Marvin, Frederick

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Marvin, Frederick

Marvin, Frederick, American pianist and musicologist; b. Los Angeles, June 11, 1923. He studied with Maurice Zam (1935–39) and Milan Blanchet (1940–41; 1945–48) in Los Angeles, with Serkin at the Curtis Inst. of Music in Philadelphia (1939–40), and with Arrau (1950–54). He made his professional debut when he was 15, then made his N.Y. debut in 1948. He subsequently toured widely in North America, Europe, and India, and was a prof. and artist-in-residence at Syracuse Univ. (1968–90). As a pianist, he made it a practice to include rarely heard works on his programs; he particularly championed the music of Antonio Soler; ed. a number of Soler’s works, and developed a numbering system (Marvin Verzeichnis) that was widely adopted.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire