Henri Herz (1806-1888), Austrian composer, virtuoso pianist and piano manufacturer, lived in France and taught at the Paris Conservatoire, following his musical education there. He also concertized in North and South America, where the public preferred to hear his own accessible compositions. Very early he earned more money than his contemporaries with his art and was partly for that reason sharply criticized by Robert Schumann, among others. He composed, according to the tastes of his time, fantasies, opera paraphrases, variations and many other smaller piano works, mostly in bravura style. He also composed eight piano concerti.
