THALBERG, SIGISMUND

THALBERG, SIGISMUND (1812–1871), pianist. Thalberg was born in Geneva to Joseph Thalberg and Fortunee Stein of Frankfurt. He himself always claimed to be the illegitimate son of Count Moritz Dietrichstein and baroness von wetzlar (of the ennobled Jewish Viennese family), but the claim is disproved by the birth certificate. At the age of ten he was taken to Vienna by Count Dietrichstein and there studied composition with Sechter and piano with Hummel. He later studied with Pixis and Kalkbrenner in Paris. Between 1830 and 1836 he undertook his first concert tours in Germany, France, and England and became one of the foremost virtuoso pianists of his time; several serious critics even put him above Liszt. He evolved a fingering technique for the brilliant piano pieces composed in the fashion of the period (his own, Liszt's, and others) which separated the melody, bass line, and accompanying voices and arpeggios in a way that gave the impression of a three-handed playing. For this purpose he also elaborated the technique of notating such pieces on three staves. Thalberg composed two operas, a string trio, a duo for violin and piano, piano duets, songs, and over 80 piano pieces, many of them fantasies, variations, and arrangements based on operatic melodies. They are mostly of the salon-piece genre, and Thalberg himself exemplified the 19th-century figure of the "pianistic lion." -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Grove, Diet; MGG; Riemann-Gurlitt; Baker, Biog Dict (19585), s.v. and VII (preface). (Bathja Bayer)