Peter Schmalfuss, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetPeter Schmalfuss
German musician
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Berlin
About Peter Schmalfuss
- Peter Schmalfuss (January 13, 1937 – October 23, 2008) was a German classical pianist born in Berlin, Germany. He studied with Walter Gieseking, Adrian Aeschbacher and, at the Beethoven-Class Positano, with Wilhelm Kempff.
- In 1960 he began touring in Europe, North Africa, and Asia; his performing accomplishments included presenting a complete cycle of the Beethoven sonatas on consecutive evenings.
- At the invitation of the Chopin Society of Warsaw, Poland, of which he was a member, he performed at Chopin’s birth house in Zelazowa Wola, Poland.
- Schmalfuss also arranged various small festivals in which he championed neglected chamber music by Carl Maria von Weber.
- He did not exclude contemporary music from his attention, however; for instance, he recorded piano music by Akin Euba in 1989 and presented one of the piano sonatas by Salvatore Sciarrino at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse.
- Schmalfuss had a reputation as a fine sight-reader and a reliable substitute when other artists were forced to cancel appearances. In his last year, a hand ailment prevented Schmalfuss from performing and forced him to cancel his scheduled concert appearances.
- He died in Darmstadt, Germany, where for more than two decades he had served as a faculty member of the Darmstadt Academy of Musical Arts.
- For his contributions to its cultural life, the city had awarded him a bronze service plaque. Schmalfuss began making records in the 1960s, but he received little or no attention from major labels.
- His recordings released on CD, at least in the United States, appeared almost exclusively on bottom-priced, mass-market-oriented labels; nonetheless, they reveal a musical player and bear out his affinity for the music of Chopin.
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