Emil Frey

Emil Frey (German: Emil Frey; 8 April 1889 – 20 May 1946) was a Swiss pianist, composer, and music teacher. He was born in Baden (Aargau), Switzerland, and died in Zurich.

Frey studied at the Geneva Conservatory with Otto Barblan, Willy Rehberg, and Joseph Lauber, and later at the Paris Conservatory with Gabriel Fauré and Charles-Marie Widor. After completing his studies in Paris in 1906 with a first prize in piano, he traveled to Berlin and then to Bucharest, where he worked for a time as a court pianist.

In 1910 he won first prize at the Anton Rubinstein competition in Saint Petersburg for his piano trio. From 1912 to 1917 he served as professor of solo piano at the Moscow Conservatory. After the Russian Revolution he returned to Switzerland and taught at the Zurich Conservatory until his death; his students included Nico Kaufman.

In the 1930s Frey often performed in a piano duo with his younger brother, Walter Frey. As a composer, he left two symphonies, piano, violin, and cello concertos, a piano quintet, a string quartet, and other chamber and vocal works, including the romance “Prayer” (1916) set to a poem by Mikhail Lermontov. He also wrote a pedagogical textbook, “Conscious Piano Playing and Its Technical Foundations” (German: Bewußt gewordenes Klavierspiel und seine technischen Grundlagen; 1933). George Enescu dedicated his First Piano Sonata to Emil Frey.

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