Alexander Raab (14 March 18822 October 1958)The piano in concert / Compiled and annotated by George Kehler. — Scarecrow Press, 1982. — Vol. II, p. 1011. was a Hungarian-American pianist and distinguished piano teacher.Music web international
Alexander Raab was born in Győr (also known as Raab), Hungary. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory under Hans Schmitt (1835–1907), Robert Fuchs and Theodor Leschetizky and became acquainted with Johannes Brahms.Steven Heitman website He presented recitals with the violinist Jan Kubelík in England, Russia, Germany and France.
He immigrated to the US in 1915, and became Head of the Piano Department at Chicago Musical College, before moving to Berkeley, California, where he became esteemed as one of the best piano teachers on the West Coast.
He performed concertos with the Tonkünstler Orchestra of Vienna, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, and London Symphony Orchestra. Leopold Godowsky dedicated his 1931 transcription of Adolf von Henselt’s Etude in F-sharp major (Si oiseau j'etais), Op. 2, No. 6, to Raab.
Alexander Raab’s piano students included Ernst Bacon,About Ernst Bacon Vera Bradford,Australian Women’s History Forum: Vera Bradford George J. Buelow,Festa Musicologica Muriel Kerr,Encyclopedia of Music in Canada: Muriel Kerr Wanda Krasoff (who had been referred to Raab by Josef Hofmann), Mortimer Markoff,Palo Alto online: Mortimer Markoff Sumner Marshall,Encyclopedia of Music in Canada: Sumner Marshall Robert Owens,The African American Art Song Alliance – Robert Owens and Allan Willman.University of Wyoming News: Allan Willman His pupils also studied under teachers such as Alfred Cortot, Nadia Boulanger, Rudolph Ganz, Percy Grainger, Ernest Hutcheson, and Paul Wells.
He made a small number of early Duo-Art and Welte Mignon piano roll recordings, with music of Chopin (Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor Funeral March), Liszt (Hungarian Rhapsody No. 5 in E minor), Mozart, Brahms, and some salon pieces by minor composers. These recordings appear on CD alongside such distinguished names as Alfred Cortot, Guiomar Novaes, Ignaz Friedman, Arthur Friedheim, Vladimir de Pachmann, Ferruccio Busoni, Josef Hofmann and Harold Bauer.Dal Segno Records
References
Sources Music and Dance in California and the West, Richard Drake Sauners