John Vallier
John Vallier (born October 1, 1920 in London , † June 11, 1991 ) was an English pianist , composer , music teacher and musicologist.
Life
John Vallier, son of the pianist Adela Verne and the bassist Jean Vallier , had his first piano lessons with his aunt Mathilde Verne . As a musical child prodigy, he performed at Wigmore Hall at the age of four and also gave concerts in southern France. Both the Liszt student Moritz Rosenthal and Alfred Cortot were impressed by his playing and predicted a great future as a pianist for him. From 1936 to 1939 he studied in Vienna with Walter Kerschbaumer , a student of Ferruccio Busoni . A planned concert tour to the USA was prevented by the outbreak of the Second World War . He then became a soldier and demobilized to the rank of captain following a gunshot wound.
In the 1940s and 1950s, Vallier made frequent appearances in schools and churches in Britain for the Workers' Educational Association . With his mother he played the first television performance of Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos, and he was also the soloist in the English premiere of Ernst von Dohnányi 's Second Piano Concerto. He later turned to teaching and became a teacher at the London College of Music .
Vallier was considered an expert on Chopin . He wrote articles on his compositions, which appeared in the Oxford University Press Chopin Edition and premiered several of the composer's newly discovered works. It was only in the 1970s that he returned to the concert stage - with great success. His South Bank Concert with Ignacy Paderewski's piano sonata in E minor had to start twenty minutes late due to the queues at the entrance.
He then went on concert tours through South America and gave a Chopin concert in 1983 at New York's Carnegie Hall . In 1984 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. After operations, he returned to the concert stage in 1986 with a performance in the Royal Festival Hall . As a composer, Vallier mainly emerged with small piano pieces. His only great work, a piano concerto in A minor, he completed two days before his death.
source
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vallier, John |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English pianist, composer, music teacher and musicologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 1, 1920 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 11, 1991 |