I just want to write these words on my dear Professor Hans Graf:

Fourty two years ago, in July 1981 (I was 19 years old), I played Mozart’s Sonata K. 576 at the final concert of Bruno Seidlhofer’s Sommerkurs in Vienna. Hans and Carmen Graf were there. They had very kind words to me backstage, and I asked Professor Graf if he would accept me in his class at the Hochschule for Musik. A year later, having got a scholarship from the French Minister of Culture, the dream became reality, for my greatest artistic benefit.

Professor Hans Graf was not only a Count (“Graf”) but a genuine Prince: his views on music were always guided by his natural elegance and spirit. He taught us simplicity, true style, respect of the composer, personal approach, and warned of excess, narcissism and mannerism.

He was funny and charming, relaxed and meticulous, tolerant and attached to the best of the tradition. He was a pure Viennese, and I will recall for ever the way he was sometimes exaggerating his Wienerisch accent!

Thanks so warmly, dear Professor, for these two years in your class!