100 Greatest, Famous Pianists (& keyboardists) of the Piano World

Find the 100 greatest and famous pianists of the piano world. All piano players out there do come and vote for your favorite.

Vote for the greatest piano players & famous pianists of the Piano World

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Greatest Classical Pianists

Famous Piano Players (and Composers) of the 18th and 19th Century
As the style of music started moving from Baroque to classical in the later half of the eighteenth century, several pianists started getting recognized for their brilliant skills on the piano.

Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were some outstanding piano players who produced new compositions for keyboard instruments, such as clavichord, harpsichord and organ which were quite popular those days. That was the time when the keyboard instrument was evolving and composers loved the dynamic features of the keyboard/piano.

Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Frederic Chopin, Robert Schumann, Clara Wieck Schumann (wife of Robert Schumann), Franz Liszt were some of the best piano players and composers of the 18th and 19th Century.

Arthur Rubinstein
Beethoven
David Helfgott
Franz Liszt
Frederick Chopin
Glenn Gould
Haus Palsson
Josef Hoffmann
Josef Levinne
Martha Argerich
Michael Houstoun
Muzio Clementi
Rudolph Serkin
Sergei Rachmaninov
Sviatslov Richter
Walter Gieseking

Martha Argerich: Classical Pianist

 

 

Martha Argerich, born in Buenos Aires (Argentina), started playing the piano when she was just three. The Argentinean pianist is regarded by many as one of the greatest pianists of the second half of the 20th century. She gave her debut concert in 1949 at the age of eight. At the age of 16, she won the Geneva International Competition and the Ferruccio Busoni International Competition within three weeks.

Although her repertoire includes a wide range of music, including those by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, she seems to enjoy performing more of composers like Rachmaninov, Ravel, and Prokofiev, and the more modern composers, including Lutoslawski and Messiaen.

That is the reason probably she stopped playing solo recitals (did that in the first few years of her career) and started doing more of collaborative musical work.

Martha Argerich’s greatest works…
Her recordings of Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen, the Piano Concerto No. 1 of Tchaikovsky, and the third concertos of Prokofiev and Rachmaninov, are quite popular and considered to be among her best.

Many consider The Deutsche Grammophon coupling of the Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev (conducted by her then-husband, Charles Dutoit) as one of the greatest classics of recorded piano concerto repertory.

Argerich was diagnosed with cancer in 1990, and since then has been battling the disease. Following aggressive treatment, which included the removal of part of her lung and use of an experimental vaccine, Argerich’s cancer went into remission. As of today, Argerich is believed to be cancer-free.

Bloody Daughter
Martha Argerich, considered as the greatest living pianist by many, is a Swiss citizen and performs every year at the Martha Argerich Project in Lugano. Bloody Daughter’ is a documentary featuring Classical pianist Martha Argerich, directed by her youngest child, Bern-born Stephanie Argerich. 

Classical Pianist Mitsuko Uchida

Mitsuko Uchida’s father was the Japanese ambassador to Austria, which allowed her to move to Vienna, where she lived in from the age of 12. She enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Music, where her talent was spotted immediately. But despite winning a competition at the age of 15, Uchida was undecided whether she really wanted to be a pianist, because she did not know what it meant to be a pianist. It took her years to understand that it takes a lifetime to play the piano well and to understand how music really works. Uchida went on to win the Beethoven competition in Vienna, and six years later second prize at the Leeds competition.

Uchida was not really interested in the piano in her initial days (none of her musical gods were pianists). She loved the opera (loved hearing singers like Mirella Freni), she loved violinist Joseph Szigeti, and the cellist Casals. “The great piano God in Vienna back then was Wilhelm Backhaus, but I didn’t like him at all, but you couldn’t say that.”

I can never leave my passion behind. For me music is all-consuming.”

Mitsuko Uchida has to be careful about her health, since persistent vertigo caused by an inner ear problem left her unable to play for months. Uchida lives in London and thinks of herself as a Londoner. “You can be yourself in London (England), you don’t have to conform, there’s a great intellectual tolerance.”

Andre Watts: Classical Pianist

Superb and world renowned classical pianist…been around since the 70’s.

Watts has recorded for several music labels. Watts signed a long-term exclusive contract with Columbia Masterworks Records on his 21st birthday. In 1985, Watts left Masterworks and signed a recording contract with EMI, with whom he recorded until the early 1990s. He has also recorded for Telarc. Watts has recorded a variety of repertoire, concentrating on Romantic era composers, such as Chopin and Liszt, but also including Gershwin.

