Ralph Leopold

Ralph Leopold (14 February 1884

In World War I he was attached to the Army Bandmaster's School at Governors Island, Here he met and became a close friend of the Australian-born pianist and composer Percy Grainger, who had become an American citizen in June 1918.

Leopold and Grainger gave the first performance of the piano duet version of Grainger's "Children's March: Over the Hills and Far Away". Leopold was also the solo pianist in the first performance of the version for band and piano, with Grainger conducting the Goldman Band (6 June 1919).

After the war, Leopold played again in America and Europe, where he appeared with several orchestras. On return to the United States he taught in Cleveland, Toledo, Texas, New York City and a period at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. His students included Richard Franko Goldman, Hugh Hodgson and Max Helfman.

Ralph Leopold died on 10 July 1955, aged 71.

Recordings Ralph Leopold is now remembered mainly for a series of piano roll recordings he made, either in four-hand works with Percy Grainger, or as a solo pianist. The four-hand recordings include:

Grainger's arrangement of Delius's Rhapsody Brigg Fair and North Country Sketches Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, arr. Nadezhda Rimskaya-Korsakova Richard Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks. Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, and the four Ring of the Nibelung operas Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 16 in G major, Op. 31/1.

He also made a small number of 78 rpm acoustic recordings.