Hans Graf (Pianist)
Hans Graf ( born March 16, 1928 in Vienna, † January 9, 1994 ) was an Austrian pianist and teacher.
Life
Hans Graf grew up as the son of police lawyers Josef Graf ( wirkl. Councilor, 1895-1966 ) and the former governess Rosa ( maiden name Kramreiter; 1885-1959 ) in Vienna. As a child he took piano and violin lessons. Graf was drafted as a high school student in the final phase of the war for air defense and provided in Langenzersdorf and Vienna VI. ( Esterházypark ) his service. In 1946 he passed the Matura and began immediately afterwards at the Technical University to study architecture; by the way he was as a trumpet as a member of the "Technical Dance Band" ( TTB), the dance orchestra of the Institute of Technology. In 1947 he made the piano entrance exam at the former Vienna Music Academy, now the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, and became a pupil of Bruno Hofer Seidl.
As a result, Graf broke off his studies in architecture in order to devote himself entirely to music. In addition to piano lessons with Seidlhofer he also took hours at Alfred Uhl in counterpoint and composition. In 1949 he was able to pass the first state examination and 1950 he was at the Geneva International Music Competition finalist. After he had taken in 1951 and the final examination ( final examination ) in piano, he made his debut in the same year with a solo at the Vienna Konzerthaus. In the next few years he gave further concerts in 1952 at the 4th edition of the Concours Musical Reine Elisabeth in Brussels, in 1953 at the very first edition of the International ARD Music Competition in Munich, 1954 on his second participation in the Geneva International Music Competition, where he was this time the was able to win 2nd prize, and again in 1956 in Brussels at the Concours Reine Elisabeth Musical, in which he was among the finalists alongside Vladimir Ashkenazy, Lazar Berman, André Tchaikowsky, John Browning and Tamás Vasary.
In between, he married (1953 ) his Brazilian classmate, pianist Carmen Vitis Adnet. Together with her, he moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1955, where in 1955 and 1958, the two daughters Maria Beatriz and Clarissa were born. In 1957 he founded, together with Hans -Joachim Koellreutter and other the Seminários de Música Pro-Arte do Rio de Janeiro, 1958, he accepted the invitation of Hans Sittners to return to Vienna, where he then until his retirement in 1991 at the Music Academy, a piano class initiated. From 1963, he frequently lectured at similar institutions in Europe ( Seville, Bilbao, Porto ), South America and Japan. Even as a juror at international piano competitions he entered appearance, for example, when Arthur Rubinstein contest. He looked at by Josef Dichler and Richard Hauser initiated Vienna Beethoven Competition as a collaborator with. Twice, in 1971/72 and 1974/75, he interrupted his Viennese teaching, to accept a visiting professor at the School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington. According to a 1985 recovering from heart surgery he was forced to limit his own concerts. In 1989, however, another recording that was later released as a CD, which in the four-hand version Seidl Hofer included an interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach's " Art of Fugue" along with his daughter Clarissa Graf Costa was born.
Awards
- Honorary Member of the Academia Lorenzo Fernandez (Rio de Janeiro)
- Honorary Medal of the Austrian capital Vienna in Silver ( 1988)
- Brazilian National ' Order of the Southern Cross " (1988 )
- Austrian Decoration for Science and Art