My Musical Lineage: Traced Directly To Beethoven!

Yes, that’s right – my pianistic line of descent can be traced directly back to Ludwig van Beethoven! This musical ancestry exists through a well-documented chain of teacher-student relationships spanning more than two hundred years. Following is a list of the pianists that are in my “musical family tree”:

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827): One of the most famous and influential composers in the history of music in the Western world, Beethoven was also widely recognized for his artistry and virtuosity on the piano. Both as a composer and performer, he still represents a foundational pillar of modern pianism. As a teacher of the instrument, he had a relatively small number of publicly acknowledged piano students, with Carl Czerny being the most prominent.

Carl Czerny (1791–1857): A prolific composer of technical piano exercises still used today, Czerny studied with Beethoven for three formative years (1801-1804) and became an enormously influential pedagogue in Vienna, with students who included Franz Liszt (one of history's greatest piano virtuosos) and Theodor Leschetizky.

Theodor Leschetizky (1830–1915): Arguably the most influential piano instructor of his time (with over 1,200 students throughout his 75-year career!), Leschetizky taught many of the most important pianists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including Felix Blumenfeld and Genia Robinor (who was Alexander Fiorillo’s instructor at the Philadelphia Musical Academy).

Felix Blumenfeld (1863-1931): From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, Blumenfeld was one of the best-known composers, pianists, conductors, and music teachers in Russia. He worked with figures like Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, and was one of Vladamir Horowitz's primary teachers while he was a professor at the Kiev Conservatory.

Vladimir Horowitz (1903-1989): Widely regarded as one of the greatest concert pianists of the 20th century, Horowitz preferred performing to teaching and took on just a handful of students over the course of his career. The "seven students of Horowitz" were a select group of pianists he taught between 1937 and 1962, one of which was Alexander Fiorillo. 

Alexander Fiorillo (1938–2020): An accomplished pianist and professor at Temple University for nearly five decades, Fiorillo studied with Genia Robinor, Victor Babin and the legendary Vladimir Horowitz. He was one of Horowitz's few private students between 1960 and 1962, receiving lessons in New York City after a private audition arranged through the Steinway Piano Company. 

Matt Hochmiller: A versatile musician and teacher based in York, PA, Hochmiller studied classical piano with Alexander Fiorillo for three semesters at Temple University and took private lessons with him over two summers at his Philadelphia studio. Students of Matt Hochmiller can verifiably say that they can trace their musical lineage directly back to Ludwig van Beethoven. This line of musical descent is even more impressive when considering the fact that Beethoven studied with the great Franz Joseph Hadyn!