Ingrid Haebler

Ingrid Haebler became one of the 20th Century’s leading interpreters of the Viennese classic piano composers. She came to the piano as a little girl, making her public debut in Salzburg at the age of eleven. She studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Vienna Academy, and the Geneva Conservatory. She also was a pupil of the French pianist Marguerite Long., She won two prizes in 1954, one in Geneva and one in a Schubert competition at Geneva. She won the Harriet Cohen Beethoven Medal in 1957. While she has toured widely, she has made her international reputation with her finely judged recorded performances. These include all of Mozart’s piano concertos, in two traversals of that cycle, all of Mozart’s piano sonatas, all of Schubert’s sonatas, and significant amount of the piano music of Haydn and Beethoven. In addition to these Vienna-linked composers, she has made notable Schumann and Chopin series as well. One reason her recordings are so effective is a reason she sometimes disappoints in person: Her playing is very intimate, creating a personal effect that can sound unassertive in the vastness of modern concert halls. On records, however, this same quality often makes a personal connection with the listener. Then the warmth, sensitivity, and quietly nuanced expressivity of her intepretations come into play. She records for Philips, which at the end of the 1990s was re-releasing some of her finest recordings on their “Great Pianists” series. ~ Joseph Stevenson