 

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Famous Jazz Pianists

 

 

Andre Previn
Art Tatum
Bill Evans
Count Basie
Dave Brubeck
David Evans
George Shearing
Horace Silver
Keith Jarrett
Marian McPartland
McCoy Tyner
Mose Allison
Oscar Peterson
Thelonius Monk

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Popular Ragtime Pianist

Ben Harney
Eubie Blake
Max Morath
Scott Joplin

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Famous Country Pianists

Charlie Rich
Ray Stevens
Floyd Cramer

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Famous Pop & Rock Piano Players

 

 

Billy Joel
Chick Corea
Elton John
Freddie Mercury
Jerry Lee Lewis
Johnnie Johnson
Keith Emerson
Leon Russell
Little Richard
Max Middleton
Nicky Hopkins
Rick Wakeman
Tori Amos

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Famous New Age Pianists

George Winston
Jim Brickman
John Tesh
Richard Clayderman
Scott Davis
Yanni (Yiannis Hrysomallis)

 

 

Other Famous Pianist and Piano Players

David Lanz
Dick Hyman
George Gershwin
Leon Bates
Liberace
Michael Ponti
Ray Charles

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Joe Zawinul: Pioneered the Use of Electric Keyboards and Synths

Joe Zawinul, who pioneered the use of electric keyboards and synths, is one of the most influential keyboardist in jazz.

Joe Zawinul, writer of Mercy, Mercy and Birdland, pianist with Cannonball Adderley from the sixties, co-creator of Weather Report in the seventies, leader of other groups bearing his name in the nineties and oughts, he is the only keyboardist to truly master the synthesizer, and also happens to be one of the great pianists of the last 50 years.

 

Joe Zawinul: Interesting Trivia

• Joe Zawinul was born in Vienna (Austria), started learning to play the accordion at age six (in Austria), and then later on studied classical piano and composition at the Vienna Conservatory.
• Got interested in jazz piano, and was deeply influenced by George Shearing and Erroll Garner
• Migrated to the United States in late 1958 after winning a scholarship to Berklee, however, just after one week in class, he left to join Maynard Ferguson’s band, where Miles Davis first took notice of him.
• Over the years, Zawinul evolved from a hard bop pianist to a soul-jazz performer (heavily steeped in the blues) and ultimately a jazz-rock player on the electric piano (learned to swing as freely as any American jazzer).
• Before the portable synthesizer was invented, Zawinul is credited for bringing the Wurlitzer and Fender Rhodes electric pianos into the jazz mainstream.
• Zawinul’s openness to explore all kinds of sounds made him one of the leading musicians in the electronic jazz-rock scene (it was a revolution actually) of the late ’60s and ’70s. He was also the lone musician exploring fusions between jazz-rock and ethnic music from all over the globe.
• Despite his classical background, Zawinul preferred to improvise compositions spontaneously onto tape (unlike other classically trained musicians who write on paper).

He just chose as his instrument a synthesizer keyboard rather than an acoustic piano keyboard but notes are notes, keys are keys, and one only has to listen to him play acoustic piano to realize how great he is. A listening of My One and Only Love off Concerto Retitled, a rare recent recording of his solo piano work would be sufficient to convince the reluctant listener.

He was voted Best Electronic Keyboardist 28 times by the readers of Downbeat Magazine. His unique ability to combine jazz with ethnic music from around the world was the genesis for what would later be called “world music.” He had the imagination and technique of a Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock all rolled into one. He played and toured right up to his death in 2007.

At the 52nd Grammy Awards Joe Zawinul was posthumously awarded a Grammy for “75“ as Best Contemporary Jazz Album. Joe Zawinul must be on the list.

 

Master Funk Keyboardist ‘Bernie Worrell’: Jimi Hendrix on the Keyboards

Master Funk Keyboardist Dr. George Bernard “Bernie” Worrell, Jr. — who played with bands like P-Funk, Talking Heads, Keith Richards and others, was a classically-trained pianist (a child prodigy), who studies music at the Julliard School of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music. Innovative and technically dazzling on the keyboards, some called him “Jimi Hendrix on the keyboards”. Besides being a great performer, Worrell has created several iconic compositions.

Worrell’s music crossed genres and played pop, rock, jazz, hip-hop, New Wave and, of course, R&B, and was instrumental in using electronic music in multiple genres. In recent years, Worrell has been prolific both as a studio musician and a solo artist.

With his tracks, Bernie Worrell proved that he was more than a keyboardist, who could create futuristic and funky melodies. For some of his tracks, created foot-tapping bass lines that were later copied by several black artists, and also made several bass players mad.

Worrell used keyboards like RMI Electra keyboard, Hammond B-3, Minimoog synth for his compositions.