Historical recordings provide an invaluable opportunity to hear the artistry of performers trained in the 19th century tradition of composers whose music we still revere today. While some composers actually recorded their own works themselves – notably those active in the 20th century, like Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Poulenc, Gerswhin – the technology developed too late to hear the greats like Chopin and Liszt performing, although the students of Liszt made many recordings and grand-students of Chopin have set down dozens of hours of performances.
When it comes to Brahms, the composer made two cylinder recordings at the keyboard which have unfortunately deteriorated so severely that one can get a glimpse of the spirit with which he played more than specific details. But fortunately there are recordings of those who knew him from which we can learn about how his music was performed in his lifetime. The great Carl Friedberg was a marvellous exponent of his tradition (he will be the subject of a future blog post), but among the most fascinating pianists to record – albeit far too little (indeed, much less than Friedberg) – is the brilliant Hungarian-born virtuoso Ilona Eibenschütz.
Born in 1872, Eibenschütz as a prodigy had played for Liszt, who was very impressed and interested in her future. Because he was too old to take her on as a pupil, the famed pianist-composer suggested she go to Vienna. Ilona would become the youngest student at the Vienna Conservatoire, at the same time that Fritz Kreisler was a pupil there (the two became friends and the stars of the institution). At the age of 9, she played Mozart’s D Minor Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic, still so small in stature that a contraption had to be connected to the pedals so that the diminutive child could pedal effectively. When asked if she liked the piano, Ilona reportedly said “It’s quite nice, but couldn’t I have a Bösendorfer?” Her discerning taste won her the Vienna-based Bösendorfer’s loyalty, and in the future the master piano maker would provide Eibenschütz with pianos for her concerts.
After a few years in Vienna it was decided that Ilona should study with a great pianist, but Liszt being too old and Anton Rubinstein, who wished to teach her, traveled too much to teach with the consistency she required, Clara Schumann was chosen as her mentor. Frau Schumann could clearly see the young Ilona’s talent but did not immediately agree to teach her: she noted that as she had already had great success, she was concerned that the young girl would not “be willing to submit to my teaching, as I should want you to alter in some important respects.” Ilona reportedly promised to do exactly as she was told if she were accepted.
And so Eibenschütz spent five years with Clara Schumann, and while the fiery young Ilona of course benefitted greatly from her training with her stern teacher, her staunch individuality and bold pianism did not lend itself particularly well to all of her teacher’s more traditional preferences (she would insist on seeing the dresses her pupils planned to wear at their concerts). Clara would admonish her for playing too quickly and for not focusing on details, writing in CAPITAL LETTERS to emphasize how Ilona needed to be more diligent. For example: “I have told you so often of my fear that because of the ease with which you learn you are tempted not to practice CONSCIENTIOUSLY ENOUGH. I COULD PROVE THIS TO YOU IN EVERY PIECE WHICH YOU PLAYED YESTERDAY and would like to go through them all once more with you.” Prior to an 1891 performance in London, Frau Schumann warned her, “You must heed this very carefully: BE PRECISE AND METICULOUS with everything even to the smallest detail.”
The year after these admonitions, Eibenschütz was deemed by Frau Schumann ready to make her mature debut recital in Vienna at the age of 19, at which the central works were Beethoven’s Sonata Op.111 and Schumann’s Etudes Symphoniques. Her playing in a wide range of repertoire would be celebrated over the course of the next decade: her Beethoven Fourth Concerto with Richter shortly before her marriage – one of her final performances in Vienna – was so well received that the audience insisted that the slow movement be repeated, and when Frederic Lamond met her after a 30-year break, he apparently rushed towards her arms open saying ‘The F Minor! The F Minor!’ in remembrance of her glowing reading of Chopin’s Second Concerto decades earlier.
Despite seeming destined for a remarkable career, Eibenschütz retired from the concert platform shortly after her 1902 marriage to Carl Derenberg at the age of 30 and moved to London. She would give the occasional performance – she played publicly with the Rose Quartet in 1913 and at private events with fellow Clara Schumann pupil Adelina de Lara – but by and large her performing career had come to an end. She made a handful of commercial discs in 1903, about half of which were published, and in them we can hear her bold, vivacious, tempestuous playing, with rapid tempi, dazzling finger work, and rhythmic vitality.
Ilona Eibenschütz: The Complete 1903 G&T Recordings
In this clip we can hear at 0:51 an excerpt of the second movement of Brahms’s Trio in C minor Op.101, and at 9:44 a portion of his Ballade Op.10 No.4 in B Major. The performance of Brahms Op.119 No.2 that Ilona introduces at the end of her narration is not present, but a private recording can be heard here (at 3:17, after a lovely reading of Schumann’s Romance Op.28 No.2):
Ilona Eibenschütz plays Schumann’s Romance Op.28 No.2 and Brahms’ Intermezzo Op.119 No.2
In the 1950s, Eibenschütz made private recordings at home, only some of which have been issued, which capture her vital, lively pianism. Here is one of those private recordings of Brahms, issued on two separate Arbiter releases featuring artists who knew that composer (both highly recommended): the Brahms Intermezzo in B-Flat Major Op.76 No.4, featuring a soaring singing melodic line, remarkable rhythmic freedom that somehow never sacrifices the pulse, wonderful voicing of chords, and magnificent interplay between primary and secondary voices:
Ilona Eibenschütz plays Brahms Intermezzo in B-Flat Major Op.76 No.4
And to close, a new upload for my subscribers from a private recording I received from Eibenschütz’s grandson: Schumann’s Arabeske Op.18, played without repeats and at a tempo that might have upset Clara, but which is exceedingly beautiful for its lovely singing line, wonderful communication between primary and secondary voices, and gorgeous rich tone that is appreciable despite the less-than-ideal sound of the amateur recording. What a shame this artist retired from the platform and left so few recordings, despite dying as late as 1967 at the age of 95 – but what a joy and privilege to be able to hear anything at all from an artist who was so closely aligned with key figures of Romantic pianism.
Ilona Eibenschütz plays Schumann’s Arabesque Op.18
Chopin was born on this day in 1810 – or at least this day is what is generally referred to as his birthday: although February 22nd was apparently entered in the baptismal register, March 1st is when his family celebrated his birthday. Regardless of his exact date, Chopin’s music continues to be celebrated around the world over two centuries after his birth, his innovative piano compositions being prized by pianists and piano lovers more than any other composer’s.
As there are so many valid ways of playing great music and because so many superlative pianists have recorded Chopin’s works since the dawn of recording technology in the late 19th century, I thought it would be interesting to hear a selection of historical recordings of his works played by a variety of pianists with unique approaches to the his style. While a truly comprehensive study of approaches to Chopin interpretation would warrant listening to hours of recordings by scores of pianists, in the interests of brevity and accessibility, today’s birthday celebration will feature thirteen pianists in thirteen genres of piano compositions (a baker’s dozen for his birthday cake). This is not a chronological list of the greatest Chopin recordings and the absence of a pianist or recording from this selection in no way renders it less valuable than the ones featured here – this is simply an array of some of the greatest pianists of yesteryear in some of their marvellous Chopin recordings.
Polish pianist Josef Hofmann was one of the true originals of the keyboard, a titanic pianist trained in the great Romantic tradition who was before the public for over half a century. While he made among the first piano recordings as a child prodigy and young adult, his later performances consist entirely of test pressings and broadcast performances, the latter being the only opportunity to hear him in larger-scale repertoire. This April 1938 performance of Chopin’s Andante Spianato and Polonaise Op.22 comes from one of the final concerts in his Golden Jubilee season (he played Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto at the same concert) and is even freer and more expansive than his more streamlined reading at his Golden Jubilee Recital celebration at the Metropolitan Opera House a few months earlier – inimitable tone, kaleidoscopic colour, arched phrasing, and magical rubato.
Another great Polish pianist was Ignaz Friedman, whose November 23, 1936 recording of the incredibly challenging Nocturne in E-Flat Major Op.55 No.2 is considered one of the greatest of all Chopin recordings. Despite his fame during his lifetime, Columbia records did not issue a single commemorative LP of the pianist in the decades after his death – fortunately Friedman now holds his deserved status in the pantheon of pianists. His evocative tonal colours, layered voicing, magical pedal effects, sensuous phrasing, and multi-dimensional nuancing have long made this a performance that is considered one of the finest example of exalted pianism ever captured on record.
Liszt’s pupil Moriz Rosenthal was also a Chopin interpreter of the highest order but regrettably put only a small portion of his repertoire on gramophone records. Although he made a commercial recording of Chopin’s First Piano Concerto Op.11 in 1930 for the Parlophone label, this 75th birthday concert broadcast – from December 19, 1937 – features a performance of the second movement of that E Minor Concerto that gives us a better of idea of his tonal colours, poised phrasing, and wonderful sense of timing.
Russian composer-pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff was a brilliant composer in his own right but excelled as a pianist, justly famous for his readings of Chopin. His capacity to stretch a line and peak a phrase to draw out emotion without lapsing into sentimentality is utterly remarkable, and he was capable of performances that were both deep and wistful. His marvellous reading of Chopin’s Waltz in C-Sharp Minor Op.64 No.2 features a gorgeous touch, insightful highlighting of secondary voicing, probing phrasing, and extraordinarily conceived rubato.
The ever elegant Russian pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch always delivered patrician performances that were both profound and elegant. His March 17, 1939 recording of Chopin’s Barcarolle in F-Sharp Major Op.60 features a beautifully polished sonority regardless of how softly or loud he plays, burnished melodic lines, refined phrasing, and wonderful pedal control.
Mischa Levitzki was a Polish pianist who died young and left just a few hours of recordings, the better of which reveal his gorgeous singing sonority (‘every note shone like a moonbeam’ wrote Josef Hofmann’s pupil Abram Chasins), rhythmic vitality, and beautifully proportioned rubato. In this November 21, 1929 disc of three Chopin Preludes Op.28 (Nos. 1, 7, and 23 – the first and last ones are each repeated), we hear his robust rhythm, poised voicing, magnificent tonal palette, and elegant timing.
Simon Barere was a Russian virtuoso with the most astounding technique, playing with astonishing dexterity while sustaining purity of tone. As a result, he is sometimes dismissed as superficial, but his musical imagination and poetic pianism could fuse in performances like this October 10, 1935 HMV recording of Chopin’s Scherzo No.3 in C-Sharp Minor Op.39. His dramatic treatment of the opening figurations is extremely convincing, and the melodic line is always sustained even as filigree fingerwork is despatched with breathtaking speed and lightness.
The British pianist Solomon recorded just over an hour’s worth of Chopin on 78rpm discs but not a note of the composer’s music in the LP era, and while he continues to be more known for his interpretations of Classical compositions, Solomon’s readings of the Romantic repertoire are exceptional for their clarity, vitality, and poise. His incisive rhythm in the ‘Military’ Polonaise in A Major Op.40 No.1 is robust without being strident, his attack firm without his beautiful tone ever degrading into harshness – a heroic and very idiomatic performance of a one of the composer’s most popular works.
The Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti is celebrated for his 1950 traversal of Chopin’s Waltzes, recorded just a few months before his death of Hodgkins Disease at the age of 33. However, his earlier studio recordings and his concert performances reveal an even more expansive tonal palette and degree of pianistic mastery. This performance of two Etudes – Op.10 No.5 and Op.25 No.5 – from a February 7, 1950 concert in Zurich derives from a high-fidelity radio tape (this is the best-sounding Lipatti performance discovered thus far) that captures to perfection the pianist’s glistening sonority, mastery of pedal technique, exquisitely coordinated phrasing, and elegant timing.
