Henry Charles Litolff

Henry Charles Litolff (6 February 1818–August 5, 1891) was a keyboard virtuoso and composer of Romantic music. Litolff was born in London, the son of a Scottish mother and an Alsatian father. His father was a violinist who had been taken to London as a prisoner after being captured while fighting for Napoléon in the Peninsular War. Litolff began his musical education under his father, but when he was twelve he played for the pianist Ignaz Moscheles, who was so impressed that he gave him free lessons from 1830.