François-René Duchâble

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François-René Duchâble

François-René Duchâble (born April 22, 1952 in Paris ) is a French pianist .

Life

François-René Duchâble began playing the piano at the age of four and was initially taught by his father. The violinist Joseph Calvet took on this task until the beginning of his studies . In 1964, at the age of only thirteen, Duchâble went to the Paris Conservatory and studied with Joseph Benvenuti and Madeleine Giraudeau basset. After only six months he won first prize there in the piano category. In 1968 he became a finalist in the Reine Elisabeth Competition in Brussels , and in 1969 he won a silver medal in the Long Thibaud Competition in Paris. With the first prize he finished his studies in harmony in 1970 and in counterpoint in 1971 .

After his military service he began to give concerts more intensively and also studied conducting for a year with Robert Blot. In 1973 he received a scholarship that helped him to pursue an international career. It was Arthur Rubinstein noticed him and encouraged him later. In 1980 he played the third piano concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of Herbert von Karajan Bartók .

He played at many music festivals , made music with other major orchestras and as a chamber music partner of Gérad Caussé and Paul Meyer. His recording of concert paraphrases and transcriptions by Franz Liszt was awarded the national Victoires de la Musique Classique in 1995; In 1996 and 1997 he was voted Instrumental Soloist of the Year.

The provisional end of his career as an internationally recognized star pianist turned out to be as unusual as it was sensational, and in some details it was reminiscent of Glenn Gould . First he announced in 1998 that he wanted to leave the concert business at the age of 50 in order to break new ground and present music differently than before.

On July 25, 2003, he staged this farewell in a spectacular way: with the help of a helicopter, he lowered a wing into the Colmiane mountain lake in the Mercantour National Park and declared that from now on only for outsiders, at the Tour de France and on the Mont Wanting to play Blanc . This symbolic action in the French Alps attracted international attention; Der Spiegel, for example, commented on them in a long article, and ARTE dedicated a portrait to the “committed” pianist. In it he was critical of values ​​such as success, fame and money, which are preferred in society. More important are the quality of private life, relationships, honesty and truth. With his music he wanted to undermine the social hierarchy and could not approve of a system in which 98 percent of the population were excluded from classical music. It may be more important than his international career to play in a social housing estate or in a hospital. Music shouldn't degenerate into a commodity.

Since then, Duchâble has only appeared rarely and far away from the "classical music business" he rejected, to play as an "ambassador of music" for children and in charitable institutions.

repertoire

While at the beginning of his career Duchâble concentrated on the triumvirate of romantic piano music Chopin , Liszt, Robert Schumann and Brahms and made a number of recordings, he later added standard works by Joseph Haydn , Beethoven to Rachmaninov , Prokofiev , Poulenc and Gershwin to his repertoire . Some more remote works by Dukas and d'Indy , chamber music by Max Bruch , Hummel and Reinecke were recorded as well as Bach's own arrangements.

In terms of sound, he is close to his patron Rubinstein. Saint-Saëns sounds elegant and pearly, Schumann plays stormily and enthusiastically, knows how to trace the emotionally fragile dramas with well thought-out rubato and rhythmic sophistication. His Chopin is unsentimental and stylish. The great etudes op. 10 and 25 are mastered with confidence and the details are brilliantly worked out, even if occasionally a bit too dry and undramatic, musically reserved. He plays the polonaises with esprit and agile lightness, which sometimes slips into sporty sloop.

Technically confident, he masters the challenges of the Études d'exécution transcendante , which are counted among his best achievements. Beethoven's concerts and piano sonatas are sometimes more successful than his mentor.

Klaus Bennert emphasizes that for a long time Duchâble was not considered an outstanding virtuoso; the phase of voluntarily renouncing overseas tours (even before his retreat) finally made him an interpreter who can be admired in Beethoven's Waldstein sonata as well as in the great works of Chopin and Liszt.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical information from: Ingo Harden, Gregor Willmes PianistenProfile 600 performers: their biography, their style, their recordings, François-René Duchâble, p. 170, Bärenreiter, Kassel 2008
  2. ↑ Harenberg piano music guide 600 works by 180 composers, François-René Duchâble p. 914, Mannheim 2004
  3. ^ Klaus Umbach: Adieu, disdainful keyboard world . In: Der Spiegel . No. 49 , 2003 ( online ).
  4. ↑ François-René Duchâble - committed pianist  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.arte.tv  
  5. ↑ "C comme Chopin", Improvisation so piano , Jean-Pierre Thiollet , Neva Editions, 2017, s. 29. ISBN 978-2-35055-228-6
  6. ^ Ingo Harden, Gregor Willmes PianistenProfile ibid.
  7. ^ Ingo Harden, Gregor Willmes PianistenProfile ibid.
  8. ^ Ingo Harden, Gregor Willmes PianistenProfile ibid.
  9. ↑ Klaus Bennert in: Joachim Kaiser Great Pianists in Our Time , Ezentrische Bahnen, p. 343. Piper, Munich 2004
personal data
SURNAME Duchâble, François-René
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French pianist
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris