EGON PETRI (HANOVER, GERMANY, 23 MARCH
1881 – BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, 27 MAY 1962)
Petri’s family was Dutch. He was born a Dutch citizen
but in Hanover, Germany, and grew up in Dresden, where he attended the
Kreuzschule. His father, a professional violinist, taught him to play the
violin. While still a teenager, Petri played with the Dresden Court Orchestra
and with his father’s string quartet. He studied composition and theory with
Hermann Kretzschmar and Felix Draeseke at the Dresden Conservatory. From an
early age Petri had also taken piano lessons and eventually, with strong
encouragement from Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Ferruccio Busoni, he concentrated
on piano. He studied with Busoni, who greatly influenced him, and Petri
considered himself more a disciple than a student of his. Following his
example, Petri focused on the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Franz Liszt,
who, along with Busoni himself, were at the centre of his repertoire. During
World War I, Petri moved with Busoni to Switzerland, where he assisted him in
editing Bach’s keyboard works. In the 1920s, Petri taught in Berlin; his
students included Victor Borge, Stanley Gardner, Jan Hoffman, Gunnar Johansen,
Hazel Harrison, Dimitar Nenov, and Vitya Vronsky. In 1923 he became the first
non-Soviet soloist to play in the Soviet Union. In 1927 he moved to Zakopane,
Poland, where, until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he conducted summer
and early-fall sessions and piano master classes. Petri escaped from Poland the
day before the German invasion in September 1939, but he had to leave behind
all his books, music and letters, including his correspondence with Busoni
(these papers survived and were recovered). He moved to the United States,
working first at Cornell University and later at Mills College in Oakland,
California. He refused ever to play in Germany again. In 1955 he became a
naturalised American citizen. Though a Dutch citizen until he was 74, he never
lived in the Netherlands and was not at ease with the Dutch language. On one
occasion when he performed for Queen Wilhelmina, they spoke German. He was
fluent in German, English, French, Italian, Polish, and Russian. Petri’s
students included Earl Wild, Ozan Marsh, John Ogdon, Dimitar Nenov and Xenia
Boodberg Lee. Petri had a superb technique and a powerful sonority and was a
superlative exponent of the larger works of Beethoven, Liszt and Brahms. Petri
died on 27 May 1962 in Berkeley, California.
TRACKLIST
514 LISZT – “Paganini” Etude No. 5, E La chasse (The
Hunt)
518 LISZT – Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa Este
(Anneés Pelèrinage- 3rd Yr. Italy, No. 4)
519 ALKAN – Capriccio à la Soldatesca, Op. 50, No. l
520 ALKAN – Ancient Melody of the Synagogue, Op. 31
525 SCHUMANN – Variations on the name A-B-E-G-G, Op.
1
527 BEETHOVEN – Thirty-Two Variations on an Original
Theme, c, WoO 80