French piano legend Alfred Cortot had a four-decade relationship with the gramophone, and his cycles of Chopin Etudes, Preludes, Impromptus, and Waltzes are justly celebrated. While his playing was generally less reliable as he aged, this late reading of the Largo from Chopin’s Piano Sonata No.3 in B Minor Op.58 – recorded separately from the entire work in 1954 and included in a Chopin anthology LP – gives us a better idea of his magnificent tonal colours, soaring phrasing, and sublime pedal effects than many of his more famous recordings.
Maryla Jonas led a life full of suffering, which she herself claimed made her a better musician. The Polish pianist’s incredibly refined pianism enabled her to nuance and voice with such subtlety that an astonishing array of emotions can be communicated in her readings of Chopin’s deceptively difficult (to play well) Mazurkas. In this performance of Chopin’s Mazurka in C-Sharp Minor Op.63 No.3, we hear her beautifully defined articulation, attentively forged phrasing, a gorgeous tonal palette, and disarming directness fused with tremendous sensitivity.
Jascha Spivakovsky was a Russian-born pianist who had a brilliant career in Europe until he was forced to escape the Nazis in 1933, emigrating to Australia. Despite his great reputation and international tours, the pianist never had a recording contract. Private home test performances and broadcast recordings reveal fascinating Romantic pianism that is both individual and attentive to the score, as well as to its essence. This December 1966 home recording of Chopin’s Ballade No.1 in G Minor Op.23, despite the poorly tuned piano, features fluid phrasing, transparent textures, rubato that works with phrase structure and the architecture of the work, and an overall avoidance of exaggeration and sentimentality.
Jorge Bolet was a tremendous pianist who only got the international recognition his talent warranted after the age of 60 in the 1970s. This February 21,1963 broadcast recording of Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor Op.66 captures his fusion of vitality and sensitivity to nuance, with a wonderful sense of rhythm, beautifully polished sonority, and refined dynamic shadings.
I have recently started a Patreon page to help support my activities on this website, my YouTube channel, and my Facebook Piano Files page. [Detailed explanation follows – there’s a bullet point summary at the bottom of the page.]
The sad reality of the music industry now is that individuals like me who operate outside of the mainstream, focusing on highly specialized aspects of music such as historical piano recordings, have very few opportunities to earn income within an industry that is already financially challenged (my colleague Jessica Duchen reports at this link about the declining investment in classical music journalism). I might publish a magazine article or CD liner note once a year (2017 was an exception with 2 articles), or have a couple of lecture appearances, all of which amounts to very little income. Other than these unreliable and irregular sources of revenue, my music work is unpaid and is funded by my work in other fields. There was a period when radio and magazines regularly explored the pianists and aspects of comparative interpretation that I focus on, but that time seems to have come and gone.
However, we are fortunately living at a time when producers and consumers can have direct contact due to the non-physical, non-geographical nature of the internet. Enter a few well-chosen words in a search engine and you can access content that is of specific interest to you. However, it can be challenging for those who are producing such content to be financially remunerated for their work.
The Patreon website helps producers such as myself by providing a subscription platform that can provide income for work expended. While there is the option for payment to be given for each product – a YouTube video, blog post, or radio program episode – I have set my Piano Files page on Patreon for a flat-rate monthly donation to allow for more predictable budgeting for my sponsors. I currently have three reward levels – $1, $4, and $7 a month – as incentives to donate and support me increasing the volume of my activity with my daily postings on Facebook and on this website, and to cover expenses such as the redesign of this website and the Dinu Lipatti website.
I post a YouTube link with a description of the playing to my Facebook page every day of the year, with very few exceptions (I even did so daily when in hospital a few years ago). While it is a great pleasure to make these postings and this daily relationship with music brings me great joy, the fact of the matter is that searching for a recording on YouTube to feature, writing something about the performance, and then engaging with subscribers who post comments all takes time that is unpaid, so there is a limit to how much time I can realistically devote to it. I am of course happy to do these posts and will continue to do so – but in order to be able to add more substantive content to this website in the form of longer articles, podcasts, specialized YouTube uploads, I require some support.
If you break down the daily cost of a monthly donation, the value is evident: a $1 monthly donation would equate to between 3 and 4 cents a day; $4 is about 13 cents a day; and $7 is about 23 cents a day. As an incentive, subscribers get preview – and at times exclusive – access to specialized content: $1/month subscribers get preview access to YouTube uploads that I produce; $4/month subscribers get preview access to blog posts that will later be featured on this site; and $7/month subscribers get both exclusive and preview podcast-style radio programs that I record, featuring great recordings by some of the supreme pianists with my spoken commentary and analysis. You can donate anywhere between or even above these subscription levels to support my activities on Facebook, this website, YouTube, and elsewhere – any donation is helpful and appreciated! And you can also make a one-off donation if that appeals to you more by using the Paypal Donate button on the right-hand sidebar of this page.
Here is a sample of the first ‘podcast’-style program that I compiled, featuring ten great pianists. I have uploaded an episode devoted to Marcelle Meyer which is available for my $7/month subscribers and am currently preparing episodes featuring Solomon, Geza Anda, Joseph Villa, and Dinu Lipatti. Please note that your donations are to support my overall work and that I encourage all subscribers to purchase all of the commercially available recordings featured in these episodes – details of how to purchase recordings is given in each program.
I have thousands of subscribers on my Facebook page – over 8000 to be precise, although Facebook algorithm changes over the years have meant that many of them are surely not receiving updates, and recent reports indicate that this might be more challenging in the future. There are certainly several hundred very active subscribers who regularly click and post comments. While I realize subscriptions might not be within everyone’s means, if the most active members were able to commit to even a modest regular donation, it would go a long way to supporting the feasibility of the Piano Files website becoming a long-standing online resource to great pianists and their recordings.
The first order of business is updating this website from its current dated design and back-end structure to one that is more visually appealing and user-friendly. As you can see from even the first rendering by my new web designer (on the right), the prospect for an attractive streamlined website-online resource is very appealing! The price tag for this upgrade is $1500 – not much more than I paid for this site and the DinuLipatti.com website to be created several years ago. As the website becomes more attractive (and easier to read) and user-friendly for me and subscribers, it will be easier for me to set it up as an online reference point for those interested in the piano and its greatest performers.
I repeat that I will continue to make my daily Facebook postings and to do what I can on this website, and that there is no obligation whatsoever for anyone to make any donations – I am happy for what I do to be available. And simultaneously, the reality is that the greater the number of supporters on Patreon or via donations, the more content I will be able to create. If you regularly purchase books or magazines about music, as well as recordings, and enjoy what you hear and read on my various platforms, please do consider whether a donation or subscription can fit within your allotted entertainment budget.
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The Polish pianist Maryla Jonas is one whose name has all but been forgotten except by the most ardent piano fans and record collectors. First pressings as well as early LP discs of her 78rpm recordings – particularly a 1955 Columbia Entre LP featuring a set of Chopin Mazurkas made in the late 1940s – continue to fetch top dollar at shops and auctions. But beyond the legendary tale of her movie-like biography is a level of pianistic expression that is utterly magnificent and unique.
Much of the biographical material about Jonas contains some erroneous details. Born Maryla Jonasówna in Warsaw on May 31, 1911, she debuted as a child prodigy prior to the age of 10 (her age varies depending on the account). Reports that she won the 1932 International Chopin Prize are thoroughly inaccurate: she didn’t place in the 1927 competition and she came in 13th in 1932, also winning a diploma in the 1933 Vienna Competition, where Lipatti famously, much to Cortot’s consternation, tied for second; other diploma winners in Vienna include Gina Bachauer, György Sandor, and Karl-Robert Kreiten (who perished at the hands of the Nazis and whose memory still brought Claudio Arrau to tears decades later). In Brussels in 1938, she participated in the Eugène Ysaÿe International Music Competition – now the Queen Elisabeth Competition – and didn’t place in the top 12. On the basis of her competition standings, one wouldn’t think she would become a pianist whose scant recordings would be lauded into the next century.
What is clear (from her own admission) is that her suffering due to personal losses in the war would infuse her playing with a depth that cannot be learned in conservatories. Jonas was rounded up with other Jews in Warsaw in 1939, but a German officer who had previously heard her play in Germany released her. She is said to have made her way to Berlin on foot (a distance of over 300 miles), an arduous journey that was so incredibly taxing that it would lead to health problems that plagued the pianist for the rest of her short life. Contacts at the Brazilian embassy arranged for her to join her sister who had moved there several years prior to the war: Jonas was smuggled into Brazil with forged papers claiming that she was the wife of a diplomat and was reunited with her sister before news reached her that her husband, parents, and a brother had died in the camps.
Jonas was unconsolable and refused to play the piano, reportedly being admitted to a sanatorium to recover from her psychological stresses. It has been said that her admirer and compatriot Arthur Rubinstein lured her back to the piano by asking her to help him check the acoustics prior to his recital in Rio, and that once she touched the piano she couldn’t stop playing; apparently the audience had started to enter before she realized that she had been at the keyboard for hours and was not alone with Arthur. The enthusiastic response by those who heard her led her to be booked to perform a recital of her own.
While it has been stated that she spent extended periods of time recovering from her emotional turmoil, she in fact played her debut in Rio earlier than has been reported, as this news clipping from June 18, 1940 indicates: she was due to to perform on June 29, not long after she had arrived in the country. Whether her time recuperating was before or after this performance is unclear. Jonas did not seek out the limelight, though the impresario Ernesto de Quesada arranged concerts for the pianist in South America and eventually in New York, where her success would launch the most prolific period of her career.
With successes at Carnegie Hall in New York in early 1946 – the virtually empty hall on February 25 was full when she reappeared on March 30, thanks in no small part to a rave review in the New York Herald Tribune – Jonas signed a contract with Columbia Records that found her in the studio as early as April 19 producing discs that have in the intervening years cemented her reputation amongst piano connoisseurs. Among the works recorded at her first session is this reading of the Mazurka in F Minor Op.68 No.4, with phrasing is dramatically forged through varying key pressure and articulation, a phenomenally pure and focused singing sonority, elegant nuancing, and marvellous timing, with a wonderful rhythmic lilt and gorgeous rubato:
The fabled Columbia Entré LP issued September 26, 1955 features some of Jonas’ late 1940s recordings of Mazurkas, which captures her idiomatic approach to these seminal works, the varying moods beautifully characterized and played with a simplicity that belies the pianistic and musical skill required to phrase with such directness and purity of tone. While these works might not be technically challenging when it comes to playing the notes, to capture the right mood and play with such seeming directness is no small feat. Jonas accomplishes the Herculean task with elegance, grace, wit, and tenderness:
It is little wonder that this LP is still prized by collectors – though present-day listeners can fortunately now purchase Jonas’ complete discography in a marvellous four-disc set issued by Sony, remastered from the source material for the first time and issued with a lavish booklet and slip covers that are replicas of some of her vinyl releases.
Sadly, Jonas’ complete discography comprises a mere four CDs (the recordings could actually fit on three) and there aren’t any large-scale works among them, the longest single composition being Schumann’s Kinderszenen, which is itself made up of shorter pieces. There was indeed some criticism during her brief career for the absence of more substantial repertoire in her programmes, and one laments that none of her concerto broadcasts seem to have survived (she made her New York Philharmonic debut in October 1946 with Beethoven’s first Concerto – and while a recording of Wanda Landowska playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto K.415 two weeks later has been found and issued, there is no trace of a Jonas aircheck).
However, one can learn more about piano playing and interpretation in a single mazurka reading by Jonas than one can in many readings of longer, more ‘profound’ works by many other pianists. While the scale of works she played might have been limited, her musical depth was anything but.
