Friedrich Kalkbrenner
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Friedrich Wilhelm Kalkbrenner (7 November 1785–10 June 1849) was a German pianist and composer.
Son of Christian Kalkbrenner (1755-1806), a Jewish musician of Cassel, Friedrich was educated at the Paris Conservatoire, and soon began to play in public. From 1814 to 1823 he was well known as a brilliant performer and a successful teacher in London, and then settled in Paris, dying at Enghien, near there, in 1849.
As a teacher Kalkbrenner developed a piano playing technique that kept the musician's strength in the fingers and hands, instead of the forearm. This technique was used by his student Camille-Marie Stamaty, who taught it to his student, Camille Saint-Saëns.
He became a member of the Paris piano-manufacturing firm of Pleyel & Co., and made a fortune by his business and his art combined. His numerous compositions are less remembered now than his instruction-book, with studies, which has long been popular among pianists.
Chopin's first piano concerto is dedicated to Kalkbrenner.
Friedrich Kalkbrenner was listed in the International Music Score Library Project
[edit] Samples of scores
- Élégie harmonique à l'occasion de la mort de Charlotte d'Angleterre Opus 36 (1817)
- La Solitudine Opus 46 (ca.1825)
- Polonaise Brillante Opus 55 (ca.1826)
- Caprice Opus 104 (ca.1831)
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
