Who Are Famous Piano Performers?

The following is a list of piano players who have become famous participants in the musical scene. Some are know for their work in the classical music genre while some were more involved in 20th century and modern jazz, blues and rock.

List of Famous Piano Performers

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Johann Sebastian Bach
George Frederic Handel
Henry Purcell
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Muzio Clementi
Felix Mendelssohn
Robert Schumann
Robert Wagner
Peter Tchaikovsky
Robert Strauss
Arnold Shoenberg
Charles Ives
Bela Bartok
Scott Joplin
Jelly Roll Morton
James P. Johnson
Fats Waller
Igor Stravinsky
Charles Brown
Ray Charles
Buddy Kohnson
Professor Longhair
Tuts Washington
James Booker
Marcia Ball
Champion Jack Dupree
Otis Spann
Fats Domino
Little Richard
Jerry Lee Lewis
Joe Hunter
Earl Van Dyke
Nicky Hopkins
Carole King
Billy Preston
Donald Fagen
Billy Joel
Bill Payne
Stevie Wonder
Elton John

About Famous Piano Performers

George Frederic Handel

Handel's Messiah is one of the most well known works ever published, with the Hallelujah Chorus receiving quite a large majority of the fame, particularly during the Christmas season.

Handel was born on February 23, 1685, the same year as another famous musician, Johann Sebastian Bach. Handel was born in Germany, received training in Italy, and then settled in Britain. He was part of the Baroque movement of music and composed many operas, concertos, and oratorios.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Understanding and knowing information about some of these early famous piano players is important, because you will see the ways in which the discipline has been shaped, and later players have been influenced by the rich past.

Bach did not necessarily create new forms of music; however, he helped to strengthen and enrich the German Baroque movement by infusing elements from both the Italian and France traditions.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart was born on January 27, 1756. He lived for only 35 years, but in his extremely short lifetime, he composed over 600 pieces.

By the age of five, he was already composing music and he was able to play both the keyboard and the violin. At that early age, he was putting on performances for royalty, which showed how much of a success he was going to be later in his life.

Ludwig Van Beethoven

Yet another of the most recognizable pianists of all time is the famous Beethoven. One of the most commonly recited factoids about Beethoven is that he went deaf during his life, yet his musical career was not stifled at all.

He has been considered to be the most important person in regards to the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music.

We all have our favorite famous piano performers and composers of the day. However, we need to look back into history to see how the discipline evolved, and how these famed musicians helped to carve out a space in the world for pianists of the future.