Henri Herz

Henri Herz (6 January 1803 – 5 January 1888) was a pianist and composer, Austrian by birth and French by domicile. He was also a music teacher at the Paris Conservatoire. Among his major works are eight piano concertos, a piano sonata, rondos, nocturnes, waltzes, marches, fantasias, and numerous sets of variations.

Herz was born Heinrich Herz in Vienna. He was Jewish by birth, although he asked the musical journalist François-Joseph Fétis not to mention this in the latter's musical encyclopaedia, perhaps a reflection of endemic antisemitism in nineteenth-century French cultural circles. As a child he studied with his father, and in Koblenz with the organist Daniel Hünten. In 1816 he entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied under Victor Dourlen and Anton Reicha. His brother Jacques Herz (1794–1880) was a fellow-pupil at the Conservatoire who also became a pianist and teacher.

Herz was married to Pauline Thérèse Lachmann (or Esther Lachmann), a French courtesan known as La Païva. It is generally believed that they married in London, but it is not clear that this actually occurred. In any case, such a marriage would have been bigamous. By him she had a daughter. Richard Wagner, Hans von Bülow, Théophile Gautier and Émile de Girardin attended her salon. Her spendings nearly ruined Herz's finances, and he traveled to America in 1848 to pursue business opportunities. While he was away, her spending continued, and Herz's family turned Thérèse out of the house in frustration. In 1830, he founded his own piano factory in Paris. In 1838, he built the Salle Herz on the rue de la Victoire, used for performances by Berlioz and Offenbach. He died in Paris aged 84.

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