Thomas Tellefsen attained international renown as both a composer and a pianist. He was a student of Chopin and accompanied that master on his final tour. Tellefsen was born in Trondheim, Norway, on November 26, 1823. His full name was Thomas Dyke Acland Tellefsen, with the middle names coming from that of his godfather, the English baronet Thomas Dyke Acland, and he sometimes signed his name as Thomas D.A. Tellefsen. His father was the organist at Trondheim Cathedral and gave his son his first music lessons. Tellefsen studied to be a priest but made rapid progress on the piano nevertheless, and he gave a public concert in Trondheim in 1842. Deciding definitively on music, he moved to Paris, hoping to study with Chopin. For a time, he had to be content with lessons from his fellow Norwegian Charlotte Thygeson and then from pianist and composer Friedrich Kalkbrenner. In 1844, Chopin agreed to take Tellefsen on as a pupil. Chopin's enthusiasm grew rapidly; he gave Tellefsen free lessons, and the two became friends. Fleeing Paris during the unrest of 1848, Tellefsen went to England and accompanied Chopin on his final concert tour there. He also studied with composer Henri Rieber. Tellefsen was widely noted as an interpreter of Chopin's works, and he made a collected edition of them (although it has been criticized for inaccuracies). Later in life, he turned more to composition and teaching. His compositional output centered on the piano and ran to 44 opus numbers (many of them for publications containing multiple pieces) as well as various unpublished works. He wrote two piano concertos, various chamber works with piano, and solo piano works, many but not all in the genres Chopin had cultivated. He also composed preludes for liturgical use that could be played on either the organ or a pedal piano (a piano with a bass register playable by the feet). Tellefsen remained in Paris for the rest of his life but was honored in Norway. He died in Paris on October 6, 1874. Like many other lesser figures of the 19th century, he suffered an eclipse in his reputation after his death, but his music never completely disappeared. As of the early 2020s, more than 85 of his works had been recorded, and the Hyperion label issued a performance of his two piano concertos by Howard Shelley in 2024. ~ James Manheim, Rovi