Jonas would largely give up performing in 1951, after a fainting spell while playing Carnaval in a Carnegie Hall recital led her to believe herself unfit to continue in the public eye, though she would have two more recording sessions a few months later, on May 9 and May 17, 1951. The following year she was diagnosed with a rare blood disease that would ultimately kill her less than a decade later. She made one final appearance in concert, a Mozart and Chopin performance at Carnegie Hall in December 1956. She died on July 3, 1959 at the age of 48 – her second husband died three weeks later.
Another wonderful example of her pianistic mastery is gorgeous reading of Mendelssohn’s Song without Words Op.102 No.4 from that next-to-last Columbia session of May 9, 1951, played with a dramatically arched melodic line and fluid legato phrasing that is as seamless as it is beautiful in tone and shaping. To think that this exquisite example of her pianism was produced at a time at which she had given up performing:
Sony Classical’s exceptionally well-produced The Maryla Jonas Story is a must-have for lovers of fine piano playing, containing the first ever official release of her complete discography, remastered from the source material (read my review here) – a fitting tribute to a truly exceptional pianist whose playing deserves repeated listening.
This is an edited version of an article previously published in the now defunct magazine Classical Recordings Quarterly.
A famous 1921 portrait by Jacques-Émile Blanche entitled ‘Le groupe des Six’ depicts five of the six composers known as Les Six with their ‘godfather’ Jean Cocteau (Louis Durey is missing, having seceded from the group, but the pianist-composer Jean Wiener is in the background). The focal point of the picture is an elegant young woman, the pianist Marcelle Meyer. Although not officially a member of the group, Meyer was muse to this groundbreaking group of composers and important figure in the Parisian musical scene in the early decades of the 20th century, although far less known than other pianists of her generation despite her phenomenal pianism and close relationship with important composers, musicians, and artists.
Marcelle Meyer was born on May 22, 1897 in Lille, France. Her elder sister Germaine, also a gifted pianist, gave the child her first lessons. When it became clear that Marcelle was worthy of a more formal musical education, her father allowed her to go to Paris in 1911 to study at the Conservatoire with Marguerite Long. It was not long before Meyer moved to the class of Alfred Cortot, whom she revered. His interpretative freedom, deep tone production and imaginative outlook clearly resonated with her, and years later she still called him ‘mon Maître’.
Meyer’s lessons with the Catalan pianist Ricardo Viñes had a major impact on her artistry. A contemporary and preferred interpreter of Debussy, Ravel, Albéniz and Falla, Viñes dedicated his life to promoting new music at the expense of his popularity (he died penniless). His clear, direct style and steadfast dedication to his musical peers strongly influenced Meyer’s devotion and unusually frank approach to modern music. She also studied with José Iturbi, who gave her further insights into the Spanish school.
A new era
Marriage in 1917 to the actor and producer Pierre Bertin whisked Marcelle into the burgeoning realm of the new artistic movement in Paris. Bertin introduced his attractive wife to the composer Eric Satie, who affectionately called her ‘Dadame.’ And on meeting Diaghilev, Meyer was immediately commissioned to perform in his upcoming production of Satie’s Parade. The premiere was a scandal yet Meyer revelled in the bold artistry of the production and took no notice of the near riot that ensued. Claude Debussy was at the performance, giving credence to the rumours that Meyer prepared his Préludes with him before his death nearly a year later.
Meyer premiered several works of Les Six, including the Mouvements perpétuels by Poulenc, Chandelles romaines by Durey, and Printemps, Alfama, and Scaramouche by Milhaud. She introduced the two-piano version of Ravel’s La valse with the composer at the other keyboard, and while the private performance of April 16, 1920 did little for Ravel’s prospects of producing the ballet, Meyer appears to have won over Stravinsky: he asked her to perform Petrushka with Monteux in 1921 and was delighted with the results, and she was chosen as one of the four pianists to premiere Les noces.
Her career
Meyer crossed the Atlantic only once, travelling to South America in July-August 1927 to accompany the soprano Jane Bathori in Buenos Aires, and in general her activities appear to have been more muted than her talent warranted. It has been suggested that her insistence on performing obscure music of the 18th and 20th centuries limited her appeal to a wider audience. Nevertheless, she did perform more popular works of Mozart, Liszt, Chopin, and Schumann. She also balanced programmes featuring works for piano and orchestra by contemporary composers Stravinsky, Ravel, Honegger, Strauss, and Milhaud with more mainstream concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, and Liszt.
In 1930-31 Meyer went on an extensive tour organized by Cortot’s agents Kiesgen-Delaet that took her to such cities as Salzburg, Vienna, Prague, Bucharest, Budapest, Constantinople, Cairo, Alexandria, and Beirut – in Budapest she played the Burleske under Strauss’s baton – and while she may not have had streams of return engagements, artistically she seems to have been a hit: George Enescu wrote her a postcard praising her ‘unforgettable’ performance of Beethoven’s C Minor Concerto. Her activities in Europe generally consisted of handfuls of concerts locally and a few regular engagements – she played in Amsterdam almost every year.
Having divorced Bertin in 1927, a few years after their daughter was born, in 1932 Meyer married the Italian lawyer Carlo di Vieto, with whom she would have a second daughter; they lived in Paris until settling in Rome in 1947. Italy provided another galaxy of composers whose works she would advocate – Casella, Rieti, Petrassi, Veretti, Dallapiccola – while she travelled to France to record for Les Discophiles Français.
As discussions were under way for a tour of North America with Dimitri Mitropoulos, with whom she had played in Athens back in 1930, Meyer went to Paris for what would be the last time. During that visit, on November 17, 1958, she suffered a heart attack while at the piano in her sister’s apartment and died in hospital that night, aged 61.
A rich legacy
Meyer’s artistic testament is a vast discography spanning more than 20 hours of studio recordings and three decades. She signed a contract with HMV on June 15, 1925 and first recorded at Hayes on 30 June: Debussy’s Sérénade interrompue and Général Levine, eccentric (Matrix Bb 6272-1 & -2) and Chabrier’s Idylle (Matrix Bb6273-1, -2 & -3). Both sides were unpublished. On December 1st she returned to set down Poulenc’s Mouvements perpétuels (Matrix Bb7430-1, 2a & -3); Stravinsky’s Ragtime (HMV D1063, W727); Albéniz’s Navarra (D1063, W727) and Sous le palmier (E434, P725); Falla’s Dance of the Miller from The Three-Cornered Hat (E434, P725); a remake of Chabrier’s Idylle (Matrix Bb7437-1 & -2); and Debussy’s Poissons d’or (Bb7438-1 & -2). Takes of the Poulenc and Debussy were released in 1992 (EMI CZS7 67405-2) and the Chabrier was finally released on EMI France’s 17-disc tribute to the pianist in 2007. Although her contract was renewed for a year in 1926, nothing eventuated. She made two discs for French Columbia in 1929: Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso (LF11) and Chabrier’s Bourrée Fantasque (LF24).
In 1938 Meyer went back to HMV for the famous recording of Milhaud’s newly composed Scaramouche (DB5086), with the composer at the other piano. Then followed her vivacious 1943 account of Strauss’s Burleske under André Cluytens’s baton (HMV W1565/6). Sadly a planned Ravel G Major Concerto was axed, as it was not thought commercial enough (how times have changed – the Ravel is far more popular today) – a most regrettable decision, as an unpublished live account from the 1930s shows that Meyer was in her element in this work.
In 1946 Meyer began to set down an array of older and newer music for Les Discophiles Français, for which she would be posthumously recognized with a Grand Prix du Disque in 1959. Founded in 1941 by Henri Screpel, an art book publisher, the Discophiles label set out to produce recordings by worthwhile artists lacking international renown: among their stable of pianists were Lili Kraus and Yves Nat. Marcelle Meyer focused on then rarely played repertoire such as Rameau, Scarlatti, Chabrier, and Stravinsky. Most of the sessions took place at Salle Adyar, on Avenue Rapp on the left bank. The piano used was a Hamburg Steinway chosen by Kraus, a surprising fact given its bell-like sonority and light action. Although Meyer tended to favour Pleyel pianos, she liked this Steinway and its rich tone and lightness of touch served her well, lending her performances great clarity and suppleness.
Under Screpel’s artistic direction, the Discophiles recordings were engineered by André Charlin, legendary for his wonderful tonal balance. Regrettably the surfaces of some of the 78rpm discs leave a great deal to be desired, and with Charlin’s focus on sound over other details, speeds can be erratic – many of the Bach discs were off pitch when released on CD in the 1990s because the masters were not recorded strictly at 78rpm. Recording dates are equally unreliable: sometimes what is documented is the day a transfer was made or a tape edited.
Given careful pitching, Meyer’s beautifully recorded Discophiles performances exhibit magnificent warmth and are musically beyond reproach. Presented in attractive textured gatefold cases, the records are sought after by collectors, many of whom will pay hundreds of dollars for original pressings. Some of the recordings were additionally released in the US on Haydn Society LPs: the Mozart concertos (HSL88), Stravinsky piano music (HSL113), and Ravel piano music (HSL111/2).
When Discophiles Français went bankrupt in 1958, Screpel disappeared, much to the chagrin of Meyer and her family, with whom he had developed a close friendship. The rights were purchased by Ducretet-Thomson and later passed to EMI. In the 1980s Rémi Jacobs, creator of the EMI Références series, brought Marcelle Meyer back into the catalogue after a decades-long absence with four two-LP sets of Rameau, Scarlatti, Chabrier and Ravel. In 1989 a Références CD of a previously unpublished recording of the complete Debussy Préludes was released (EMI CDH7 63348-2) as a bonus (if you bought three Références discs, you got the Meyer for free); the source for this recording a test record from her elder daughter’s collection for an LP that went unissued due to the dissolution of Les Discophiles Français.
In 1992, EMI France released the first of three sets dedicated to Meyer in their Introuvables series, a six-CD box of 19th- and 20th-century music (CZS6 76405 2). With the release of the four-disc Vol.2 (CZS5 68092-2) and five-disc Vol.3 (CZS5 68498-2), Meyer’s near-complete commercial recordings had been issued by the mid-1990s. The only items not included were Espla’s Sonata del Sur, which in 2003 was released on an EMI Spain CD (5 62585-2), and some 78rpm versions of music she later recorded on tape. The 27 Scarlatti Sonatas from 1947 were issued separately with Bach’s C minor Toccata, BWV911 (Pearl GEM0137).
Rémi Jacobs’s last task before retiring from EMI France in 2007 was to produce a 17-CD set devoted to the complete commercial records of Marcelle Meyer (384699-2). It includes new transfers of every studio version of each work Meyer recorded, as well as a newly discovered Pleyela piano roll of Haydn’s Sonata in E Minor, Hob. XVI:34. Also being published for the first time since their initial release are works by Debussy recorded in 1947 (DF92/95), the Bourrée fantasque from 1929 and the studio version of the Mozart Sonata K310 (Album 37) – the previous EMI set had a broadcast transcription instead of the commercial recording.
There are curious gaps in Meyer’s commercial discography. She did not record a note of Eric Satie, a peculiar omission given that she was his preferred pianist and she made only the one 78rpm side of Poulenc, odd given her close friendship with the composer. Romantic repertoire is largely absent – in the studio she set down works by Chabrier but no Chopin or Schumann, both of whose works she played frequently. A Dutch critic found her Études symphoniques to be ‘clear, healthy, purely musical, full of expression and character, without any … exaggerated romanticism’. It seems strange that Meyer should have opted to record two Mozart concertos but no other works for piano and orchestra during her tenure with Discophiles Français. Concerted works by Ravel, Franck or Saint-Saëns would have suited both her playing and the label’s focus on French repertoire.
The performances
The pianism of Marcelle Meyer is particularly striking in its simplicity. Her playing is graceful and supple, with melodic lines always clear and flexible. Her timing is impeccable, with each phrase meticulously measured for cadence and tone production: melodies rise and fall with fluidity and every note blends seamlessly into the next. Whether in Baroque keyboard music of Rameau and Couperin or in works by her contemporaries Debussy and Ravel, Meyer’s carefully controlled craftsmanship exhibits precise pedalling, a line that never loses focus, and a beautiful ringing piano sound.
Among her triumphs are the recordings of early keyboard music, in which she breathes new life into music that had gone largely unnoticed by pianists of her generation. To Bach, Scarlatti, Rameau, and Couperin she brings warmth and transparency with her clear tone, delicate phrasing, and deft fingerwork. Particularly remarkable is her ornamentation: her trills are not mere technical devices but a subtle shift of the melodic progression that produces a warbling effect without distorting the inflection or lilt of the line.
At a time when pianists might have played an occasional Scarlatti sonata or a Godowsky transcription of Rameau, Meyer set about recording extensive tributes to these composers. After making a few Rameau discs in 1946 (DF64/7), she taped his complete works in 1953, the first cycle on record (DF98/9). Her crystalline sound and clear phrasing assist her in capturing both the melancholic and exuberant moods prevalent in Rameau’s oeuvre. Particularly noteworthy is how she fluidly incorporates ornamentation into the melodic line, whereby trills are not merely decorative devices but an integral aspect of the melodic line.
The slower pieces feature beautifully terraced harmonies and the livelier ones are played with dynamism, as are nine Couperin works (72/9). Meyer recorded two batches of Scarlatti Sonatas, 27 of them in 1946 and 1948 (D68/71, 130/3) and 32 in 1954 (139/40). She launches into the sonatas with both verve and sensitivity, her flawless technique allowing her to bypass technical challenges and her sensitive ear enabling her to reveal depth inherent in pieces at the time often dismissed as superficial.
Among Meyer’s other ‘firsts’ were several Bach titles: the English Suite no.4 (Album 38), Partita no.3 (82/3), and Toccatas in D minor BWV913 (60/1) andF sharp minor BWV910 (Album 38) were the first piano performances of these works on record. In general Meyer approaches Bach’s works with a more robust attack and greater rhythmic vitality than with Rameau and Scarlatti, although in the Inventions and Sinfonias she phrases with a smooth sensuality that still clarifies the contrapuntal structure of these seldom-recorded works.
Meyer’s transparent textures and declamatory delivery serve Mozart’s idiom well. Although the Concertos K466 and K488 (37) are somewhat marred by the scraping strings of Maurice Hewitt’s orchestra, her playing is magnificent here and in several solo works. A few broadcasts of solo works (Tahra TAH579/80) have added to her official Mozart discography, but a forthright broadcast of the ‘Emperor’ Concerto is all that has been released of her Beethoven. Judging by the Haydn sonata roll, she had affection for his music. In five pieces from Rossini’s Péchés de ma vieillesse (EX25008), Meyer expresses the operatic nature of the writing with a strong lyrical line and sense of drama. She recorded a number of Schubert dances in 1948–49: Valses nobles, Ländler, Valses sentimentales and Danses allemandes (134/8), all despatched with vigour and enthusiasm.
Meyer’s Chabrier cycle (151/2) is one of the glories of recorded pianism, showing her to have been a romanticist of the highest order. She traverses his Pieces pittoresques with remarkable sensitivity, impeccable timing, and luscious piano tone, expressing the unique flavour of each work to perfection, without an ounce of self-indulgence or exaggeration. Idylle, which Meyer’s daughter calls ‘the soundtrack of (her) childhood’, has a seamlessly fluid melodic line over a baseline that is at times magnificently elastic, at others deliciously hazy yet never unclear. In Habañera, Meyer builds to a magnificent climax without sacrificing the sensual mood, and in Feuillet d’album, cascading figurations caress a hauntingly beautiful melody that is expressed with tenderness and fluidity.
Meyer apparently wished to record both piano parts of the Valses romantiques, hoping that they could be edited into a single performance. As the technology of the time made such double-tracking difficult, she invited her dear friend Francis Poulenc to the second piano, and the recording is a powerful testament to their musical sympathy.
Unlike a great many pianists, Meyer makes a palpable distinction between Debussy’s and Ravel’s idioms, impressionistic but not blurred in the former, attentive to structure and clarity in the latter. The Debussy Préludes are priceless documents, with amazingly subtle pedaling fused with full-bodied tone and remarkable feats of virtuosity; the 1947 ‘La terrace des audiences du claire de lune’ is utterly mesmerizing for its evocative colours, sumptuous phrasing, and magnificent timing. She also delivers superlative readings of L’isle joyeuse, Images, and Masques.
That Meyer’s Ravel cycle (100/1) won the 1955 Grand Prix du Disque is hardly surprising: her crystalline tone and precision are ideally suited to Ravel’s jewel-like oeuvre, and her relationships with the composer and his colleague Ricardo Viñes bring credibility to her approach. She pedals with moderation and applies the gentlest of rubatos, and her tempos are fairly brisk: her Pavane pour une infante défunte is, as Ravel suggested, not a dead pavane for a princess. Jeux d’eau sparkles like diamonds in sunlight (how marvellous her Jeux d’eau a la Villa d’Este of Liszt must have been – she played it in recital) and Le tombeau de Couperin highlights the biting harmonies with clear textures and rhythmic certainty. Her Gaspard de la nuit features a hypnotic Ondine, a haunting Le gibet, and a breathtaking Scarbo.
A prime exponent of the newest music of her generation, Meyer performs her contemporaries’ works with exuberance. The shorter works of Poulenc, Albéniz, and Falla recorded in 1925 are played with aplomb, the 1938 Scaramouche finds Meyer and Milhaud throwing caution to the wind, and 1943’s Strauss Burleske bubbles with excitement blended with lyrical poise. In the works of Stravinsky, Meyer’s clear textures allow for a transparent presentation of the complex harmonies and structures. Producer Antoine Duhamel reported that the only time he witnessed Meyer technically taxed was while recording the incredibly demanding Trois mouvements de Petrouchka (48, 163), yet the 55-year-old Meyer’s performance is stupendous, played with a more relaxed articulation than usual so as to highlight the jazzier side of the music than one usually hears. Her 1956 recording (Hispavox HH1001) of Espla’s Sonata del Sur, conducted by the composer, features stunning technical feats and a blend of lushly Romantic melodic expression and modern tonal construction.
One of the true highlights of the art of Marcelle Meyer is a broadcast of Nights in the Gardens of Spain (TAH564), recorded only six months before her death. The playing smoulders with a flexible rhythmic approach and richly textured figurations that bring to mind the sensual moves of Spanish dancers and the vibrato of a Flamenco guitar. How unfortunate that the Burleske she performed at the same concert has not been released.
It is remarkable to consider that a pianist present at the birth of the music of Satie, Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky should have left us over 20 hours of superlative recordings. Given the admiration of present-day pianists like Alexandre Tharaud, the fact that the Newport Music Festival has held two concerts in her memory, and the comprehensive re-release of her studio recordings, Marcelle Meyer may continue to influence future generations of music-lovers.
I have recently started a Patreon page to help support my activities on this website, my YouTube channel, and my Facebook Piano Files page. [Detailed explanation follows – there’s a bullet point summary at the bottom of the page.]
The sad reality of the music industry now is that individuals like me who operate outside of the mainstream, focusing on highly specialized aspects of music such as historical piano recordings, have very few opportunities to earn income within an industry that is already financially challenged (my colleague Jessica Duchen reports at this link about the declining investment in classical music journalism). I might publish a magazine article or CD liner note once a year (2017 was an exception with 2 articles), or have a couple of lecture appearances, all of which amounts to very little income. Other than these unreliable and irregular sources of revenue, my music work is unpaid and is funded by my work in other fields. There was a period when radio and magazines regularly explored the pianists and aspects of comparative interpretation that I focus on, but that time seems to have come and gone.
However, we are fortunately living at a time when producers and consumers can have direct contact due to the non-physical, non-geographical nature of the internet. Enter a few well-chosen words in a search engine and you can access content that is of specific interest to you. However, it can be challenging for those who are producing such content to be financially remunerated for their work.
The Patreon website helps producers such as myself by providing a subscription platform that can provide income for work expended. While there is the option for payment to be given for each product – a YouTube video, blog post, or radio program episode – I have set my Piano Files page on Patreon for a flat-rate monthly donation to allow for more predictable budgeting for my sponsors. I currently have three reward levels – $1, $4, and $7 a month – as incentives to donate and support me increasing the volume of my activity with my daily postings on Facebook and on this website, and to cover expenses such as the redesign of this website and the Dinu Lipatti website.
I post a YouTube link with a description of the playing to my Facebook page every day of the year, with very few exceptions (I even did so daily when in hospital a few years ago). While it is a great pleasure to make these postings and this daily relationship with music brings me great joy, the fact of the matter is that searching for a recording on YouTube to feature, writing something about the performance, and then engaging with subscribers who post comments all takes time that is unpaid, so there is a limit to how much time I can realistically devote to it. I am of course happy to do these posts and will continue to do so – but in order to be able to add more substantive content to this website in the form of longer articles, podcasts, specialized YouTube uploads, I require some support.
If you break down the daily cost of a monthly donation, the value is evident: a $1 monthly donation would equate to between 3 and 4 cents a day; $4 is about 13 cents a day; and $7 is about 23 cents a day. As an incentive, subscribers get preview – and at times exclusive – access to specialized content: $1/month subscribers get preview access to YouTube uploads that I produce; $4/month subscribers get preview access to blog posts that will later be featured on this site; and $7/month subscribers get both exclusive and preview podcast-style radio programs that I record, featuring great recordings by some of the supreme pianists with my spoken commentary and analysis. You can donate anywhere between or even above these subscription levels to support my activities on Facebook, this website, YouTube, and elsewhere – any donation is helpful and appreciated! And you can also make a one-off donation if that appeals to you more by using the Paypal Donate button on the right-hand sidebar of this page.
Here is a sample of the first ‘podcast’-style program that I compiled, featuring ten great pianists. I have uploaded an episode devoted to Marcelle Meyer which is available for my $7/month subscribers and am currently preparing episodes featuring Solomon, Geza Anda, Joseph Villa, and Dinu Lipatti. Please note that your donations are to support my overall work and that I encourage all subscribers to purchase all of the commercially available recordings featured in these episodes – details of how to purchase recordings is given in each program.
I have thousands of subscribers on my Facebook page – over 8000 to be precise, although Facebook algorithm changes over the years have meant that many of them are surely not receiving updates, and recent reports indicate that this might be more challenging in the future. There are certainly several hundred very active subscribers who regularly click and post comments. While I realize subscriptions might not be within everyone’s means, if the most active members were able to commit to even a modest regular donation, it would go a long way to supporting the feasibility of the Piano Files website becoming a long-standing online resource to great pianists and their recordings.
The first order of business is updating this website from its current dated design and back-end structure to one that is more visually appealing and user-friendly. As you can see from even the first rendering by my new web designer (on the right), the prospect for an attractive streamlined website-online resource is very appealing! The price tag for this upgrade is $1500 – not much more than I paid for this site and the DinuLipatti.com website to be created several years ago. As the website becomes more attractive (and easier to read) and user-friendly for me and subscribers, it will be easier for me to set it up as an online reference point for those interested in the piano and its greatest performers.
I repeat that I will continue to make my daily Facebook postings and to do what I can on this website, and that there is no obligation whatsoever for anyone to make any donations – I am happy for what I do to be available. And simultaneously, the reality is that the greater the number of supporters on Patreon or via donations, the more content I will be able to create. If you regularly purchase books or magazines about music, as well as recordings, and enjoy what you hear and read on my various platforms, please do consider whether a donation or subscription can fit within your allotted entertainment budget.
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The Polish pianist Maryla Jonas is one whose name has all but been forgotten except by the most ardent piano fans and record collectors. First pressings as well as early LP discs of her 78rpm recordings – particularly a 1955 Columbia Entre LP featuring a set of Chopin Mazurkas made in the late 1940s – continue to fetch top dollar at shops and auctions. But beyond the legendary tale of her movie-like biography is a level of pianistic expression that is utterly magnificent and unique.
Much of the biographical material about Jonas contains some erroneous details. Born Maryla Jonasówna in Warsaw on May 31, 1911, she debuted as a child prodigy prior to the age of 10 (her age varies depending on the account). Reports that she won the 1932 International Chopin Prize are thoroughly inaccurate: she didn’t place in the 1927 competition and she came in 13th in 1932, also winning a diploma in the 1933 Vienna Competition, where Lipatti famously, much to Cortot’s consternation, tied for second; other diploma winners in Vienna include Gina Bachauer, György Sandor, and Karl-Robert Kreiten (who perished at the hands of the Nazis and whose memory still brought Claudio Arrau to tears decades later). In Brussels in 1938, she participated in the Eugène Ysaÿe International Music Competition – now the Queen Elisabeth Competition – and didn’t place in the top 12. On the basis of her competition standings, one wouldn’t think she would become a pianist whose scant recordings would be lauded into the next century.
What is clear (from her own admission) is that her suffering due to personal losses in the war would infuse her playing with a depth that cannot be learned in conservatories. Jonas was rounded up with other Jews in Warsaw in 1939, but a German officer who had previously heard her play in Germany released her. She is said to have made her way to Berlin on foot (a distance of over 300 miles), an arduous journey that was so incredibly taxing that it would lead to health problems that plagued the pianist for the rest of her short life. Contacts at the Brazilian embassy arranged for her to join her sister who had moved there several years prior to the war: Jonas was smuggled into Brazil with forged papers claiming that she was the wife of a diplomat and was reunited with her sister before news reached her that her husband, parents, and a brother had died in the camps.
Jonas was unconsolable and refused to play the piano, reportedly being admitted to a sanatorium to recover from her psychological stresses. It has been said that her admirer and compatriot Arthur Rubinstein lured her back to the piano by asking her to help him check the acoustics prior to his recital in Rio, and that once she touched the piano she couldn’t stop playing; apparently the audience had started to enter before she realized that she had been at the keyboard for hours and was not alone with Arthur. The enthusiastic response by those who heard her led her to be booked to perform a recital of her own.
While it has been stated that she spent extended periods of time recovering from her emotional turmoil, she in fact played her debut in Rio earlier than has been reported, as this news clipping from June 18, 1940 indicates: she was due to to perform on June 29, not long after she had arrived in the country. Whether her time recuperating was before or after this performance is unclear. Jonas did not seek out the limelight, though the impresario Ernesto de Quesada arranged concerts for the pianist in South America and eventually in New York, where her success would launch the most prolific period of her career.
With successes at Carnegie Hall in New York in early 1946 – the virtually empty hall on February 25 was full when she reappeared on March 30, thanks in no small part to a rave review in the New York Herald Tribune – Jonas signed a contract with Columbia Records that found her in the studio as early as April 19 producing discs that have in the intervening years cemented her reputation amongst piano connoisseurs. Among the works recorded at her first session is this reading of the Mazurka in F Minor Op.68 No.4, with phrasing is dramatically forged through varying key pressure and articulation, a phenomenally pure and focused singing sonority, elegant nuancing, and marvellous timing, with a wonderful rhythmic lilt and gorgeous rubato:
The fabled Columbia Entré LP issued September 26, 1955 features some of Jonas’ late 1940s recordings of Mazurkas, which captures her idiomatic approach to these seminal works, the varying moods beautifully characterized and played with a simplicity that belies the pianistic and musical skill required to phrase with such directness and purity of tone. While these works might not be technically challenging when it comes to playing the notes, to capture the right mood and play with such seeming directness is no small feat. Jonas accomplishes the Herculean task with elegance, grace, wit, and tenderness:
It is little wonder that this LP is still prized by collectors – though present-day listeners can fortunately now purchase Jonas’ complete discography in a marvellous four-disc set issued by Sony, remastered from the source material for the first time and issued with a lavish booklet and slip covers that are replicas of some of her vinyl releases.
Sadly, Jonas’ complete discography comprises a mere four CDs (the recordings could actually fit on three) and there aren’t any large-scale works among them, the longest single composition being Schumann’s Kinderszenen, which is itself made up of shorter pieces. There was indeed some criticism during her brief career for the absence of more substantial repertoire in her programmes, and one laments that none of her concerto broadcasts seem to have survived (she made her New York Philharmonic debut in October 1946 with Beethoven’s first Concerto – and while a recording of Wanda Landowska playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto K.415 two weeks later has been found and issued, there is no trace of a Jonas aircheck).
However, one can learn more about piano playing and interpretation in a single mazurka reading by Jonas than one can in many readings of longer, more ‘profound’ works by many other pianists. While the scale of works she played might have been limited, her musical depth was anything but.
Jonas would largely give up performing in 1951, after a fainting spell while playing Carnaval in a Carnegie Hall recital led her to believe herself unfit to continue in the public eye, though she would have two more recording sessions a few months later, on May 9 and May 17, 1951. The following year she was diagnosed with a rare blood disease that would ultimately kill her less than a decade later. She made one final appearance in concert, a Mozart and Chopin performance at Carnegie Hall in December 1956. She died on July 3, 1959 at the age of 48 – her second husband died three weeks later.
Another wonderful example of her pianistic mastery is gorgeous reading of Mendelssohn’s Song without Words Op.102 No.4 from that next-to-last Columbia session of May 9, 1951, played with a dramatically arched melodic line and fluid legato phrasing that is as seamless as it is beautiful in tone and shaping. To think that this exquisite example of her pianism was produced at a time at which she had given up performing:
Sony Classical’s exceptionally well-produced The Maryla Jonas Story is a must-have for lovers of fine piano playing, containing the first ever official release of her complete discography, remastered from the source material (read my review here) – a fitting tribute to a truly exceptional pianist whose playing deserves repeated listening.
This is an edited version of an article previously published in the now defunct magazine Classical Recordings Quarterly.
A famous 1921 portrait by Jacques-Émile Blanche entitled ‘Le groupe des Six’ depicts five of the six composers known as Les Six with their ‘godfather’ Jean Cocteau (Louis Durey is missing, having seceded from the group, but the pianist-composer Jean Wiener is in the background). The focal point of the picture is an elegant young woman, the pianist Marcelle Meyer. Although not officially a member of the group, Meyer was muse to this groundbreaking group of composers and important figure in the Parisian musical scene in the early decades of the 20th century, although far less known than other pianists of her generation despite her phenomenal pianism and close relationship with important composers, musicians, and artists.
Marcelle Meyer was born on May 22, 1897 in Lille, France. Her elder sister Germaine, also a gifted pianist, gave the child her first lessons. When it became clear that Marcelle was worthy of a more formal musical education, her father allowed her to go to Paris in 1911 to study at the Conservatoire with Marguerite Long. It was not long before Meyer moved to the class of Alfred Cortot, whom she revered. His interpretative freedom, deep tone production and imaginative outlook clearly resonated with her, and years later she still called him ‘mon Maître’.
Meyer’s lessons with the Catalan pianist Ricardo Viñes had a major impact on her artistry. A contemporary and preferred interpreter of Debussy, Ravel, Albéniz and Falla, Viñes dedicated his life to promoting new music at the expense of his popularity (he died penniless). His clear, direct style and steadfast dedication to his musical peers strongly influenced Meyer’s devotion and unusually frank approach to modern music. She also studied with José Iturbi, who gave her further insights into the Spanish school.
A new era
Marriage in 1917 to the actor and producer Pierre Bertin whisked Marcelle into the burgeoning realm of the new artistic movement in Paris. Bertin introduced his attractive wife to the composer Eric Satie, who affectionately called her ‘Dadame.’ And on meeting Diaghilev, Meyer was immediately commissioned to perform in his upcoming production of Satie’s Parade. The premiere was a scandal yet Meyer revelled in the bold artistry of the production and took no notice of the near riot that ensued. Claude Debussy was at the performance, giving credence to the rumours that Meyer prepared his Préludes with him before his death nearly a year later.
Meyer premiered several works of Les Six, including the Mouvements perpétuels by Poulenc, Chandelles romaines by Durey, and Printemps, Alfama, and Scaramouche by Milhaud. She introduced the two-piano version of Ravel’s La valse with the composer at the other keyboard, and while the private performance of April 16, 1920 did little for Ravel’s prospects of producing the ballet, Meyer appears to have won over Stravinsky: he asked her to perform Petrushka with Monteux in 1921 and was delighted with the results, and she was chosen as one of the four pianists to premiere Les noces.
Her career
Meyer crossed the Atlantic only once, travelling to South America in July-August 1927 to accompany the soprano Jane Bathori in Buenos Aires, and in general her activities appear to have been more muted than her talent warranted. It has been suggested that her insistence on performing obscure music of the 18th and 20th centuries limited her appeal to a wider audience. Nevertheless, she did perform more popular works of Mozart, Liszt, Chopin, and Schumann. She also balanced programmes featuring works for piano and orchestra by contemporary composers Stravinsky, Ravel, Honegger, Strauss, and Milhaud with more mainstream concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, and Liszt.
In 1930-31 Meyer went on an extensive tour organized by Cortot’s agents Kiesgen-Delaet that took her to such cities as Salzburg, Vienna, Prague, Bucharest, Budapest, Constantinople, Cairo, Alexandria, and Beirut – in Budapest she played the Burleske under Strauss’s baton – and while she may not have had streams of return engagements, artistically she seems to have been a hit: George Enescu wrote her a postcard praising her ‘unforgettable’ performance of Beethoven’s C Minor Concerto. Her activities in Europe generally consisted of handfuls of concerts locally and a few regular engagements – she played in Amsterdam almost every year.
Having divorced Bertin in 1927, a few years after their daughter was born, in 1932 Meyer married the Italian lawyer Carlo di Vieto, with whom she would have a second daughter; they lived in Paris until settling in Rome in 1947. Italy provided another galaxy of composers whose works she would advocate – Casella, Rieti, Petrassi, Veretti, Dallapiccola – while she travelled to France to record for Les Discophiles Français.
As discussions were under way for a tour of North America with Dimitri Mitropoulos, with whom she had played in Athens back in 1930, Meyer went to Paris for what would be the last time. During that visit, on November 17, 1958, she suffered a heart attack while at the piano in her sister’s apartment and died in hospital that night, aged 61.
A rich legacy
Meyer’s artistic testament is a vast discography spanning more than 20 hours of studio recordings and three decades. She signed a contract with HMV on June 15, 1925 and first recorded at Hayes on 30 June: Debussy’s Sérénade interrompue and Général Levine, eccentric (Matrix Bb 6272-1 & -2) and Chabrier’s Idylle (Matrix Bb6273-1, -2 & -3). Both sides were unpublished. On December 1st she returned to set down Poulenc’s Mouvements perpétuels (Matrix Bb7430-1, 2a & -3); Stravinsky’s Ragtime (HMV D1063, W727); Albéniz’s Navarra (D1063, W727) and Sous le palmier (E434, P725); Falla’s Dance of the Miller from The Three-Cornered Hat (E434, P725); a remake of Chabrier’s Idylle (Matrix Bb7437-1 & -2); and Debussy’s Poissons d’or (Bb7438-1 & -2). Takes of the Poulenc and Debussy were released in 1992 (EMI CZS7 67405-2) and the Chabrier was finally released on EMI France’s 17-disc tribute to the pianist in 2007. Although her contract was renewed for a year in 1926, nothing eventuated. She made two discs for French Columbia in 1929: Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso (LF11) and Chabrier’s Bourrée Fantasque (LF24).
In 1938 Meyer went back to HMV for the famous recording of Milhaud’s newly composed Scaramouche (DB5086), with the composer at the other piano. Then followed her vivacious 1943 account of Strauss’s Burleske under André Cluytens’s baton (HMV W1565/6). Sadly a planned Ravel G Major Concerto was axed, as it was not thought commercial enough (how times have changed – the Ravel is far more popular today) – a most regrettable decision, as an unpublished live account from the 1930s shows that Meyer was in her element in this work.
In 1946 Meyer began to set down an array of older and newer music for Les Discophiles Français, for which she would be posthumously recognized with a Grand Prix du Disque in 1959. Founded in 1941 by Henri Screpel, an art book publisher, the Discophiles label set out to produce recordings by worthwhile artists lacking international renown: among their stable of pianists were Lili Kraus and Yves Nat. Marcelle Meyer focused on then rarely played repertoire such as Rameau, Scarlatti, Chabrier, and Stravinsky. Most of the sessions took place at Salle Adyar, on Avenue Rapp on the left bank. The piano used was a Hamburg Steinway chosen by Kraus, a surprising fact given its bell-like sonority and light action. Although Meyer tended to favour Pleyel pianos, she liked this Steinway and its rich tone and lightness of touch served her well, lending her performances great clarity and suppleness.
Under Screpel’s artistic direction, the Discophiles recordings were engineered by André Charlin, legendary for his wonderful tonal balance. Regrettably the surfaces of some of the 78rpm discs leave a great deal to be desired, and with Charlin’s focus on sound over other details, speeds can be erratic – many of the Bach discs were off pitch when released on CD in the 1990s because the masters were not recorded strictly at 78rpm. Recording dates are equally unreliable: sometimes what is documented is the day a transfer was made or a tape edited.
Given careful pitching, Meyer’s beautifully recorded Discophiles performances exhibit magnificent warmth and are musically beyond reproach. Presented in attractive textured gatefold cases, the records are sought after by collectors, many of whom will pay hundreds of dollars for original pressings. Some of the recordings were additionally released in the US on Haydn Society LPs: the Mozart concertos (HSL88), Stravinsky piano music (HSL113), and Ravel piano music (HSL111/2).
When Discophiles Français went bankrupt in 1958, Screpel disappeared, much to the chagrin of Meyer and her family, with whom he had developed a close friendship. The rights were purchased by Ducretet-Thomson and later passed to EMI. In the 1980s Rémi Jacobs, creator of the EMI Références series, brought Marcelle Meyer back into the catalogue after a decades-long absence with four two-LP sets of Rameau, Scarlatti, Chabrier and Ravel. In 1989 a Références CD of a previously unpublished recording of the complete Debussy Préludes was released (EMI CDH7 63348-2) as a bonus (if you bought three Références discs, you got the Meyer for free); the source for this recording a test record from her elder daughter’s collection for an LP that went unissued due to the dissolution of Les Discophiles Français.
In 1992, EMI France released the first of three sets dedicated to Meyer in their Introuvables series, a six-CD box of 19th- and 20th-century music (CZS6 76405 2). With the release of the four-disc Vol.2 (CZS5 68092-2) and five-disc Vol.3 (CZS5 68498-2), Meyer’s near-complete commercial recordings had been issued by the mid-1990s. The only items not included were Espla’s Sonata del Sur, which in 2003 was released on an EMI Spain CD (5 62585-2), and some 78rpm versions of music she later recorded on tape. The 27 Scarlatti Sonatas from 1947 were issued separately with Bach’s C minor Toccata, BWV911 (Pearl GEM0137).
Rémi Jacobs’s last task before retiring from EMI France in 2007 was to produce a 17-CD set devoted to the complete commercial records of Marcelle Meyer (384699-2). It includes new transfers of every studio version of each work Meyer recorded, as well as a newly discovered Pleyela piano roll of Haydn’s Sonata in E Minor, Hob. XVI:34. Also being published for the first time since their initial release are works by Debussy recorded in 1947 (DF92/95), the Bourrée fantasque from 1929 and the studio version of the Mozart Sonata K310 (Album 37) – the previous EMI set had a broadcast transcription instead of the commercial recording.
There are curious gaps in Meyer’s commercial discography. She did not record a note of Eric Satie, a peculiar omission given that she was his preferred pianist and she made only the one 78rpm side of Poulenc, odd given her close friendship with the composer. Romantic repertoire is largely absent – in the studio she set down works by Chabrier but no Chopin or Schumann, both of whose works she played frequently. A Dutch critic found her Études symphoniques to be ‘clear, healthy, purely musical, full of expression and character, without any … exaggerated romanticism’. It seems strange that Meyer should have opted to record two Mozart concertos but no other works for piano and orchestra during her tenure with Discophiles Français. Concerted works by Ravel, Franck or Saint-Saëns would have suited both her playing and the label’s focus on French repertoire.
The performances
The pianism of Marcelle Meyer is particularly striking in its simplicity. Her playing is graceful and supple, with melodic lines always clear and flexible. Her timing is impeccable, with each phrase meticulously measured for cadence and tone production: melodies rise and fall with fluidity and every note blends seamlessly into the next. Whether in Baroque keyboard music of Rameau and Couperin or in works by her contemporaries Debussy and Ravel, Meyer’s carefully controlled craftsmanship exhibits precise pedalling, a line that never loses focus, and a beautiful ringing piano sound.
Among her triumphs are the recordings of early keyboard music, in which she breathes new life into music that had gone largely unnoticed by pianists of her generation. To Bach, Scarlatti, Rameau, and Couperin she brings warmth and transparency with her clear tone, delicate phrasing, and deft fingerwork. Particularly remarkable is her ornamentation: her trills are not mere technical devices but a subtle shift of the melodic progression that produces a warbling effect without distorting the inflection or lilt of the line.
At a time when pianists might have played an occasional Scarlatti sonata or a Godowsky transcription of Rameau, Meyer set about recording extensive tributes to these composers. After making a few Rameau discs in 1946 (DF64/7), she taped his complete works in 1953, the first cycle on record (DF98/9). Her crystalline sound and clear phrasing assist her in capturing both the melancholic and exuberant moods prevalent in Rameau’s oeuvre. Particularly noteworthy is how she fluidly incorporates ornamentation into the melodic line, whereby trills are not merely decorative devices but an integral aspect of the melodic line.
The slower pieces feature beautifully terraced harmonies and the livelier ones are played with dynamism, as are nine Couperin works (72/9). Meyer recorded two batches of Scarlatti Sonatas, 27 of them in 1946 and 1948 (D68/71, 130/3) and 32 in 1954 (139/40). She launches into the sonatas with both verve and sensitivity, her flawless technique allowing her to bypass technical challenges and her sensitive ear enabling her to reveal depth inherent in pieces at the time often dismissed as superficial.
Among Meyer’s other ‘firsts’ were several Bach titles: the English Suite no.4 (Album 38), Partita no.3 (82/3), and Toccatas in D minor BWV913 (60/1) andF sharp minor BWV910 (Album 38) were the first piano performances of these works on record. In general Meyer approaches Bach’s works with a more robust attack and greater rhythmic vitality than with Rameau and Scarlatti, although in the Inventions and Sinfonias she phrases with a smooth sensuality that still clarifies the contrapuntal structure of these seldom-recorded works.
Meyer’s transparent textures and declamatory delivery serve Mozart’s idiom well. Although the Concertos K466 and K488 (37) are somewhat marred by the scraping strings of Maurice Hewitt’s orchestra, her playing is magnificent here and in several solo works. A few broadcasts of solo works (Tahra TAH579/80) have added to her official Mozart discography, but a forthright broadcast of the ‘Emperor’ Concerto is all that has been released of her Beethoven. Judging by the Haydn sonata roll, she had affection for his music. In five pieces from Rossini’s Péchés de ma vieillesse (EX25008), Meyer expresses the operatic nature of the writing with a strong lyrical line and sense of drama. She recorded a number of Schubert dances in 1948–49: Valses nobles, Ländler, Valses sentimentales and Danses allemandes (134/8), all despatched with vigour and enthusiasm.
Meyer’s Chabrier cycle (151/2) is one of the glories of recorded pianism, showing her to have been a romanticist of the highest order. She traverses his Pieces pittoresques with remarkable sensitivity, impeccable timing, and luscious piano tone, expressing the unique flavour of each work to perfection, without an ounce of self-indulgence or exaggeration. Idylle, which Meyer’s daughter calls ‘the soundtrack of (her) childhood’, has a seamlessly fluid melodic line over a baseline that is at times magnificently elastic, at others deliciously hazy yet never unclear. In Habañera, Meyer builds to a magnificent climax without sacrificing the sensual mood, and in Feuillet d’album, cascading figurations caress a hauntingly beautiful melody that is expressed with tenderness and fluidity.
Meyer apparently wished to record both piano parts of the Valses romantiques, hoping that they could be edited into a single performance. As the technology of the time made such double-tracking difficult, she invited her dear friend Francis Poulenc to the second piano, and the recording is a powerful testament to their musical sympathy.
Unlike a great many pianists, Meyer makes a palpable distinction between Debussy’s and Ravel’s idioms, impressionistic but not blurred in the former, attentive to structure and clarity in the latter. The Debussy Préludes are priceless documents, with amazingly subtle pedaling fused with full-bodied tone and remarkable feats of virtuosity; the 1947 ‘La terrace des audiences du claire de lune’ is utterly mesmerizing for its evocative colours, sumptuous phrasing, and magnificent timing. She also delivers superlative readings of L’isle joyeuse, Images, and Masques.
That Meyer’s Ravel cycle (100/1) won the 1955 Grand Prix du Disque is hardly surprising: her crystalline tone and precision are ideally suited to Ravel’s jewel-like oeuvre, and her relationships with the composer and his colleague Ricardo Viñes bring credibility to her approach. She pedals with moderation and applies the gentlest of rubatos, and her tempos are fairly brisk: her Pavane pour une infante défunte is, as Ravel suggested, not a dead pavane for a princess. Jeux d’eau sparkles like diamonds in sunlight (how marvellous her Jeux d’eau a la Villa d’Este of Liszt must have been – she played it in recital) and Le tombeau de Couperin highlights the biting harmonies with clear textures and rhythmic certainty. Her Gaspard de la nuit features a hypnotic Ondine, a haunting Le gibet, and a breathtaking Scarbo.
A prime exponent of the newest music of her generation, Meyer performs her contemporaries’ works with exuberance. The shorter works of Poulenc, Albéniz, and Falla recorded in 1925 are played with aplomb, the 1938 Scaramouche finds Meyer and Milhaud throwing caution to the wind, and 1943’s Strauss Burleske bubbles with excitement blended with lyrical poise. In the works of Stravinsky, Meyer’s clear textures allow for a transparent presentation of the complex harmonies and structures. Producer Antoine Duhamel reported that the only time he witnessed Meyer technically taxed was while recording the incredibly demanding Trois mouvements de Petrouchka (48, 163), yet the 55-year-old Meyer’s performance is stupendous, played with a more relaxed articulation than usual so as to highlight the jazzier side of the music than one usually hears. Her 1956 recording (Hispavox HH1001) of Espla’s Sonata del Sur, conducted by the composer, features stunning technical feats and a blend of lushly Romantic melodic expression and modern tonal construction.
One of the true highlights of the art of Marcelle Meyer is a broadcast of Nights in the Gardens of Spain (TAH564), recorded only six months before her death. The playing smoulders with a flexible rhythmic approach and richly textured figurations that bring to mind the sensual moves of Spanish dancers and the vibrato of a Flamenco guitar. How unfortunate that the Burleske she performed at the same concert has not been released.
It is remarkable to consider that a pianist present at the birth of the music of Satie, Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky should have left us over 20 hours of superlative recordings. Given the admiration of present-day pianists like Alexandre Tharaud, the fact that the Newport Music Festival has held two concerts in her memory, and the comprehensive re-release of her studio recordings, Marcelle Meyer may continue to influence future generations of music-lovers.
This is an edited version of an article previously published in the now defunct magazine Classical Recordings Quarterly.
A famous 1921 portrait by Jacques-Émile Blanche entitled ‘Le groupe des Six’ depicts five of the six composers known as Les Six with their ‘godfather’ Jean Cocteau (Louis Durey is missing, having seceded from the group, but the pianist-composer Jean Wiener is in the background). The focal point of the picture is an elegant young woman, the pianist Marcelle Meyer. Although not officially a member of the group, Meyer was muse to this groundbreaking group of composers and important figure in the Parisian musical scene in the early decades of the 20th century, although far less known than other pianists of her generation despite her phenomenal pianism and close relationship with important composers, musicians, and artists.
Marcelle Meyer was born on May 22, 1897 in Lille, France. Her elder sister Germaine, also a gifted pianist, gave the child her first lessons. When it became clear that Marcelle was worthy of a more formal musical education, her father allowed her to go to Paris in 1911 to study at the Conservatoire with Marguerite Long. It was not long before Meyer moved to the class of Alfred Cortot, whom she revered. His interpretative freedom, deep tone production and imaginative outlook clearly resonated with her, and years later she still called him ‘mon Maître’.
Meyer’s lessons with the Catalan pianist Ricardo Viñes had a major impact on her artistry. A contemporary and preferred interpreter of Debussy, Ravel, Albéniz and Falla, Viñes dedicated his life to promoting new music at the expense of his popularity (he died penniless). His clear, direct style and steadfast dedication to his musical peers strongly influenced Meyer’s devotion and unusually frank approach to modern music. She also studied with José Iturbi, who gave her further insights into the Spanish school.
A new era
Marriage in 1917 to the actor and producer Pierre Bertin whisked Marcelle into the burgeoning realm of the new artistic movement in Paris. Bertin introduced his attractive wife to the composer Eric Satie, who affectionately called her ‘Dadame.’ And on meeting Diaghilev, Meyer was immediately commissioned to perform in his upcoming production of Satie’s Parade. The premiere was a scandal yet Meyer revelled in the bold artistry of the production and took no notice of the near riot that ensued. Claude Debussy was at the performance, giving credence to the rumours that Meyer prepared his Préludes with him before his death nearly a year later.
Meyer premiered several works of Les Six, including the Mouvements perpétuels by Poulenc, Chandelles romaines by Durey, and Printemps, Alfama, and Scaramouche by Milhaud. She introduced the two-piano version of Ravel’s La valse with the composer at the other keyboard, and while the private performance of April 16, 1920 did little for Ravel’s prospects of producing the ballet, Meyer appears to have won over Stravinsky: he asked her to perform Petrushka with Monteux in 1921 and was delighted with the results, and she was chosen as one of the four pianists to premiere Les noces.
Her career
Meyer crossed the Atlantic only once, travelling to South America in July-August 1927 to accompany the soprano Jane Bathori in Buenos Aires, and in general her activities appear to have been more muted than her talent warranted. It has been suggested that her insistence on performing obscure music of the 18th and 20th centuries limited her appeal to a wider audience. Nevertheless, she did perform more popular works of Mozart, Liszt, Chopin, and Schumann. She also balanced programmes featuring works for piano and orchestra by contemporary composers Stravinsky, Ravel, Honegger, Strauss, and Milhaud with more mainstream concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, and Liszt.
In 1930-31 Meyer went on an extensive tour organized by Cortot’s agents Kiesgen-Delaet that took her to such cities as Salzburg, Vienna, Prague, Bucharest, Budapest, Constantinople, Cairo, Alexandria, and Beirut – in Budapest she played the Burleske under Strauss’s baton – and while she may not have had streams of return engagements, artistically she seems to have been a hit: George Enescu wrote her a postcard praising her ‘unforgettable’ performance of Beethoven’s C Minor Concerto. Her activities in Europe generally consisted of handfuls of concerts locally and a few regular engagements – she played in Amsterdam almost every year.
Having divorced Bertin in 1927, a few years after their daughter was born, in 1932 Meyer married the Italian lawyer Carlo di Vieto, with whom she would have a second daughter; they lived in Paris until settling in Rome in 1947. Italy provided another galaxy of composers whose works she would advocate – Casella, Rieti, Petrassi, Veretti, Dallapiccola – while she travelled to France to record for Les Discophiles Français.
As discussions were under way for a tour of North America with Dimitri Mitropoulos, with whom she had played in Athens back in 1930, Meyer went to Paris for what would be the last time. During that visit, on November 17, 1958, she suffered a heart attack while at the piano in her sister’s apartment and died in hospital that night, aged 61.
A rich legacy
Meyer’s artistic testament is a vast discography spanning more than 20 hours of studio recordings and three decades. She signed a contract with HMV on June 15, 1925 and first recorded at Hayes on 30 June: Debussy’s Sérénade interrompue and Général Levine, eccentric (Matrix Bb 6272-1 & -2) and Chabrier’s Idylle (Matrix Bb6273-1, -2 & -3). Both sides were unpublished. On December 1st she returned to set down Poulenc’s Mouvements perpétuels (Matrix Bb7430-1, 2a & -3); Stravinsky’s Ragtime (HMV D1063, W727); Albéniz’s Navarra (D1063, W727) and Sous le palmier (E434, P725); Falla’s Dance of the Miller from The Three-Cornered Hat (E434, P725); a remake of Chabrier’s Idylle (Matrix Bb7437-1 & -2); and Debussy’s Poissons d’or (Bb7438-1 & -2). Takes of the Poulenc and Debussy were released in 1992 (EMI CZS7 67405-2) and the Chabrier was finally released on EMI France’s 17-disc tribute to the pianist in 2007. Although her contract was renewed for a year in 1926, nothing eventuated. She made two discs for French Columbia in 1929: Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso (LF11) and Chabrier’s Bourrée Fantasque (LF24).
In 1938 Meyer went back to HMV for the famous recording of Milhaud’s newly composed Scaramouche (DB5086), with the composer at the other piano. Then followed her vivacious 1943 account of Strauss’s Burleske under André Cluytens’s baton (HMV W1565/6). Sadly a planned Ravel G Major Concerto was axed, as it was not thought commercial enough (how times have changed – the Ravel is far more popular today) – a most regrettable decision, as an unpublished live account from the 1930s shows that Meyer was in her element in this work.
In 1946 Meyer began to set down an array of older and newer music for Les Discophiles Français, for which she would be posthumously recognized with a Grand Prix du Disque in 1959. Founded in 1941 by Henri Screpel, an art book publisher, the Discophiles label set out to produce recordings by worthwhile artists lacking international renown: among their stable of pianists were Lili Kraus and Yves Nat. Marcelle Meyer focused on then rarely played repertoire such as Rameau, Scarlatti, Chabrier, and Stravinsky. Most of the sessions took place at Salle Adyar, on Avenue Rapp on the left bank. The piano used was a Hamburg Steinway chosen by Kraus, a surprising fact given its bell-like sonority and light action. Although Meyer tended to favour Pleyel pianos, she liked this Steinway and its rich tone and lightness of touch served her well, lending her performances great clarity and suppleness.
Under Screpel’s artistic direction, the Discophiles recordings were engineered by André Charlin, legendary for his wonderful tonal balance. Regrettably the surfaces of some of the 78rpm discs leave a great deal to be desired, and with Charlin’s focus on sound over other details, speeds can be erratic – many of the Bach discs were off pitch when released on CD in the 1990s because the masters were not recorded strictly at 78rpm. Recording dates are equally unreliable: sometimes what is documented is the day a transfer was made or a tape edited.
Given careful pitching, Meyer’s beautifully recorded Discophiles performances exhibit magnificent warmth and are musically beyond reproach. Presented in attractive textured gatefold cases, the records are sought after by collectors, many of whom will pay hundreds of dollars for original pressings. Some of the recordings were additionally released in the US on Haydn Society LPs: the Mozart concertos (HSL88), Stravinsky piano music (HSL113), and Ravel piano music (HSL111/2).
When Discophiles Français went bankrupt in 1958, Screpel disappeared, much to the chagrin of Meyer and her family, with whom he had developed a close friendship. The rights were purchased by Ducretet-Thomson and later passed to EMI. In the 1980s Rémi Jacobs, creator of the EMI Références series, brought Marcelle Meyer back into the catalogue after a decades-long absence with four two-LP sets of Rameau, Scarlatti, Chabrier and Ravel. In 1989 a Références CD of a previously unpublished recording of the complete Debussy Préludes was released (EMI CDH7 63348-2) as a bonus (if you bought three Références discs, you got the Meyer for free); the source for this recording a test record from her elder daughter’s collection for an LP that went unissued due to the dissolution of Les Discophiles Français.
In 1992, EMI France released the first of three sets dedicated to Meyer in their Introuvables series, a six-CD box of 19th- and 20th-century music (CZS6 76405 2). With the release of the four-disc Vol.2 (CZS5 68092-2) and five-disc Vol.3 (CZS5 68498-2), Meyer’s near-complete commercial recordings had been issued by the mid-1990s. The only items not included were Espla’s Sonata del Sur, which in 2003 was released on an EMI Spain CD (5 62585-2), and some 78rpm versions of music she later recorded on tape. The 27 Scarlatti Sonatas from 1947 were issued separately with Bach’s C minor Toccata, BWV911 (Pearl GEM0137).
Rémi Jacobs’s last task before retiring from EMI France in 2007 was to produce a 17-CD set devoted to the complete commercial records of Marcelle Meyer (384699-2). It includes new transfers of every studio version of each work Meyer recorded, as well as a newly discovered Pleyela piano roll of Haydn’s Sonata in E Minor, Hob. XVI:34. Also being published for the first time since their initial release are works by Debussy recorded in 1947 (DF92/95), the Bourrée fantasque from 1929 and the studio version of the Mozart Sonata K310 (Album 37) – the previous EMI set had a broadcast transcription instead of the commercial recording.
There are curious gaps in Meyer’s commercial discography. She did not record a note of Eric Satie, a peculiar omission given that she was his preferred pianist and she made only the one 78rpm side of Poulenc, odd given her close friendship with the composer. Romantic repertoire is largely absent – in the studio she set down works by Chabrier but no Chopin or Schumann, both of whose works she played frequently. A Dutch critic found her Études symphoniques to be ‘clear, healthy, purely musical, full of expression and character, without any … exaggerated romanticism’. It seems strange that Meyer should have opted to record two Mozart concertos but no other works for piano and orchestra during her tenure with Discophiles Français. Concerted works by Ravel, Franck or Saint-Saëns would have suited both her playing and the label’s focus on French repertoire.
