Search - Hans Gal, Martin Jones :: Hans Gál: Piano Music

"Martin Jones is a skilled and sensitive artist with an imaginative response that is faultless." -- GramophoneComposer, scholar, writer, teacher, and performer, Hans Gál was a complete musician in the very best sense of the word. Born in 1890 in the village of Brunn an Gebirge just outside Vienna to parents of Hungarian-Jewish origin, his musical talent blossomed under the encouragement of his Aunt Jenny, who was an established opera singer in Weimar, and he began piano lessons at the age of eight. Although finding the routine of practice irksome, Gál became sufficiently proficient on the instrument to have been admitted at the age of fifteen to the class of Richard Robert (1861-1924), one of the most outstanding piano pedagogues in Vienna and the teacher of Clara Haskil, Rudolf Serkin, and George Szell. The piano music provides perhaps one of the finest testaments to his achievement. Gál composed frequently for the instrument throughout his long career, and appears from the very outset to have been able to create music that is both idiomatic and inventive.