Tobias Matthay

Tobias Augustus Matthay (born February 19, 1858 in London , † December 15, 1945 in High Marley , Haslemere ) was an English music teacher, pianist and composer.

Mattay studied at the Royal Academy of Music , where he a. a. Was a pupil of William Sterndale Bennett . From 1876 to 1925 he worked there as a professor of piano. In 1900 he founded a music school where he taught his own piano technique, which was based on the physiological processes of piano playing and which he presented in the book The Act of Touch (1903).

His theories and the methods based on them were controversial, but brought in pianists like Arnold Bax , York Bowen , Myra Hess , Felix Swinstead , Harold Craxton , Irene Scharrer , Clifford Curzon , Moura Lympany , Eunice Norton , Lilias Mackinnon , Guy Jonson , Vivian Langrish and Harriet Cohen . In the 1920s and 1930s, Matthay gave summer courses in the United States, which in 1925 became the American Matthay Association .

Matthay wrote several works on the technique of piano playing, his own compositions are largely forgotten today.

Fonts

The Act Of Touch In All Its Diversity: An Analysis And Synthesis Of Pianoforte Tone Production , 1903
The First Principles of Pianoforte Playing , 1905
Relaxation Studies , 1908
The Principles of Fingering and Laws of Pedaling , (taken from Relaxation Studies ), 1908
The Child's First Steps in Piano Playing , 1912
The Fore-Arm Rotation Principle in Pianoforte Playing , 1912
The Principles of Teaching Interpretation
The Visible And Invisible In Pianoforte Technique , 1947

Works

Quartet in one movement for piano and strings
Studies in the form of a suite for piano

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Matthay, Tobias
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Matthay, Tobias Augustus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	English music teacher, pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH	February 19, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH	London
DATE OF DEATH	December 15, 1945
Place of death	High Marley , Haslemere