| Biography | Grete Scherzer (born 1933, Wolfsberg, Austria) is an Austrian pianist.
Scherzer started to play the piano at the age of three. When she was six she gave her first public recital, then took up her studies at the Klagenfurt Conservatoire. At the age of 9 she played a Mozart concerto with the Klagenfurt Symphony orchestra and gave broadcasts from Graz. She won a scholarship from Der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, which took her to the State Music Academy, Vienna. When she was 14 she made her first appearance as soloist with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and gave broadcasts from Vienna, Salzburg and Linz.
In 1949, at the age of 16, she won first prize at the International Schubert Competition, Geneva, being the youngest competitor by far ever to achieve such distinction in an open International competition. In the following year she won the first prize at the Vienna Music Critics Competition and made her London début. Later, she was invited to play at The Royal Festival Hall, during the Festival of Britain. In 1957 she married architect and anthroposophist Rex Raab (19142004). In the 1950s she made a variety of recordings in London for Parlophone. |