Leslie Howard (musician)

Leslie Howard AM (born 29 April 1948) is an Australian pianist and composer.

Biography

Howard was born in Melbourne, Australia, the oldest of 4 children. He has lived in London, England since 1972, preferring its climate to that of his native Australia. The rest of his family continues to live in or near Melbourne. Howard's brother William Howard is a cellist. Leslie Howard has both Australian and British nationality.

Howard has an unusual history, beginning at the age of 2 when he elbowed his nursery-school headmistress off the piano because she was harmonising the songs incorrectly. (He himself was only able to span a 6th at the time.)Fact|date=June 2008

Howard's ability to recall anything by ear, and perfect pitch, was first cited in "The Herald", Melbourne ["The Herald", 11 August 1953] , when he was 5 years old. At the age of 5 he performed for Fox Movietone News, and at the age of 9 on Australian national television. His mature debut as a pianist came at the age of 13, with Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. He learned the oboe at an early age, and has even performed Mozart’s Oboe Concerto. He does not play the oboe these days.

He attended Monash University in Melbourne, to study English, but by the end of his first year had been invited to lecture the post-graduate students on advanced counterpoint and theory. His post-graduate music studies were completed in Italy, where he studied with Guido Agosti.

In March 2008, he was found guilty at Croydon Crown Court (UK) of causing actual bodily harm during a road accident. He was due to be sentenced on 15 April 2008. [ [http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/display.var.2117417.0.0.php Man clung on to bonnet of pianist's car. Croydon Guardian] ] Howard vigorously asserts his innocence, and an appeal against conviction is pending.

Liszt recordings

In 1986, to mark the centenary of Liszt’s death, Howard gave a series of ten mammoth Liszt recitals in London’s Wigmore Hall. Liszt’s arrangements of other composers’ work, and all but the final versions of Liszt's original solo piano output, were excluded.

The founder and Managing Director of Hyperion Records was present at these recitals, and invited Howard to record for the label. This resulted in the largest recording project ever undertaken by a recording artist (including pop artists)Fact|date=January 2008 – that of the complete music for solo piano of Liszt. All Liszt's versions of his piano music were included, including more than 300 world premieres, and many other pieces unheard since Liszt's lifetime, and also all arrangements of other composers’ work. Four discs were given to Liszt's seventeen works for piano and orchestra, about half of which were première recordings made from unpublished manuscripts. The series ran to 94 full-length CDs, and has earned Howard a place in the Guinness Book Of Records. The last disc was recorded in December 1998, and released on 22 October 1999, Liszt's birthday. Since completion of the project there have been two supplementary volumes, as further Liszt manuscripts come to light. At the time of writing, sufficient material is available for a third supplementary volume.

Awards and honours

Howard was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 1999, "for service to the arts as a musicologist, composer, piano soloist and mentor to young musicians". The ceremony was telecast internationally from Buckingham Palace. The following year he was awarded the Pro Cultura Hungarica Medal and Citation by the Hungarian Government, a rare honour for a non-Hungarian. He had previously received from the Hungarian government the Ferenc Liszt Medal Of Honour award, and has also been awarded France's Grand Prix du Disque six times for his Liszt recordings - all presented to him by the President of Hungary. In 2001 Howard was awarded a doctorate "honoris causa" by the University of Melbourne. In 2004 he was decorated by the President of Hungary with the Medal of St. Stephen [ [http://www.margaretmurphy.com/howard/howard.htm Margaret Murphy Management] ] .

He has been the President of the British Liszt Society for 20 years (since the death of the previous President Louis Kentner), and has also been awarded the American Liszt Society’s Medal Of Honour. He can often be heard giving masterclasses at London's Royal College of Music and Royal Academy of Music. In 1987 Howard became an instructor at the Guildhall School of Music in London. He is also an honorary member of the Istituto Liszt in Bologna, Italy. As further indication of the status he enjoys among Liszt scholars, Howard was invited to perform at the inauguration of this organisation, and gave a concert on a restored 1860s Steinway, while director Rossana Dalmonte explained the aims of the new organisation.

Howard is on the prestigious roster of Steinway Artists.

He frequently appears with deserving student pianists, to help their careers. Examples are performances of Liszt's arrangement for two pianos of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with Coady Green; piano duets of Percy Grainger with Michael Brownlee-Walker; and conducting a performance of Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto in London's Wigmore Hall, and then again at the Royal Festival Hall, with a 9-year old Chinese pianist as soloist.