The performances
The pianism of Marcelle Meyer is particularly striking in its simplicity. Her playing is graceful and supple, with melodic lines always clear and flexible. Her timing is impeccable, with each phrase meticulously measured for cadence and tone production: melodies rise and fall with fluidity and every note blends seamlessly into the next. Whether in Baroque keyboard music of Rameau and Couperin or in works by her contemporaries Debussy and Ravel, Meyer’s carefully controlled craftsmanship exhibits precise pedalling, a line that never loses focus, and a beautiful ringing piano sound.
Among her triumphs are the recordings of early keyboard music, in which she breathes new life into music that had gone largely unnoticed by pianists of her generation. To Bach, Scarlatti, Rameau, and Couperin she brings warmth and transparency with her clear tone, delicate phrasing, and deft fingerwork. Particularly remarkable is her ornamentation: her trills are not mere technical devices but a subtle shift of the melodic progression that produces a warbling effect without distorting the inflection or lilt of the line.
At a time when pianists might have played an occasional Scarlatti sonata or a Godowsky transcription of Rameau, Meyer set about recording extensive tributes to these composers. After making a few Rameau discs in 1946 (DF64/7), she taped his complete works in 1953, the first cycle on record (DF98/9). Her crystalline sound and clear phrasing assist her in capturing both the melancholic and exuberant moods prevalent in Rameau’s oeuvre. Particularly noteworthy is how she fluidly incorporates ornamentation into the melodic line, whereby trills are not merely decorative devices but an integral aspect of the melodic line.
The slower pieces feature beautifully terraced harmonies and the livelier ones are played with dynamism, as are nine Couperin works (72/9). Meyer recorded two batches of Scarlatti Sonatas, 27 of them in 1946 and 1948 (D68/71, 130/3) and 32 in 1954 (139/40). She launches into the sonatas with both verve and sensitivity, her flawless technique allowing her to bypass technical challenges and her sensitive ear enabling her to reveal depth inherent in pieces at the time often dismissed as superficial.
Among Meyer’s other ‘firsts’ were several Bach titles: the English Suite no.4 (Album 38), Partita no.3 (82/3), and Toccatas in D minor BWV913 (60/1) andF sharp minor BWV910 (Album 38) were the first piano performances of these works on record. In general Meyer approaches Bach’s works with a more robust attack and greater rhythmic vitality than with Rameau and Scarlatti, although in the Inventions and Sinfonias she phrases with a smooth sensuality that still clarifies the contrapuntal structure of these seldom-recorded works.
Meyer’s transparent textures and declamatory delivery serve Mozart’s idiom well. Although the Concertos K466 and K488 (37) are somewhat marred by the scraping strings of Maurice Hewitt’s orchestra, her playing is magnificent here and in several solo works. A few broadcasts of solo works (Tahra TAH579/80) have added to her official Mozart discography, but a forthright broadcast of the ‘Emperor’ Concerto is all that has been released of her Beethoven. Judging by the Haydn sonata roll, she had affection for his music. In five pieces from Rossini’s Péchés de ma vieillesse (EX25008), Meyer expresses the operatic nature of the writing with a strong lyrical line and sense of drama. She recorded a number of Schubert dances in 1948–49: Valses nobles, Ländler, Valses sentimentales and Danses allemandes (134/8), all despatched with vigour and enthusiasm.
Meyer’s Chabrier cycle (151/2) is one of the glories of recorded pianism, showing her to have been a romanticist of the highest order. She traverses his Pieces pittoresques with remarkable sensitivity, impeccable timing, and luscious piano tone, expressing the unique flavour of each work to perfection, without an ounce of self-indulgence or exaggeration. Idylle, which Meyer’s daughter calls ‘the soundtrack of (her) childhood’, has a seamlessly fluid melodic line over a baseline that is at times magnificently elastic, at others deliciously hazy yet never unclear. In Habañera, Meyer builds to a magnificent climax without sacrificing the sensual mood, and in Feuillet d’album, cascading figurations caress a hauntingly beautiful melody that is expressed with tenderness and fluidity.
Meyer apparently wished to record both piano parts of the Valses romantiques, hoping that they could be edited into a single performance. As the technology of the time made such double-tracking difficult, she invited her dear friend Francis Poulenc to the second piano, and the recording is a powerful testament to their musical sympathy.
Unlike a great many pianists, Meyer makes a palpable distinction between Debussy’s and Ravel’s idioms, impressionistic but not blurred in the former, attentive to structure and clarity in the latter. The Debussy Préludes are priceless documents, with amazingly subtle pedaling fused with full-bodied tone and remarkable feats of virtuosity; the 1947 ‘La terrace des audiences du claire de lune’ is utterly mesmerizing for its evocative colours, sumptuous phrasing, and magnificent timing. She also delivers superlative readings of L’isle joyeuse, Images, and Masques.
That Meyer’s Ravel cycle (100/1) won the 1955 Grand Prix du Disque is hardly surprising: her crystalline tone and precision are ideally suited to Ravel’s jewel-like oeuvre, and her relationships with the composer and his colleague Ricardo Viñes bring credibility to her approach. She pedals with moderation and applies the gentlest of rubatos, and her tempos are fairly brisk: her Pavane pour une infante défunte is, as Ravel suggested, not a dead pavane for a princess. Jeux d’eau sparkles like diamonds in sunlight (how marvellous her Jeux d’eau a la Villa d’Este of Liszt must have been – she played it in recital) and Le tombeau de Couperin highlights the biting harmonies with clear textures and rhythmic certainty. Her Gaspard de la nuit features a hypnotic Ondine, a haunting Le gibet, and a breathtaking Scarbo.
A prime exponent of the newest music of her generation, Meyer performs her contemporaries’ works with exuberance. The shorter works of Poulenc, Albéniz, and Falla recorded in 1925 are played with aplomb, the 1938 Scaramouche finds Meyer and Milhaud throwing caution to the wind, and 1943’s Strauss Burleske bubbles with excitement blended with lyrical poise. In the works of Stravinsky, Meyer’s clear textures allow for a transparent presentation of the complex harmonies and structures. Producer Antoine Duhamel reported that the only time he witnessed Meyer technically taxed was while recording the incredibly demanding Trois mouvements de Petrouchka (48, 163), yet the 55-year-old Meyer’s performance is stupendous, played with a more relaxed articulation than usual so as to highlight the jazzier side of the music than one usually hears. Her 1956 recording (Hispavox HH1001) of Espla’s Sonata del Sur, conducted by the composer, features stunning technical feats and a blend of lushly Romantic melodic expression and modern tonal construction.
One of the true highlights of the art of Marcelle Meyer is a broadcast of Nights in the Gardens of Spain (TAH564), recorded only six months before her death. The playing smoulders with a flexible rhythmic approach and richly textured figurations that bring to mind the sensual moves of Spanish dancers and the vibrato of a Flamenco guitar. How unfortunate that the Burleske she performed at the same concert has not been released.
It is remarkable to consider that a pianist present at the birth of the music of Satie, Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky should have left us over 20 hours of superlative recordings. Given the admiration of present-day pianists like Alexandre Tharaud, the fact that the Newport Music Festival has held two concerts in her memory, and the comprehensive re-release of her studio recordings, Marcelle Meyer may continue to influence future generations of music-lovers.
The release of the complete commercial recordings of Polish pianist Maryla Jonas is true cause for celebration amongst pianophiles. I had long called for an official documented issue of her performances; in fact, a few years ago when I first met the current owner of the wonderful APR label, Mike Spring, in London (I had a long association with the founder, Bryan Crimp), he asked me what I thought the label should plan for future releases, and I immediately said, “THE COMPLETE MARYLA JONAS”.
Well, Sony Classical have not only issued her complete recordings, they have done such an exceptional job in producing the set that they have raised the bar for such releases. Whereas back in the day RCA and EMI used to produce wonderful tribute sets devoted to great artists, those are a pale shadow compared to this magnificent production: a beautifully designed booklet, CDs in paper sleeves that are facsimiles of some of the original LP pressings, and a lavish booklet filled with photos of the pianist, concert programs, LP covers, and documentation regarding Jonas’s studio activities, together with a truly elegant and informative essay by my colleague Jed Distler.
The recordings have been remastered from the source material for the first time. It tends to be the case that larger labels tend to aim for more of an LP-like sound signature with recordings made on 78rpm records – one will rarely hear the kind of booming presence on mainstream reissues of such historical discs – and while that is the case here, the frequency range is to my ears full and warm, even if some of the dimensionality is less than one might get on the 78s. One can hear the fine details of Jonas’s playing – the masterfully crafted phrasing, deft articulation, subtle pedalling, and magnificent tonal colours – and fully appreciate the exquisite beauty of both her playing and the works she plays.
As for the performances themselves, there is little that I can say that hasn’t been said about this magnificent artist. Her Chopin Mazurkas in particular have been praised to the skies and yet such accolades still pale in comparison to the actual playing. Jonas herself said that it was the suffering in her life that brought her playing to life (she lost most of her family during the war and consequently had several breakdowns) and indeed the remarkable emotional depth of her playing in works that lesser pianists might despatch in a trite manner is utterly staggering: sumptuous phrasing, impeccable timing, gorgeous tonal colours, and marvellous voicing reveal the full range of character in these works, from the quaint and charming to the uplifting and joyful to the more anguished, sombre, heartfelt, and mournful. One can learn more about piano playing and interpretation in a single mazurka reading by Jonas than one can in many readings of longer, more ‘profound’ works by some other more famous pianists.
There were during Jonas’s lifetime comments about the limited range of her repertoire but her craftsmanship and musicality are so profound that I am content to hear whatever it is that she recorded. The fourth disc of the set featuring works by varied composers is utterly magnificent, featuring – among others – a charming Rondo alla Turca, a solemn Schubert-Liszt Ständchen, two probing Mendelssohn Songs without Words, and a varied and emotive Kinderszenen. One of my favourites is a two-minute marvel, a work by a scarcely documented composer Nicholas (no first name) entitled Musical Box: Jonas’s incredible tonal palette, refined pedalling, and brilliantly conceived timing truly create the effect of a wind-up musical box, the effect she achieves at the end of the work being utterly breathtaking.
If what I have communicated thus far isn’t grounds enough to warrant purchasing this set immediately, I don’t know what else to say other than to leave you with the playing of Jonas herself in a transfer of one of her highly-prized LPs, a 1955 Columbia Entré disc featuring some of her Mazurka recordings from the 78rpm period (it still sells for hundreds of dollars). Bravo to Sony for having had not only the vision to issue Jonas’s recordings but for having paid tribute to this supreme artist with the thoroughness and elegance that her artistry warrants.
After a few years in Vienna it was decided that Ilona should study with a great pianist, but Liszt being too old and Anton Rubinstein, who wished to teach her, traveled too much to teach with the consistency she required, Clara Schumann was chosen as her mentor. Frau Schumann could clearly see the young Ilona’s talent but did not immediately agree to teach her: she noted that as she had already had great success, she was concerned that the young girl would not “be willing to submit to my teaching, as I should want you to alter in some important respects.” Ilona reportedly promised to do exactly as she was told if she were accepted.
The year after these admonitions, Eibenschütz was deemed by Frau Schumann ready to make her mature debut recital in Vienna at the age of 19, at which the central works were Beethoven’s Sonata Op.111 and Schumann’s Etudes Symphoniques. Her playing in a wide range of repertoire would be celebrated over the course of the next decade: her Beethoven Fourth Concerto with Richter shortly before her marriage – one of her final performances in Vienna – was so well received that the audience insisted that the slow movement be repeated, and when Frederic Lamond met her after a 30-year break, he apparently rushed towards her arms open saying ‘The F Minor! The F Minor!’ in remembrance of her glowing reading of Chopin’s Second Concerto decades earlier.
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