Classical pianist stubs

Mary Louise Boehm (July 25, 1924 – November 29, 2002) was an American pianist and painter.
A descendant of Joseph Boehm, a piano-maker active in Vienna during the early 19th century, Mary Louise Boehm was born in Sumner, Iowa, and soon proved to be a child prodigy. She studied with Louis Crowder at Iowa State Teachers College (now the University of Northern Iowa) and subsequently with Robert Casadesus and Walter Gieseking.Boehm's repertoire and recorded output was notable for works by American composers such as Amy Beach and Ernest Schelling, who are far from mainstream, even now. She also performed and made premiere recordings of works by several early romantic composers such as John Field, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Johann Peter Pixis, Ignaz Moscheles and Friedrich Kalkbrenner. Her advocacy introduced a generation of music lovers to these neglected composers. She was also interested in performance on period instruments at a time when this was rare.
From the 1960s she began painting, working in oils, watercolor and inks. While on concert tours in South America she became interested in textiles, which led to her involvement with weaving, textile design and the complicated field of dye and color chemistries. Eventually she chose batik as a painterly textile medium. She studied the traditional Indonesian batik techniques and pioneered modern adaptations, and had major shows in the United States.She married the Dutch violinist Kees Kooper with whom she performed regularly. In 2002 she died in Spain. Her sister Pauline Boehm Haga was also a pianist; the Grand Sonata Op. 112 by Moscheles was recorded by the sisters together.

Edith Picht-Axenfeld (1 January 1914 in Freiburg im Breisgau – 19 April 2001 in Hinterzarten) was a German pianist and harpsichordist.

Eva Knardahl Freiwald (10 May 1927 – 3 September 2006) was a Norwegian pianist, with a noted career both as a child prodigy and adult performer.
Her debut with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 12, in which she played three concertos (those by Johann Sebastian Bach in F minor, Joseph Haydn in D major and Carl Maria von Weber in C major), was received with rave reviews. Knardahl was a student of Mary Barrat Due, who was educated in Italy. Idar Karevold, a music professor in Oslo, said that Knardahl's Italian style was unique in Norway.
She started releasing records early. One of her first recordings was Edvard Grieg's "Wedding Day at Trollhaugen", which was released in 1946.
She emigrated at 19 to the United States, where she had a distinguished career with the Minnesota Orchestra for 15 years. She played on most continents, and for 15 years she was also employed as a pianist ("resident pianist") by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. In a later interview, she told about the US era that the famous composer Henry Mancini often visited the symphony orchestra in Minneapolis. He used to bring his chosen soloists with him during the performance of his compositions, but had so much confidence in Knardahl that he never brought any external pianist.
In 1952, Eva Knardahl was hired as a pianist and soloist in the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (MSO). Here she became responsible for all piano parts, and she was used in all sorts of different combinations of chamber music with piano, in addition to which she was given major tasks as the orchestra's regular soloist - including trips to Canada, Mexico and the East.
In the USA, collaboration with pianist Artur Rubinstein, composer Igor Stravinsky and conductors Rafael Kubelík, Henry Mancini and André Previn made great artistic progress. Later collaborations with conductors such as Sixten Erling and Kirill Kondrasjin led to successes in Europe.
She returned to Norway in 1967. She became a popular fixture on the Norwegian music scene and was named the first professor of chamber music at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Knardahl was awarded the Norwegian Spellemanspris twice, and she also won the Norwegian Critics' Prize in 1968. She died in Oslo, aged 79.
Knardahl is most known for her interpretations of the piano works of Edvard Grieg. She recorded the composer's complete piano music on 13 LPs for BIS Records in 1977-1980. The recordings were reissued in 2006 on 12 compact discs, also on BIS Records.

Kjell Bækkelund (6 May 1930 – 13 May 2004) was a Norwegian classical pianist.

Ricardo Castro Herrera (Rafael de la Santísima Trinidad Castro Herrera) (7 February 1864 – 27 November 1907) was a Mexican concert pianist and composer, considered the last romantic of the time of Porfirio Díaz.

Christian Ivaldi (born 2 September 1938) is a French pianist.Ivaldi was born in Paris. He studied at the Paris Conservatory with Jacques Février and took a Premier Prix in piano performance, as well as in chamber music, counterpoint, and accompaniment. He first appeared as a soloist at Radio France in 1961. He has premiered pieces by Gilbert Amy, Georges Aperghis, André Boucourechliev, Maurice Ohana, and Luis de Pablo among others. He is considered "a remarkable musician".

Anne Queffélec (born 17 January 1948) is a French classical pianist, born in Paris.

Louise Bessette, (born June 20, 1959) is a Canadian pianist. Born in Montreal, she trained at the Conservatoire de musique du Quebec a Montreal (CMQM).

Gerard Hengeveld (December 7, 1910, in Kampen – October 28, 2001, in Bergen, North Holland) was a Dutch classical pianist, music composer and educationalist. He is especially known for his compositions of study material for piano. Other compositions include two piano concertos, a violin sonata, and a sonata for cello. Hengeveld was an able interpreter and performer of the music of Bach for piano and harpsichord. He gave regular concerts in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Some of his concerts were captured on record. Hengeveld was a professor at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Amongst his students was Dutch pianist and musicologist Frans Bouwman.Hengeveld died in 2001 at the age of 90, in Bergen. His closest living relative is Nicholas Hengeveld of Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Francis Planté (2 March 1839 – 19 December 1934) was a French pianist famed as one of the first ever recording artists.
Planté was born in Orthez. He studied piano under Antoine Marmontel, his career beginning at the age of seven in Paris. While there he met and befriended many like-minded musicians who would have a long-lasting effect on his career. These included Franz Liszt, with whom he played arrangements of two of Liszt's symphonic poems (Les Préludes, and Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo) for 2 pianos, Hector Berlioz, Gioachino Rossini, Charles Gounod, Felix Mendelssohn, Sigismond Thalberg and Charles-Marie Widor.
He toured the concert platforms of Europe after leaving Paris, expanding his reputation for quality of tone and virtuosic, emotional interpretations. The death of his wife in 1908 resulted in him retiring from the stage, except for charity performances and concerts in aid of those wounded in the First World War. He had many pupils, including Alexander Brailowsky. He died in Saint-Avit.
Planté is featured in the 1999 DVD The Art of Piano, in which a short excerpt from the film of him playing Chopin's Étude in C, Op. 10 No. 7 can be seen.
Francis Planté's style is considered very different from modern-day recording artists. The recordings available suggest a more paced performance with a more prominent accent on each beat and with the notes more pronounced.
Recordings that Planté made include:

Chopin: Études Op. 10, Nos. 4, 5 and 7
Chopin: Études Op. 25, Nos. 1, 2, 9 and 11
Berlioz: Serenade
Mendelssohn: Scherzo in E, Op. 16, No. 3.
Boccherini: Minuet