Beethovenistas: The Divas

Year Two, Week 33, in one pianist’s journey to perform the 32 sonatas of Beethoven

I’ve decided to give the title of “Beethovenista” to the 26 women I’ve identified as having learned all 32 Beethoven sonatas. That’s out of 137 pianists who’ve done so throughout history, 111 of whom are male. (Caveat: I could have misidentified genders, but I’m confident in my data thus far).

During the 2025-6 season, I’m hoping to write about these formidable women, and interview the twelve living Beethovenistas. This post is going to be a real teaser: I’m going to briefly introduce all 26 – even though you could write a book about each one of them.

A few common traits stand out right away: iron-clad discipline, persistence, pragmatism. I have to add, often privilege. Many were members of musician families or had the backing of wealthy patrons.

Also, very functional hair. Lots of buns and hairspray.

One trait surprised me: many of these women have also done OTHER massive “complete works” projects. How have they found the time? Then I realized it had slipped my mind that I once performed all 24 Chopin Etudes. I just don’t remember it as a big project because I prepared them one at a time, by using the hour I had for my daughter’s afternoon nap. She napped for about two years. By then I had the 24, and then I played them in concert. But as difficult as they are, that’s about 2 hours of music total, to the Beethoven cycle’s 11 hours. Anyhow. On to these undauntable women! This’ll be chronological.

1. Olga Samaroff (1880-1948)

Born Lucy Hickenlooper in Texas, she changed her name when she found she couldn’t get traction with her PR while being American. She presented the complete cycle in New York City, the second person to do so. Her husband was the great conductor Leopold Stokwoski.

Olga Samaroff

2. Elly Ney (1882-1968)

It’s tricky to find information about Elly Ney these days, due to the absymal reality that she became an avowed Nazi during World War II. She was a highly esteemed pianist up to that point. She’s also one of the very few to actually let her hair go.

3. Katherine Bacon (1896-1982)

The first person ever to perform the complete Beethoven Cycle in New York City, she taught at the Juilliard School. There’s a lovely 1951 audio recording of her live playing on YouTube, not note perfect, but with a precise touch and attack, and penetration into the essence of the music.

Katherine Bacon

4. Maria Grinberg

She was revered in the Soviet Union, but unknown elsewhere until Stalin’s death in 1953. Before that, both her husband and father had been executed as “enemies of the people”. She has difficulties as a Jewish person during her career.

5. Eunice Norton (1908-2005))

Born in Minnesota, on the Western side of the Iron Curtain, she had a far more fortunate life than Maria Grinberg. She was taken to England at age 15 and introduced to both Dame Myra Hess and Hess’s own teacher Tobias Matthay, who became her mentors. She spent decades playing concerts all over the world with dazzling reviews, was highly respected for her teaching in the United States, and lived to age 97.

6. Lillian Steuber (1908-1977)

She was a piano professor in the wonderful piano program at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. There she has been succeeded by my Canadian colleagues, the pianist couple Bernadene Blaha and Kevin Fitz-Gerald. Like Bernie and Kevin, she lived in Altadena, but her home and neighbourhood was not devastated by wildfires as theirs has been. I hope in better times to connect with Bernie and Kevin about Lillian’s career.

7. Annie Fischer (1914-1995)

Probably the best-known Beethovenista, her recordings of the complete Beethoven sonatas regularly make critic’s lists of the top five cycles out there. At her farewell recital in England, which my colleague Anya Alexeyeva tells me she attended (“her hair bun looked so cool!”), as an encore she played the 8-minute fugue of the Hamerklavier sonata!

Annie Fischer at age 75

8. Tatiana Nikolayeva (1924-1993)

A woman who was like an institution in the Soviet Union, she played many complete cycles, including the complete Preludes and Fugues of Bach. Her playing of those inspired Dmitri Shostakovich to write his own 24 Preludes and Fugues, which she then also famously performed often. She taught at the Moscow Conservatory and headed the Tchaikosky Competition jury – wearing a long dress and fur stole.

Tatiana Nikolayeva

9. Peggy Salkind (1925-2018)

   Juilliard-trained, she taught piano for 37 years at the San Francisco Conservatory where her husband was President.

   

   Peggy Salkind

10. Rita Bouboudili (1926-2014)

    The Greek pianist graduated from the Athens Conservatory, studied in Switzerland with monumental Beethoven pianist Edwin Fischer, won first prize in the Geneva International Competition, moved to New York City, and became an American citizen, teaching at Brooklyn College.

    

11. Edith Fischer (born 1935)

    A Chilean pianist based in Europe, she has performed the Beethoven cycle 12 times, and also the complete works of Maurice Ravel.

    

12. Anne Koscielny (1936-2015)

    The blog writer Norman Lebrecht, known for his often annoying views on women pianists, gave news of her passing with the headline, “Sad News: Chopin Semi-Finalist Dies”. He could have more respectfully signalled her highly respected work as a pianist and pedagogue in the United States, teaching at top programs and performing chamber music with major artists.

    

13. Idil Biret (born 1941)

    The world-class Turkish pianist has a huge discography including all Beethoven sonatas, all of his concerti with orchestra, and transcriptions of all of his symphonies. She studied with Wilhelm Kempff, a distinguished Viennese exponent of the complete Beethoven cycle.

    

    Idil Biret as a student with William Kempff

    

    Idil Biret

14. Anne Øland (1949-2015)

    The Danish pianist not only performed all the Beethoven sonatas, but also the complete piano works of Danish composer Carl Nielson. She passed on at age 66.

    

15. Muriel Chemin (birthdate unknown)

    The French pianist is based in Venice where she teaches at the conservatory. She studied in Paris and was mentored by the Viennese Beethoven pianist Paul Badura-Skoda.

    

9. Angela Hewitt (born 1958)

   Anglea has recently recorded all the Beethoven sonatas on her favourite instrument, a Fazioli piano, a fascinating choice for Beethoven, as it is rich and resonant, rather unlike Beethoven’s own pianos – though by it’s by no means impossible to imagine him enjoying a Fazioli. The daughter of the organist at Christ Church Cathedral in Otaawa, she was the protegée of Ottawa pianist Jean-Paul Sevilla, pictured below.

   

   Hewitt with Jean-Paul Sevilla

10. Yours Truly (born 1960)

    

    An unused PR shot

11. Ikuyo Nakamichi (born 1963)

    Speaking of big projects, this Japan-based pianist is involved in something she started in 2018 called “The Road to 2027”. That year will mark the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death. She’s in the midst of presenting 20 recital programs, rather than the usual 8 programs in the Beethoven cycle, in which she includes works by other composers to give context to the sonatas.

    

12. Mari Kodama (born 1967)

    She is the daughter of a pianist mother, a banker father, and the wife of star conductor Kent Nagano. I can’t think of a more fortunate family context in which to become a successful pianist, but it’s certainly no guarantee: one must also be gifted, hard-working, and visionary, as she has proven to be.

    

13. Tamami Honma (birthdate unknown)

    The Juilliard-trained concert pianist is based in California where she is an award-winning pianist, educator, and community leader.

    

14. Valentina Lisitsa (born 1973)

    The YouTube star has dropped out of the limelight in the West since her pro-Putin Twitter views became increasingly harshly inflammatory. I have never been a fan of her playing and especially not her Beethoven playing, in which I’ve noticed many errors and misreadings. I stopped following her career after her repugnant performance outdoors a few years ago in the bombed-out Ukrainian city of Mariupol, to celebrate the Russian invasion there.

    

15. Irina Mejoueva (born 1975)

    Also a Russian pianist, but one who could not be more different from Lisitsa. Calm, restrained, deeply meditative, she is now based in Japan where she teaches in Kyoto. She takes the interesting approach of always performing with the score, saying it is her way to converse with the composer.

    

16. Yu Kosuge (born 1983)

    She has a big international career and has been a protegée of Sir Andras Schiff.

    

17. H.J. Lim (born 1986)

    This Korean-born pianist was a prodigy and is today a YouTube star with major representation. She seems to have been the youngest person ever to record the complete Beethoven sonatas. Which may be a bit of a controversial type of achievement, along the lines of, say, a sommelier serving the newest wine of any cellar in town. The New York Times has been less than kind about the recordings, and in my own humble opinion, having given them a bit of a listen, she might have done well to let them mature…but here’s the thing: once you have this level of attention, then you CAN mature through all that concert experience.

    

    )

18. Melodie Zhao (born 1994)

    She studied first at the Central Conservatory in Beijing, then in Switzerland, and is now in Berlin. Mentored by her Swiss teacher Pascal Devoyon, she has recorded the complete Beethoven sonatas on the Swiss label Claves,

    

19. Marta Czech (born 1998)

This Polish pianist is truly a phenomenal emerging artist. She has already, at age 27, learned a gargantuan amount of music including the Book One 24 Preludes and Fugues of Bach, Bach’s Art of Fugue, Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations and many other works. She is very much someone to watch for the future.