CCMusic.com

Elisabeth Klein was an icon in the world of contemporary music. She worked with all the leading composers and did an amazing job for the young and coming composers, not least from the Scandinavian countries. Danacord had the luck to release a selection of her finest recordings on LP and it is now out in new digital transfers. Here is a chance to listen to an extraordinary female pianist who interpreted the often most dense and difficult piano pieces with ease and with elegance. Not to be missed! Elisabeth Klein was born in Trenčín (now Slovakia) and grew up in Budapest, Hungary from the age of 3. At an early age, she showed interest and talent for the piano. She studied at the Franz Liszt Academy already as a young girl, continuing after high school, graduating from the Academy in 1934, where-after she studied privately with Béla Bartók 1934-1936. She formed a duo with the violinist László Halmos. The political turmoil in the thirties made many musicians, not least Jews, leave Budapest. She came to Denmark without clear plans, however, to stay, but at the outbreak of the Second World War she managed to stay. Elisabeth Klein worked for many years with the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen, later she taught at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, Denmark, and at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo, Norway. After her retirement from the Academy in 1981, she continued giving seminars and lecture-recitals at the Academy for many years.