Wilhelm Kempff

Wilhelm Kempff (November 25, 1895 – May 23, 1991) was a renowned German pianist and composer.

Early life

Wilhelm Walter Friedrich Kempff was born in Jüterbog near Berlin and grew up in nearby Potsdam where his father was a royal music director and organist at St. Nicolai Church. His grandfather was also an organist and his brother Georg became director of church music at the University of Erlangen. Kempff studied music first in Potsdam and then in Berlin.

Pianist

Kempff toured very widely in Europe and much of the rest of the world. Between 1936 and 1979 he performed ten times in Japan and a small Japanese island was named Kempu-san in his honor. Kempff made his first London appearance in 1951 and in New York in 1964. He gave his last public performance in Paris in 1981, then retired for health reasons (Parkinson's Disease). He died in Positano, Italy at the age of 95. He is survived by five children.

Wilhelm Kempff recorded over a period of some sixty years. He is celebrated today for his recordings of Schumann, Brahms, Schubert, Mozart, Bach, Liszt, Chopin and particularly, of Beethoven.

He was among the first to record the complete sonatas of Franz Schubert, long before these works became popular. He also recorded two renowned sets of the complete Beethoven sonatas (and one early, almost complete set on shellac 1926-1945), one in mono (1951-1956) and the other in stereo (1964-1965).

One anecdote may illustrate Kempff's ability as an interpreter of Beethoven. During a stay in Finland, his friend the composer Jean Sibelius asked him to play the Hammerklavier of Beethoven and, after Kempff finished, Sibelius told him, "You did not play that as a pianist but rather as a human being."^{[citation needed]}

Kempff also played chamber music with Yehudi Menuhin and Pierre Fournier, among others. Particularly famous are the recordings of the complete Beethoven sonatas for violin and piano with Menuhin.

Teaching

In 1957 Kempff began to give an annual Beethoven interpretation course in his villa in Positano. Six years after his death, friend and former student John O'Conor took over the course. Other noted pianists to have studied with Kempff include Mitsuko Uchida and Gerhard Oppitz.

Composition

A lesser-known activity of Kempff was composing. He composed for almost every genre and used his own cadenzas for Beethoven's Piano Concertos 1-4. His second symphony was premiered in 1929 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus by Wilhelm Furtwängler. He also prepared a number of Bach transcriptions, including the Siciliano from the Flute Sonata in E, that have been recorded by Kempff and others.

External links

• Wilhelm Kempff was listed in the International Music Score Library Project
• Obituary for Wilhelm Kempff, by B. John Zavrel
• Wilhelm Kempff discography by Frank Forman
• Video recordings of Kempff performances, youtube.com
• [1], Wilhelm Kempff playing the 3rd movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.
• Kempff home page, in German