Wilhelm Backhaus

Wilhelm Backhaus earned his reputation as a German pianist through an unwavering commitment to realizing composers’ exact intentions. Among recording pioneers, he produced the earliest known concerto capture when he set down Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto for the HMV label in 1909. Born on March 26, 1884 in Leipzig, Germany, he grew up with a father who worked as a successful architect and a mother who played the piano as an amateur. Piano lessons began at age four, first under his mother’s guidance and later with Alois Reckendorf at the Leipzig Conservatory between 1891 and 1898. He spent one year studying with Eugen d’Albert before completing his development largely through independent work. His initial English tour in 1900 brought a highly successful debut that quickly secured his standing as a concert artist. In 1905 he captured the Rubinstein prize, finishing ahead of Béla Bartók, who placed second. Although he joined the faculty of the Royal Manchester College of Music, he never regarded himself primarily as a teacher. His first commercial discs appeared on HMV in 1909 with Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor—the first time any concerto had been recorded—and further London sessions for the same company followed until the outbreak of World War I halted the partnership in 1914. Backhaus made his American debut in 1912, performing Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall with the New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Damrosch. That engagement launched repeated North American tours, and he maintained an active schedule across Europe and the Americas throughout the 1920s. He resumed recording in 1916 with Polydor and returned to HMV after the armistice of 1918. From 1925 to 1926 he held a teaching post at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, after which he gradually relocated to Europe and established residence in Switzerland in 1930. His HMV contract continued until 1947, at which point he began working with Decca. His last visit to the United States occurred in 1954, when he presented a series of widely praised Carnegie Hall recitals devoted to Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas. He maintained a rigorous routine of practice, performance, and recording until his death in 1969 while in Austria preparing for an upcoming engagement. His discography encompasses complete cycles of Beethoven’s sonatas and concertos together with substantial bodies of work by Bach, Mozart, Brahms, and numerous other composers. The pioneering 1928 recording of Chopin’s complete Études remains among the most highly regarded accounts of that repertoire.