Alicia de Larrocha

Alicia de Larrocha y de la Calle (born 23 May, 1923) is a Spanish pianist, considered one of the greatest of her generation.

She was born in Barcelona, and began studying piano with Frank Marshall in Spain at age three. She performed her first concert at the age of six at the World's Fair in Seville in 1929, and had her orchestral debut at the age of 11. She began touring internationally in 1947, and in 1954 toured North America with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

De Larrocha has made numerous recordings of solo piano repertoire and in particular the works of composers of her native Spain. She is best known for her incandescent recordings of the music of Enrique Granados and Isaac Albéniz, as well as her 1967 recordings of Antonio Soler's piano sonatas, all of which she plays with an authenticity of Spanish idiom unsurpassed by any other pianist. She has recorded for CBS, RCA and Decca, winning her first Grammy Award in 1975 and again, as recently as 1992, at the age of almost seventy. She received the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts in 1994.

Less than five feet tall and with small hands for a pianist, in her younger years she was nonetheless able to tackle the Rachmaninoff Concertos and the wide spans demanded by the music of Granados, Albeniz and de Falla. As De Larrocha aged, she began to play a different style of music. More Mozart and Beethoven were featured on her recitals and she became a regular and well-beloved guest at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. Mme. de Larrocha retired from public performing in October, 2003 aged 80.

External links

* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B00E6D71339F930A15752C1A963958260 Interview from New York Times]
* [http://www.iclassics.com/artistBio?contentId=526 iclassics]
* [http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/artistbio.asp?z=y&CTR=191560 Barnes and Noble]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramMUDUG_QQ Alicia de Larrocha's Rehearsal and Discussion]