Leslie Howard (musician)

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For other people of this name, see Leslie Howard.

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

[edit] Biography

Howard was born in Melbourne, Australia and has lived in London since 1972, England. He 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.]

At the age of 5 he performed for Fox Movietone News, and at the age of 9 for Australian national television. His mature debut as a pianist came at the age of 13, with Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no.2. He learned the oboe at an early age, and has even performed Mozart’s oboe concerto. He doesn’t play the oboe these days.

He attended Monash University in Melbourne, to read English, but by the end of his first year had already been invited to lecture the post-graduate students on advanced counterpoint and theory. His music studies were completed in Italy, where he studied with Maestro Guido Agosti. Howard has been resident in London, England, since the early 1970s, preferring its climate to that of his native Australia.

He is one of the few artists in the world today who can improvise publicly on an unseen theme, and he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the repertoire. Name any symphony or opera, and out comes an instant transcription from his fingers, whilst he continues conversation from the piano.

In 1986, to mark the centenary of Liszt’s death, he gave a series of recitals in London’s Wigmore Hall. By excluding Liszt’s arrangements of other composers’ work, and by including only the final versions of Liszt’s own work, he was able to perform this mammoth task in ten huge recitals.

The MD 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] – that of the complete music for solo piano of Liszt. All Liszt's versions of his piano music were included, and also the arrangements of other composers’ work [one Schubert song was arranged no less than seven times]. Four discs were given to the seventeen works for piano and orchestra, about half of which were premiere recordings made from unpublished manuscripts. The project was completed at the end of 1998, and 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 in October 1999, on Liszt's birthday. Since completion of the project there have been a further three supplementary volumes, as further Liszt material comes to light.

Howard was awarded a Member in the Order of Australia [AM] in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, 1999. The following year he was awarded the Pro Cultura Hungarica Medal and Citation by the Hungarian Government, a rare honour indeed for a non-Hungarian. He had previously received from the Hungarian government the Ferenc Liszt Medal Of Honour award, and has also been awarded no fewer than 6 Grands Prix Du Disque, for his Liszt recordings.

He has been the President of The British Liszt Society for 20 years, and has also been awarded the American Liszt Society’s Medal Of Honour. He can regularly be heard giving masterclasses at London's Royal College of Music and Royal Academy of Music.

Howard is noted for his kindness and willingness to help young students. He is thought to be the only British pianist to make his living entirely from his work as a recording and concert artist. He does not have any paying students, but always helps deserving young musicians.

[edit] Performance

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… His vastly superior performances continue to carry the day.”

His recording work also includes César Franck, Grainger, Grieg, Granados, Rachmaninoff, Rubinstein, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky.