Jörg Demus was an Austrian pianist and composer. He was born in St. Pölten on 2 December 1928 and died in Vienna on 16 April 2019. His parents were the art historian Otto Demus and the concert violinist Luise Demus.
He began piano lessons at the age of six and graduated in 1945 from the then Reich Academy of Music in Vienna. He later studied conducting with Josef Krips and Hans Swarowsky, and was a pupil of the pianists Edwin Fischer, Walter Gieseking and Wilhelm Kempff.
In 1956, Demus won first prize at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition. He became internationally known as a song accompanist for Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elly Ameling, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Peter Schreier. As a soloist, he performed with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic, including in Bach piano concertos.
Demus regularly performed in a piano duo with Paul Badura-Skoda. He played an extensive piano repertoire from memory, documented in numerous recordings of piano works by Bach, Schumann, Debussy and Brahms. He was also internationally recognised as an interpreter of César Franck and was a pioneer in performing on historical instruments.
He served on the juries of many international piano competitions, including the Theodor Leschetizky International Piano Competition in Taiwan, directed by the Belgian pianist and composer Peter Ritzen. Demus owned one of the world's largest and most unusual private collections of old instruments, chiefly keyboard instruments. Much of his piano collection was housed at Museo Cristofori, his private estate at Gahberg near Weyregg am Attersee.
In 1979, Demus was named an honorary citizen of Vienna and received a special Mozart Medal.