Martinus Sieveking

Martinus Sieveking (March 24, 1867 – November 26, 1950) was a Dutch virtuoso pianist, composer, teacher and inventor born in Amsterdam. Also known as Martin Sieveking, he performed as a soloist around Europe and the United States during his active career and taught in France and the U.S. after he retired from performing. He is sometimes referred to as The Flying Dutchman due to his Dutch heritage and extremely flighty nature. At the peak of his career, he was pronounced by the New York and Boston critics as one of the four greatest living pianists of that time along with Ignace Paderewski, Moriz Rosenthal and Rafael Joseffy.Sieveking was an advocate of The Dead-Weight Principle of playing. He devised his own variation of this system and wrote several articles about the subject for publication. He was also an inventor of both musical and non-musical devises that he had patented in various countries.