Leslie Howard (musician)

In 2018, a new disc was released, including some inedit works, like the first version of the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 1, and the Kavallerie-Geschwindmarsch, which was believed lost for over a century.

A boxed set containing all 99 discs has been issued by Hyperion Records in 2011 in honor of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Liszt.

In November 2009, Howard was invited by the Alkan Society in London to become their new president, a position which he now holds concurrently with his role as president of the Liszt Society.

With Michael Short he has published Ferenc Liszt – A List of his Musical Works (Rugginenti, 2004) and Ferenc Liszt – A Thematic Catalogue (Pendragon, 2005). He has a book in progress, The Music of Liszt (Yale University Press).

In 2004 he was decorated by the President of Hungary with the Medal of St. Stephen.

In 2003, Boosey & Hawkes published Howard's "New Corrected Edition" of the 2-piano score of Rachmaninoff's 4th Piano Concerto (in collaboration with Robert Threlfall).

In 2001, Howard was awarded a doctorate "honoris causa" by the University of Melbourne.

In 2000 he was awarded the Pro Cultura Hungarica Medal and Citation by the Hungarian Government, a rare honour for a non-Hungarian. He had previously received from the Hungarian government the Ferenc Liszt Medal of Honour, and he has also been awarded France's Grand Prix du Disque six times for his Liszt recordings—all presented to him by the President of Hungary.

The last disc of the Liszt series was recorded in December 1998, and released on 22 October 1999, Liszt's birthday. Since completion of the project, three supplementary volumes have been released (the third of which is a double CD) as further Liszt manuscripts have come to light. The total number of CDs in the series is now therefore 99.

In addition to the Liszt-related honours mentioned above, Howard was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 1999, "for service to the arts as a musicologist, composer, piano soloist and mentor to young musicians." His appointment to the Order of Australia was terminated by the Governor-General in September 2012. It has been suggested that this removal was connected to a 2007 traffic incident in the UK, which led to Howard being banned from driving for three years, given a six-month suspended jail sentence, and ordered to carry out 80 hours' unpaid work and to pay the equivalent of $2,100 costs. Howard has always maintained his innocence of the charges.

In 1997 Howard was commissioned by Gramophone magazine to compose and record a short piano piece ("Yuletide Pastorale") for its Christmas Competition: a CD was given away with the magazine, and readers were asked to state in which composer's style the piece was written, and to identify the seven well-known Christmas melodies concealed within it.

Howard's facility in completing unfinished works has resulted in commissions as diverse as a new realisation of Bach's The Musical Offering, which he orchestrated and conducted in Finland in 1990, and completions of works by composers such as Mozart (String Quartet movement, K. 464a), Scriabin (Sonata in E-flat minor: end of the slow movement, and a 3-bar hole in the finale), Shostakovich (Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, Op. 8: providing an alternative solution to that by Lyatoshinsky), and Tchaikovsky (Piano Sonata in F minor).

In 1987 Howard became an instructor at the Guildhall School of Music. He often gives masterclasses at the Royal College of Music and Royal Academy of Music.

Leslie Howard has been the President of the British Liszt Society since the death of the previous president Louis Kentner in 1987, and has also been awarded the American Liszt Society's Medal of Honor.

In 1986, to mark the centenary of Franz Liszt's death, Leslie Howard gave a series of ten Liszt recitals in London's Wigmore Hall. By excluding Liszt's arrangements (fantasies and transcriptions) of other composers' works, and by selecting only the final versions of Liszt's original works for solo piano, Howard was able to represent Liszt's entire solo piano oeuvre in ten mammoth recital programmes.

He has lived in London since 1972, preferring its climate to that of his native country; he has both Australian and British nationality.

Leslie John Howard (born 29 April 1948) is an Australian pianist, musicologist and composer. He is best known for being the only pianist to have recorded the complete solo piano works of Franz Liszt, a project which included more than 300 premiere recordings. He has been described by The Guardian as "a master of a tradition of pianism in serious danger of dying out".