Oscar Beringer

Oscar Beringer (14 July 1844 – 21 February 1922) was an English pianist and teacher of German descent. Beringer was born in Furtwangen in the Black Forest, but by 1849 he had moved to London when his father became a political refugee. Due to impoverished circumstances he was largely self taught (on a borrowed piano with lessons from his sister) until he was 19, but made several appearances as a piano soloist at the Crystal Palace Saturday Concerts in 1859-60. At the age of 19 Beringer began a course of systematic training as a pupil of Ignaz Moscheles in Leipzig, and Carl Tausig in Berlin. In 1869 he was appointed professor at Tausig’s Schule des höheren Clavierspiels in Berlin, but he returned to London in 1871. By 1873 he had established the Oscar Beringer Academy for the Higher Development of Pianoforte Playing, initially from a small house in Great Marlborough Street, then at 12 Hinde Street off Manchester Square, and later at 40 Wigmore Street in London. It was organized on the model of Tausig’s school. From 1885 he was also a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. On 14 October 1882 Beringer was the soloist in Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto for its first performance in Engl