Leslie Howard
Piano
A citizen both of Britain and Australia, Leslie Howard has accomplished a feat unequalled by any solo artist in recording history—his 99-CD survey for Hyperion of the complete piano music of Liszt, including all 17 works for piano and orchestra. Accomplished within 14 years, it encompasses more than 300 world premieres, with many works prepared from Liszt’s unpublished manuscripts and works unheard since Liszt’s lifetime. This critically acclaimed project merited Leslie Howard’s entry in the Guinness Book of World Records, six Grands Prix du Disque, the Medal of St Stephen, the Pro Cultura Hungarica award and a mounted bronze cast of Liszt’s hand presented by the Hungarian President. In 1999 the Queen bestowed on him ‘Member in the Order of Australia’ for his ‘service to the arts as piano soloist, composer, musicologist and mentor to young musicians’. During the Liszt bicentenary year in 2011, Leslie Howard travelled the world with seven different all-Liszt recital programmes, maintaining at the same time a broad repertoire of concertos and chamber-music, and a quantity of solo music by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Rachmaninov and Rubinstein.
