Hans Gál
Piano Music

Composer, scholar, writer, teacher and performer, Hans Gál was the complete musician in the very best sense of the word. Born in 1890 in the village of Brunn an Gebirge just outside Vienna to parents of Hungarian-Jewish origin, his musical talent blossomed under the encouragement of his Aunt Jenny, who was an established opera singer in Weimar, and he began piano lessons at the age of eight. Although finding the routine of practice irksome, Gál became sufficiently proficient on the instrument to have been admitted at the age of fifteen to the class of Richard Robert, (1861-1924) one of the most outstanding piano pedagogues in Vienna and the teacher of Clara Haskil, Rudolf Serkin and George Szell.