Ashkenazy’s father was a musician. At eight Ashkenazy was enrolled at the Central Music School in Moscow where he studied piano with Anaida Sumbatyan for the next ten years.

Arleen Augér studied with L. D. Frey in Los Angeles and completed her studies with honors and a first prize in the Los Angeles singing competition.

Idil Biret's gift for music was apparent from the age of three. She was trained at the Paris Conservatoire under the tutelage of Nadia Boulanger, graduating at the age of fifteen with three first prizes.

The Swedish tenor Jussi Björling (1911-1960) was born in Stora Tuna in the district of Dalarna. As a boy he toured and recorded with the family quartet, in addition to visiting the United States (1916-26).

Brendel’s parents were not musical and he was not a child prodigy. Due to his father’s work, Brendel and his family moved around Yugoslavia and Austria, and whilst in Zagreb young Alfred began piano lessons with Sofia Dezelic.

The German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was born in Berlin in 1925. After war service he studied with the tenor Georg Walter and made his operatic début as Posa in Don Carlos in 1948.

Nicolai Gedda [b.1925] is one of the greatest lyric tenors of the twentieth century and unquestionably the most versatile.

Gould first studied piano with his mother who was a voice teacher. At ten he went to the Toronto Conservatory of Music where he studied piano with Albert Guerrero, organ with Frederick C. Silvester and theory with Leo Smith.

"The busiest man on the keyboard." Daily Telegraph newspaper (UK). Jenő Jandó is one of the most prolific artists in the history of classical music recording. He is also increasingly one of its most appreciated and admired.

Born in New York on 22nd April 1916, Yehudi Menuhin died in Berlin on 12th March 1999.

Education As a child, Takako Nishizaki studied with her father, Shinji, the co-founder of the Suzuki Method and with Shinichi Suzuki himself.

Born David Kolker on 30th September 1908, he took the name of his musician stepfather; his mother was also musical and often took him to the opera.

Richter’s father was a pianist and composer who had studied in Vienna and then taught at the Odessa Conservatory. He was German, and Richter’s mother was his pupil.

Peter Schreier was born in Gauernitz, where his father was a cantor and organist. At the age of eight he joined the Kreuzchor in Dresden.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was born at Jarotschin, near Poznan, on 9 December 1915. Her teachers in Berlin included the Lieder singer Lula Mysz-Gmeiner, the coloratura soprano Maria Ivogun and the latter’s husband, the pianist Michael Raucheisen.