Rosario Marciano, born July 5, 1944, in

Caracas Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

, died there September 4, 1998, was a

classical pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

and teacher.

Life and career

Rosario Marciano was a musician who combined performance, scholarship and teaching. She gave her first solo concert at the age of six and her first concert with orchestra at nine Having completed her studies in her native country she went to Austria where she continued them under the guidance of

Paul Badura-Skoda Paul Badura-Skoda (6 October 1927 – 25 September 2019) was an Austrian pianist. Career A student of Edwin Fischer, Badura-Skoda first rose to prominence by winning first prize in the Austrian Music Competition in 1947. In 1949, he perform ...

Jörg Demus Jörg Wolfgang Demus (2 December 1928 – 16 April 2019) was an Austrian classical pianist who appeared internationally and made many recordings. He was also a composer and a lecturer at music academies. In composition and playing, he focused on ...

Alfred Brendel Alfred Brendel KBE (born 5 January 1931) is an Austrian classical pianist, poet, author, composer, and lecturer who is known particularly for his performances of Mozart, Schubert, Schoenberg, and Beethoven.Stephen Plaistow"Brendel, Alfred" ''G ...

and Hans Kann. She won 1964 the Salzburg Piano Competition (the first prize) and 1967 the Mannheimer Tage. She was among the first pianists to record on historic pianos (

fortepiano A fortepiano , sometimes referred to as a pianoforte, is an early piano. In principle, the word "fortepiano" can designate any piano dating from the invention of the instrument by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1698 up to the early 19th century. Mo ...

s), recording a recital of

Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...

piano music in the early 1970s. Her extensive discography also includes recordings of rarely heard works by women composers, including

Cécile Chaminade Cécile Louise Stéphanie Chaminade (8 August 1857 – 13 April 1944) was a French composer and pianist. In 1913, she was awarded the Légion d'Honneur, a first for a female composer. Ambroise Thomas said, "This is not a woman who composes, but a ...

's Concertstück for piano and Orchestra, Op 40,

Germaine Tailleferre Germaine Tailleferre (; born Marcelle Germaine Taillefesse; 19 April 18927 November 1983) was a French composer and the only female member of the group of composers known as ''Les Six''. Biography Marcelle Germaine Taillefesse was born at Sai ...

's Ballade for piano & orchestra, as well as works by

Agathe Backer Grøndahl Agathe Ursula Backer Grøndahl (1 December 1847 – 4 June 1907) was a Norwegian pianist and composer. Her son Fridtjof Backer-Grøndahl (1885–1959) was also a pianist and composer, who promoted his mother's compositions in his concerts. Biogr ...

Amy Beach Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (September 5, 1867December 27, 1944) was an American composer and pianist. She was the first successful American female composer of large-scale art music. Her "Gaelic" Symphony, premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in ...

Teresa Carreño María Teresa Gertrudis de Jesús Carreño García (December 22, 1853June 12, 1917) was a Venezuelan pianist, soprano, composer, and conductor. Over the course of her 54-year concert career, she became an internationally renowned virtuoso pia ...

Clara Schumann Clara Josephine Schumann (; née Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over the course of a ...

and

Ingeborg von Bronsart Ingeborg Bronsart von Schellendorf (born Ingeborg Maria Wilhelmina Starck, 24 August 1840 in Saint Petersburg, died 17 June 1913 in Munich) was a Finnish people, Finnish-German people, German composer. Life Ingeborg Starck was the daughter of Finn ...

Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia Princess Anna ''Amalia'' of Prussia (9 November 1723 – 30 March 1787) was an early modern German composer and music curator who served as princess-abbess of Quedlinburg. She was a princess of Prussia as the daughter of Frederick William I of ...

Catherina Cibbini-Kozeluch Catherina Maria Leopoldina Cibbini-Kozeluch (Katerina Koželuh) (b. 20 February 1785, d. 12 August 1858) was a pianist and composer in the AUstrian Empire of Bohemian ancestry. She was born in Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code ...

Fanny Mendelssohn Fanny Mendelssohn (14 November 1805 – 14 May 1847) was a German composer and pianist of the early Romantic era who was also known as Fanny (Cäcilie) Mendelssohn Bartholdy and, after her marriage, Fanny Hensel (as well as Fanny Mendelssohn He ...

and

Maria Agata Szymanowska Maria Szymanowska (Polish pronunciation: ; born Marianna Agata Wołowska; Warsaw, 14 December 1789 – 25 July 1831, St. Petersburg, Russia) was a Polish composer and one of the first professional virtuoso pianists of the 19th century. She tour ...

. She also championed the piano music of her fellow countrymen, recording a number of anthologies. The Museo del Teclado in Caracas accommodating her piano collection of historic instruments, was founded by her. She achieved obligatory music lessons for pupils in Venezuelan schools in 1973. She wrote a biography of

(1853–1917) the Venezuelan pianist and composer, and edited modern editions of her music. She was awarded the Theodor Korner prize for her scholarship on women composers. 1994-1998, she was a professor for piano at the

University of Music and Performing Arts The University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, abbreviated MDW) is an Austrian university located in Vienna, established in 1817. With a student body of over three thousa ...

in Vienna, Austria. She is commemorated by the Rosario Marciano Prize, awarded by the Vienna International Pianists Association in cooperation with VenKultur, the Venezuelan Culture Association in Austria.

References

Musicians from Caracas 1944 births 1988 deaths Venezuelan classical pianists 20th-century classical pianists {{classical-pianist-stub