Ronald Smith

Ronald Smith is best remembered as the pianist who reintroduced the complex, but fantastic compositions of Charles-Valentin Alkan to the world in the 1960s, some 90-120 years after they were first written and 40 years after Alkan's previous great champion, Ferruccio Busoni, had died. Smith received his first piano lessons from his mother and when he entered school, others recognized his talent as well. He won a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he intended to take up composing, but moved more and more into piano performance. Perhaps it was tha...