two sets of pieces for solo piano. ... Year 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1955 Gregorian calendar). ... EMI Classics is a record label of EMI. It was formed in 1990 in order to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogs for internationally distributed classical music releases. ...

Gieseking was also an amateur lepidopterist. A lepidopterist is a person who catches and collects, or simply studies, lepidopterans, members of an order comprising butterflies, skippers, and moths. ...

References

1. ^ Dean Elder, Pianists at Play, Kahn & Averill, 1989

Bibliography

• Gieseking, Walter, So wurde ich Pianist (autobiography), 1963
• Leimer, Karl and Gieseking, Walter The Shortest Way to Pianistic Perfection, 1932
• —, Rhythmics, Dynamics, Pedal and Other Problems of Piano Playing, 1938
• Schonberg, Harold C., The Great Pianists, 1963

External links

Youngrok Lee's appreciation pages

• Biography
• Recordings & Discography - Walter Gieseking(1) from J.S.Bach to Debussy
• Recordings & Discography - Walter Gieseking(2) from Dvorák to Trapp

• BBC artist biography
• Walter Gieseking free scores in the International Music Score Library Project