Prominent German Pianist Plays Guest Recital Sept. 20

September 3, 2004

by Richard Veit

Wolfgang Watzinger, professor of piano in the concert performance department of the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, will present a recital at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 20, in Roxy Grove Hall.
Watzinger's program will open with Franz Schubert's Impromptu in B-flat major, D. 935, written during the celebrated Austrian composer's last year of life. That piece will be followed by Johannes Brahms's set of Variations on a Theme by Paganini, which is based on the Italian violinist's Caprice No. 24 and the inspiration many years later for Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody.
After intermission, Watzinger will play Ludwig van Beethoven's early Piano Sonata No. 7 in D major, Op. 10, No. 3, composed in Vienna in 1798. The program will conclude with an early work by Robert Schumann, his Toccata, Op. 7.
Watzinger was born in Darmstadt, Germany, and studied at the music academies in Freiburg, Germany, and Salzburg, Austria. In 1971 he won first prize at the National Piano Competition of the German Music Academies in Frankfurt. In 1973-74 he studied with Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. From 1980-94 he was professor of piano at the Music Academies in Berlin and Detmold.
Watzinger has performed with much acclaim as recitalist and orchestral soloist in major European cities, the United States, South Africa, Asia and South America. With Baylor Artist-in-Residence Krassimira Jordan, he performs worldwide as the Vienna International Piano Duo.
The recital is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor School of Music at 710-3991.