George Pinto

George Pinto (25 September 1785 – 23 March 1806) was an English composer and keyboard virtuoso.

He was baptised at St. Mary's, Lambeth on 11 February 1786 as George Sanders. Accounts of Pinto's life and character are tenuous. There seems to be no surviving correspondence, nor did he have any descendants preserving a family tradition. His father, Samuel Sanders (or Saunders) died young, and it was from his mother, Julia Sanders (née Pinto) that he took not only his surname but also his musical upbringing. He had no siblings, (certainly none that lived past infancy), and received lavish affection from his mother and step-grandmother, the English singer Charlotte Brent (1735–1802). His mother's father, Thomas Pinto (1714-c.1780) was a well-known London violinist who had fled to England for political reasons and was the son of a civil servant to the King of Naples. His first wife was the daughter of a German pastor, and the grandmother of George, but it was his second wife, Charlotte Brent, who saw George through his childhood.

George Pinto was an exceptionally gifted child, who began studying violin at a very early age, and started taking lessons, aged 8, with Johann Salomon, who had moved to London in the early 1780s, and had been pivotal in bringing Haydn to the London music scene, so his interest in Pinto carries much weight. In 1786, aged just 10, Salomon organised for Pinto to play a violin concerto at Signora Salvini's benefit concert. Following this, he made frequent appearances in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, Edinburgh and twice travelled to Paris. Indeed, his usual concert appearances were as soloist for a violin concerto, sometimes written by Salomon, Kreutzer, Giovanni Mane Giornovichi or even himself.

Piano was, from the outset, Pinto's second instrument, but although his concert appearances were mainly as a violinist, he admitted himself that the piano was his favoured instrument. In January 1803 at Phillip Corri's Edinburgh concerts, Pinto took the place of an injured Corri as soloist for piano concertos, at this time still only 17 years old. One of Pinto's fellow students was John Field, with whom he gave a concert in 1800 and became good friends with, even dedicating a sonata to his 'friend John Field' with whom he shared a love of J. S. Bach.

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