He has been invited by the music publishers Edition Peters to edit the republication of some of their Liszt scores, correcting previous inaccuracies by a return to manuscript sources. Howard has also prepared for publication other works, such as operas by Vincenzo Bellini, and the Violin Concertos of Paganini, including the first edition of Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 1 ever to be published in the correct key of E-flat (it is always heard and recorded in D major)Fact|date=August 2008.

Howard is also frequently invited to sit on the juries of music competitions, such as the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition, and the Royal Over-Seas League's annual music competition.

Composer

Howard is also active as a composer, and has written an opera, a marimba concerto, chamber music, and many piano pieces. Howard's best known composition is his "24 Classical Preludes for Piano, Op. 25", cycling through the major and minor keys, each written in the style of a different composer. Howard has recorded his op. 25 for Cavendish Music (Boosey & Hawkes). Among Howard's arrangements and transcriptions are Bach chorales and cantatas, Glazunov's Second Concert Waltz, and the aria "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana" from the opera "La Wally" by Alfredo Catalani.

Howard's facility in completing unfinished works has resulted in commissions as diverse as a new realisation of Bach's "Musical Offering", which he orchestrated and conducted in Finland in 1990, and completions of works by composers such as Liszt (many works), Mozart (String Quartet movement KV464a), Scriabin, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky (Piano Sonata in F minor).

In 1997 Howard was commissioned by Gramophone magazine to compose and record a short piano piece ("Yuletide Pastorale") for its Christmas Competition: a CD was given away with the magazine, and readers were asked to state in which composer's style the piece was written, and to identify the seven well-known Christmas melodies concealed in it.

In 2003, Boosey & Hawkes published Howard’s “New Corrected Edition” of the 2-piano score of Rachmaninoff’s 4th Piano Concerto (in collaboration with Robert Threlfall). He has also edited several volumes of Liszt Society Publications for Hardie Press and Editio Musica Budapest. With Michael Short he has published "Ferenc Liszt - A List of his Musical Works" (Rugginenti, 2004) and "Ferenc Liszt - A Thematic Catalogue" (Pendragon, 2005). And he has a book in progress, "The Music of Liszt" (Yale University Press).

Performance, recordings, and accolades

Howard has a huge repertoire of solo and chamber music, and more than 80 works with orchestra. He is also a founding member of the London Beethoven Trio, with whom he regularly performs.

He has been described as "a master of a tradition of pianism in serious danger of dying out" by "The Guardian".

A critic in the BBC Music Magazine declared: "Howard is, by general consensus, the finest living exponent of Liszt. (He has) a formidable intellectual grasp of the music, (and) his vastly superior performances continue to carry the day."

Alfred Brendel has said that, "Leslie Howard is a sensitive, intelligent and committed musician."

And Gramophone magazine has said that, "Howard always seems to know where the music is going and why."

In addition to his Liszt project, his recording work includes Balakirev, Chopin, Franck, Gade, Glazunov, Grainger, Granados, Grieg, Palmgren, Poulenc, Rachmaninoff, Rubinstein, Sibelius, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky.

Other composers whose works Howard has recorded on discs entitled "Rare Piano Encores" and "English Music for Viola" (accompanying violist Paul Coletti) include: Bax, Borodin, Bridge, Bruckner, Busoni, Rebecca Helferich Clarke, Ignaz Friedman, Gershwin, Moszkowski, Mozart, Reger, Rossini, Vaughan Williams, and Wagner.

Howard's website gives a complete list.

External links

* [http://www.lisztsoc.org.uk/ The Liszt Society]
* [http://www.lesliehowardpianist.com/ Leslie Howard's Home Page]
* [http://www.lesliehowardpianist.com/concertos.htm/ Leslie Howard's concerto repertoire]
* [http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/liszt_index.asp Complete Liszt Recordings on Hyperion]
* [http://www.hillaryclintonvideos.com/viewMedia.jsp?dedupe=1&index=8&col=en-all-public_safe-ep&num=10&e=18482510&sort=rel&s=PZSID_0000010466;RadioWest&start=0&expand=true&match=query,channel&filter=0 Recording of RadioWest interview with Leslie Howard, Feb 08 2008]
* [http://www.margaretmurphy.com/ Leslie Howard's agent's website]

References

* [http://www.steinway.com/steinway/artist_roster/ list of Steinway Artists]
* [http://lesliehowardpianist.com/asmusician.htm/ Leslie Howard official professional biography]
* [http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2006/09/niu-niu1.htm/ Music & Vision review of Leslie Howard conducting Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto in London's Wigmore Hall]
* [http://www.thepearlawards.org.uk/ Leslie Howard conducts Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto at the Royal Festival Hall for the Pearl Awards]