Eugen d’Albert’s father, Charles Louis Napoleon (1809–1886), was of French extraction, born in Hamburg. Upon the death of Charles’s father in 1816, he and his mother moved to England. His area of interest was ballet and after education in London and Paris he became ballet master at the King’s Theatre and Covent Garden, gaining a considerable reputation as a composer of dance music. After settling in Newcastle he married there in 1863, and his wife gave birth to Eugene the following year. Eugene’s early musical education was overseen by his father and at the age of twelve he won a scholarship to the National Training School in London (later to become the Royal College of Music), where he studied piano with Ernst Pauer and learnt harmony and composition from Stainer, Prout and Arthur Sullivan. He was a prodigy with a natural talent for the piano and composition (an overture of his being performed in 1879) and over the following few years, whilst still a student, he gave many performances including one of the Schumann Piano Concerto Op. 54 at the age of sixteen, under the baton of Hans Richter. Later that year he played a piano concerto of his own composition, and having won the prestigious Mendelssohn Scholarship was able, on Richter’s suggestion, to go to Vienna for further musical education. Richter recommended that he study with Liszt, so d’Albert travelled to Weimar in 1882 where the great master named him ‘the young Tausig’, a reference to one of Liszt’s greatest former pupils.

As a young man d’Albert was influenced by all things German. He altered his name from the French Eugene to the German form Eugen, and when barely out of his teens wrote a rather ungrateful letter lambasting England and its musical education system, which was published in more than one newspaper in England. It can be seen for what it is, the words of an immensely talented youth, already with experience and great success behind him, having studied with the greatest of all pianists, displaying youthful arrogance toward what must have by then seemed to him inferior and insular attitudes and abilities. However it is also true that he may have had an irascible nature: he was married six times, one of his wives being the great Venezuelan pianist Teresa Carreno. Many reference works refer to d’Albert as a German pianist and state that (at least until 1914) d’Albert permanently resided in Berlin, spending his summers on Lake Maggiore. However, according to his daughter, d’Albert only resided in Germany from 1892 to 1895 during his marriage to Carreno, but kept his British passport until the outbreak of World War I, when he then took Swiss citizenship. He certainly became known as one of the foremost interpreters of Beethoven, thus strengthening his identification with Germany; and in 1907 he succeeded Joseph Joachim as director of the Hochschule in Berlin. He seems to have been averse to teaching but those who benefited from his advice include Wilhelm Backhaus, Edwin Fischer, Edouard Risler, Ernő Dohnanyi and Lubka Kolessa.

d’Albert’s career was that of a touring virtuoso and composer in the line of Brahms and Wagner. He made his first tour of America in 1889 with the violinist Pablo Sarasate and on his third visit there gave the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in February 1905. He also devoted his time to the composition of twenty-one operas (Tiefland is now the only one that is occasionally performed) whilst his two string quartets, which deserve to be heard, show the influence of Brahms. He also edited Bach’s Das wohltemperierte Klavier for Cotta in 1906.

One of the greatest of Liszt’s pupils to have recorded, d’Albert has received criticism in the past for inaccurate playing on the discs he made. It has been said that he could not possibly have thought that they would be the only representation of him for future generations, and that he was out of practice, due to all his time being devoted to composition. His discs should not however be dismissed as there is some fine playing on them. There appear to have been four recording sessions: one for German Odeon around 1910, two for Deutsche Grammophon around 1916 and 1921, and a final one for German Vox around 1923. All are therefore acoustic recordings and the sound quality is poor, another factor contributing to their rejection by some people; however, his complete commercial recordings, issued by Arbiter in new transfers in 2005 reveal a great deal more than was previously heard and give a better impression of d’Albert’s talent.

The Odeon recording of his own Scherzo Op. 16 No. 2 is a very fine disc, showing brilliant technique and dazzling fingerwork. Liszt’s Au bord d’une source in the later Deutsche Grammophon recording is uneven but still an acceptable performance. The Chopin Polonaise in A flat Op. 53 is not only abridged but should have been attempted again, as d’Albert is put off by striking a wrong note leading to a memory lapse, causing an obvious hesitation. Although known as one of the foremost Beethoven interpreters of his day, it was not until his last session that he recorded some of the German composer’s works. The Andante favori is given an undistinguished reading, but the rondo from the ‘Waldstein’ Sonata and the scherzo from Op. 31 No. 3 are, from what one can discern, committed performances. In the Rage over a Lost Penny d’Albert becomes inaccurate and loses control. A curiosity is a disc of works by Bax and Goossens where, in the latter, applause and laughter follows his short work, The Punch and Judy Show, inciting d’Albert to repeat it. A fiery performance of Schubert’s Impromptu in F minor D. 946 is another successful disc. A recording exists of a broadcast performance of the first movement of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto Op. 73. The conductor Bruno Walter heard d’Albert play this concerto when he was in his prime. ‘I shall never forget the titanic force of his rendition of Beethoven’s Concerto in E flat major. I am almost tempted to say he did not play it, he personified it.’ The recording comes from 1930, two years before d’Albert’s death, many years after Walter heard him, and although valuable as an indication of his performance of large-scale works, unfortunately by the time it was made d’Albert was past his prime.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — Jonathan Summers (A–Z of Pianists, Naxos 8.558107–10).