Egon Petri

Egon Petri (23 March 1881 – 27 May 1962) was a classical pianist.

Egon Petri's family was Dutch; he was born a Dutch citizen, but in Hanover, Germany, and grew up in Dresden, where he attended the Kreuzschule. His father, a professional violinist, taught him to play the violin. While still a teen, Petri played with the Dresden Court Orchestra and with his father's string quartet. He studied composition and theory with Hermann Kretzschmar and Felix Draeseke at the Dresden Conservatory.

From an early age Petri had also taken piano lessons and eventually, with strong encouragement from Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Ferruccio Busoni, he concentrated on piano. He studied with Busoni, who greatly influenced him. He considered himself more a disciple than a student of Busoni's. Under Busoni's influence, Petri focused on the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Franz Liszt, composers who, along with Busoni himself, remained at the centre of his repertoire.

During World War I, Petri moved with Busoni to Switzerland, where he assisted him in editing Bach's keyboard works. In the 1920s, Petri taught in Berlin; his students included Victor Borge, Stanley Gardner, Jan Hoffman, Gunnar Johansen, and Vitya Vronsky. In 1923 he became the first non-Soviet soloist to play in the Soviet Union.

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