Henri Gobbi

Henri Gobbi (Hungarian: Gobbi Henrik or Henrik Aloiz Adalbert Gobby – Italian: Enrico Gobbi-Ruggieri or Henri Gobbi-Ruggieri), was a 19th-century Hungarian classical composer and piano professor. He was also a student and close friend of Franz Liszt. Many of Henri Gobbi's most important works still remain unpublished to date.

Gobbi had two children with Elisabeth Grimshaw. His daughter Gisela later became the second wife of Dr. Julius Adrian Pollacsek, while Franz Liszt took the sponsorship for his son Franz Xaver.

Gobbi was born on 7 June 1841, in Józsefváros, Pest, the son of Alois Gobbi-Ruggieri (Hungarian: Gobbi Alajos – Italian: Luigi Gobbi-Ruggieri) and Mary Gobbi-Ruggieri (née Roth, or Rott). His father was also a very talented musician and violin professor in Budapest who had come from an aristocratic Italian-Paduan family. After his marriage to a Viennese woman Mária Rott (Roth), he settled in Hungary. His eldest son, Henri Gobbi showed in childhood an extraordinary musical talent, playing violin at the age of seven and later the piano.

At the age of 18 he had already become part of the then well-known trio Grünwald-Müller-Gobbi, where he played the piano part. He graduated from the Royal Conservatory, having studied with musicians János Nepomuk Dunkl and music theory and harmony classes with Károly Thern. But his financial problems did not disappeare in the 1860s, so he still had to give private piano lessons at the beginning of his career in Budapest.

Liszt was at first careful as for Gobbi's compositions. Gobbi had sent him his first sonata in Hungarian style, Opus 13, which was dedicated to him, for Liszt's appreciation who expressed in his letter of reply an unusual interest and desire to meet the young artist himself. When Liszt recognized Gobbi's talent at their first meeting in Budapest, he gave his young pupil all of his attention. His works were acknowledged by other composers such as Johannes Brahms, Carl Tausig, Anton Rubinstein, and Hans von Bülow, whom Gobbi was in friendly relations with when he travelled to Vienna in the mid-1860s. Brahms made use of the revised version of his Piano Trio in B major, Opus 8. The other works were transcriptions that Gobbi did from Brahms and Liszt. The latter took Gobbi's sonata and several other compositions in his own concert program and let his students play them.

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