Malcolm Frager (January 15, 1935June 20, 1991) was an American piano virtuoso and recording artist.

Life and career

Frager was born in St. Louis, Missouri and studied with

Carl Friedberg Carl Rudolf Hermann Friedberg (September 18, 1872 in Bingen am Rhein, Bingen, German Empire, Germany – September 9, 1955 in Meran, Italy) was a German pianist and teacher of Jewish origin. Biography He was son of Eduard Friedberg (?–1937) a ...

in New York City from 1949 until Friedberg's death in 1955. In 1957 he graduated

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University with a major in Russian. He won the Piano Competition in Geneva (1955), the Michaels Memorial Award in Chicago (1956), the

Leventritt Competition The Leventritt Competition was a highly prestigious international competition for classical pianists and violinists. It was founded in 1939 by the Edgar M. Leventritt Foundation Inc. of Cold Spring, New York, in memory of jurist Edgar M. Leventrit ...

in New York City (1959), and the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels (1960). He made his

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

debut in November 1960, performing Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 6. His

Grammy The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...

-nominated debut recording with RCA Victor Red Seal was Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16 and Haydn's Sonata No. 35 in E-flat. He recorded music by

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

, Haydn, Chopin, Schumann, Beethoven, Brahms and Prokofiev. Frager regularly programmed the two piano concertos and numerous solo works by Carl Maria von Weber, as well as the keyboard compositions of C. P. E. Bach. He completed acclaimed musical tours of Southern Africa in 1976 and 1978 Frager's personal library is now housed at the

Sibley Library Sibley Music Library is the library of the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY. It was founded in 1904 by Hiram Watson Sibley in honor of his father Hiram Sibley and is said to be the largest university music library in the US. History The lib ...

Special Collections at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. His discovery of manuscripts includes a version of the ''Fantasie in A minor'' that later became the first movement of the

Piano Concerto in A minor The Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, composed by Edvard Grieg in 1868, was the only concerto Grieg completed. It is one of his most popular works and is among the most popular of the genre. Structure The concerto is in three movements: ...

by Schumann. He premiered this with the

Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...

under Erich Leinsdorf at the Tanglewood Festival in August 1968. He also unearthed and performed the original version of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, which Nikolai Rubinstein had criticised so unmercifully as to cause the composer to withdraw the intended dedication to him. In 1978 Frager visited the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków, Poland where he persuaded librarians to make available a cache of more than one thousand original manuscripts missing (and believed lost) since World War II. The collection included pieces by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann and Mozart. In 1987 Frager received the Golden Mozart Pin from the International Mozart Foundation in Salzburg. Mr Frager performed Mozart Piano Concerto Nr19 with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1983. Frager was brought up in a Jewish family, but later converted to

Christian Science Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally know ...

. He died in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on June 20, 1991. His family declined to state the cause of death, but he was reported to have been ill for about a year.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frager, Malcolm 1935 births 1991 deaths American classical pianists Male classical pianists American male pianists American Christian Scientists Leventritt Award winners Musicians from St. Louis Prize-winners of the Queen Elisabeth Competition 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century classical musicians American people of Jewish descent Jewish classical pianists 20th-century American pianists Converts to Christian Science from Judaism Classical musicians from Missouri 20th-century American male musicians