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Sigismund Thalberg
January 8, 1812 - April 27, 1871
born in Paquis, Switzerland, composed during the Romantic period
Biography
Considered one of the finest virtuoso pianists of the mid-1800s, Sigismund Thalberg's entire life was intimately and professionally connected with the opera. He made a name for himself as a composer and performer by almost restricting his playing to his own fantasias on famous opera arias, many of which were by Mozart, Rossini, Meyerbeer, and Verdi, among others. He also arranged opera productions, married the daughter of the opera singer Luigi Lablache, Mme. Boucher, and even wrote two of his own operas, Florinda (1851) and Cristina di Svzia (1855), both of which had little success.

Details of Thalberg's upbringing remain unclear, especially those regarding his ethnicity and actual birth parents, who are thought to be either Prince Moritz Dietrichstein and the Baroness von Wetzlar or Joseph Thalberg and Fortunée Stein. While studying at the Polytechnic School in Vienna in 1822 and preparing for work in the government, he took up music, and his early teachers include Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Mittag, and Simon Sechter. He began performing in public at the age of 14 and his appearances of this type in the late 1820s led to an 1830 tour of Germany and his appointment as Kammervirtuoso to the Austrian emperor in 1834.