Background
He was born in 1785 in Germany.
(On their latest CD, the Linos Ensemble offer new discover...)
On their latest CD, the Linos Ensemble offer new discoveries and rewarding additions to the chamber repertoire: works by Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1785-1849), reputed to be one of the most gifted pianists of his time. The piano, played here by Konstanze Eickhorst, plays a leading role in both the sextet and septet, and both chamber works in large part offer an enormous wealth of tone colors and manifold opportunities for register shifts. They are complemented by his fantasy for piano on the Scottish song We're A' Noddin (1823), in which he expresses his romantic enthusiasm for Scotland.
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He was born in 1785 in Germany.
He was educated at the Paris Conservatoire. He was in the piano class of Alsatian pianist and composer Louis Adam.
After finishing of the Conservatoire he began to play in public. From 1814 to 1823 he was well known as a brilliant performer and a successful teacher in London, and then settled in Paris. He gave a good many concerts, composed and established himself as a successful piano teacher. He became a member of the Paris piano-manufacturing firm of Pleyel & Co. , and made a fortune by his business and his art combined. His numerous compositions are less remembered now than his instruction-book, with " studies, " which have had considerable vogue among pianists.
In 1823 and 1824 Kalkbrenner gave concerts in Frankfurt, Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin, Prague, and Vienna. Kalkbrenner returned to Paris a rich man. Here he became a partner in Pleyel's Fortepiano Factory, which by the time of Kalkbrenner’s death (1849) had risen to a place second only to Erard in prestige and output.
(On their latest CD, the Linos Ensemble offer new discover...)
(Concertos pour piano & orchestre n°1 & n°4 / Orchestre Sy...)
He is invariably described as a somewhat pompous, formal, overly polite, yet intelligent and business wise extremely shrewd man. He was the target of many anecdotes during his own lifetime and bitingly satirized by the German poet Heinrich Heine.
He had a happy marriage to a much younger, titled and wealthy French heiress.