PIANO MUSIC - Abeille Musique

LESLIE Howard
Annual re-engagements on five continents and a 130-CD
discography attest to the burgeoning popularity of Leslie
Howard, long established worldwide as a concert pianist,
composer, conductor, chamber musician and scholar.
Commanding the largest repertoire of any pianist who
ever lived—and the largest discography of any solo
instrumentalist in recording history—he is an artist
without peer on the international concert scene.
Born in Australia and a resident of London since 1972,
Dr Howard has earned his extraordinary claim to
immortality, having accomplished a feat unequaled by
any solo artist past or present—his 99-CD survey of the
complete piano music of Franz Liszt. Accomplished within
fourteen years, it encompasses over three hundred
premieres, including works prepared by Dr Howard from
Liszt’s still unpublished manuscripts, and works unheard
since Liszt’s lifetime. This monumental project merited
Dr Howard’s entry into the Guinness Book of World
Records, the Medal of St Stephen, Pro Cultura Hungarica
award, and a mounted bronze cast of Liszt’s hand—all
presented to him by the President of Hungary—and six
Grands prix du disque. In 1999, in a ceremony at
Buckingham Palace, the Queen bestowed on Dr Howard
‘Member in the Order of Australia’ for his ‘service to the
arts as piano soloist, composer, musicologist and mentor
to young musicians’.
Leslie Howard has appeared internationally with many
of the world’s finest orchestras, and has been soloist with
such renowned conductors as Claudio Abbado, Adam
Fischer, Roy Goodman, James Judd, Joseph Silverstein,
Barry Tuckwell, Sir Charles Groves, Vernon Handley, Jerzy
Maksymiuk, Norman Del Mar, Elyakum Shapirra, Jansug
Kakhidze, Arthur Fiedler, Fritz Reiger, Alexander Lazarev,
Kurt Sanderling, Hiroyuki Iwaki, and Sir Charles
Mackerras. Dr Howard’s chamber music and lieder
performances include collaborations with some of the
greatest artists of our time, and he has been a featured
artist at many international music festivals, including the
American festivals of Santa Fe, Newport, La Jolla, Palm
Beach and Seattle, and at such European festivals as
Brescia-Bergamo, Como, Edinburgh, Schleswig-Holstein,
Bath, Camden, Cheltenham, Warwick and Wexford.
Leslie Howard’s discography includes many important
premiere recordings, including the piano sonatas of Anton
Rubinstein (CDD22007) and Tchaikovsky (CDH55215).
Also notable is the highly acclaimed disc entitled ‘Rare
Piano Encores’ (CDH55109). Most prominent amongst his
Liszt recordings is the first complete recording of all
seventeen works for piano and orchestra, including
Dr Howard’s reconstructions of the third piano concerto,
De profundis, and Concerto pathétique.
As a composer, Dr Howard’s compositions include an
opera, a ballet, and numerous orchestral, choral and solo
compositions. As an arranger, he has written completions
for unfinished or unrealized works of Bach, Mozart, Liszt,
Tchaikovsky, Scriabin and Shostakovich. He has also edited
several volumes of Liszt Society Publications for Hardie
Press and Editio Musica Budapest. With Michael Short,
he has published F. Liszt: a List of his Musical Works
(Rugginenti, 2002); a full thematic catalogue and a book
on Liszt’s music are in progress.
Leslie Howard frequently serves on juries of international
competitions. He has also produced an Urtext
edition of Liszt’s B minor Sonata for Edition Peters and a
new reconstruction and orchestration of Paganini’s fifth
violin concerto for the collected Paganini Edition.
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