Bettina or Bessie Walker (1837 – 4 February 1893) was an
Irish pianist and
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
.
Biography
Walker was born in
Dublin, the daughter of physician William Augustus Walker, who died in 1838.
[Death notice, ''Dublin Daily Express'', 8 February 1893] Walker studied in the 1870s, first with
William Sterndale Bennett in London and
Carl Tausig in Berlin and
Giovanni Sgambati in
Rome.
In 1883 she came to
Weimar and continued her studies with
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
. She also studied under
Ludwig Deppe,
Xaver Scharwenka and
Adolf Henselt
Georg Martin Adolf von Henselt (9 or 12 May 181410 October 1889) was a German composer and virtuoso pianist.
Life
Henselt was born at Schwabach, in Bavaria. At the age of three he began to learn the violin, and at five the piano under Josephe v ...
.
After Henselt's death in 1889 she settled in
Fulham
Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...
,
London, where she taught her piano methodology, but died four years later.
Of lasting importance are her memoirs, in which she details her numerous encounters with important musicians.
References
Works
*
*
Bibliography
* ''Monthly Bulletin of the
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh'', Volume 11 (1906), S. 327
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Bettina
1837 births
1893 deaths
Irish classical composers
Irish women classical composers
Irish classical pianists
Irish expatriates in England
Women classical pianists
Pupils of Adolf Henselt
Pupils of Franz Liszt
19th-century women pianists