Maria Curcio

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Maria Curcio (born August 27, 1918 in Naples , † March 30, 2009 near Porto ), a student of the pianist Artur Schnabel , worked as a piano teacher in London and around the world .

Live and act

Maria Curcio was the daughter of an Italian father and a Brazilian mother. At the age of three she received her first piano lessons from her mother, and when she was five she was already giving concerts for neighbors and friends of the family. Other teachers in Italy were Alfredo Casella and Carlo Zecchi ; However, Curcio saw herself primarily as a student of the pianist Artur Schnabel . Schnabel rarely taught children or young people; However, on the mediation of his son Karl-Ulrich, the fifteen-year-old was allowed to introduce herself and initially received lessons in Schnabel's house on Lake Como , and later in European cities where their paths crossed.

The pianist Artur Schnabel, Curcio's most important piano teacher
The Royal Academy of Music (London), where Curcio was visiting professor

In February 1939, at the age of twenty, she performed at London's Aeolian Hall. The program included works by Beethoven , Mozart , Schubert and Stravinsky (whom Curcio had met as a student of Nadia Boulanger in Paris ); the London Times praised the "Latin clarity" of their game.

The beginning of the Second World War meant the temporary end of all professional hopes. Curcio followed Peter Diamand , Schnabel's Jewish - Austrian secretary, to Amsterdam , where the two of them hid from the National Socialists , temporarily in attic rooms. Diamand was caught and temporarily held in a concentration camp on Dutch territory. At the end of the war, Maria Curcio was very weak and partially paralyzed due to malnutrition and tuberculosis , and it was several years before she could walk and play the piano again.

As a concert pianist she performed with conductors such as Otto Klemperer and Carlo Maria Giulini and accompanied the violinist Szimon Goldberg , the cellist Raphael Lanes and the singer Elisabeth Schwarzkopf . In 1963, however, she gave her last concert and began to concentrate entirely on teaching.

In 1948 Curcio and Diamand had married. At about the same time Diamand had become director of the Holland Festival ; In 1965 he took over the management of the Edinburgh Festival . The marriage ended in divorce in 1972, but the good relationship remained intact.

From 1965 Curcio lived in London and gained an international reputation as an exceptionally good and successful piano teacher. She gave master classes mainly at the Paris Conservatory and the Jerusalem Music Center , but also in Germany , Spain , Greece and Japan , in Brazil , Venezuela , Canada and the United States . She had a long friendship with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears . From 1996 she was visiting professor at the London Royal Academy of Music ; Maria Curcio spent the last years of her life near Porto, where she was looked after by her former housekeeper.

"Few of those outside the world of classical music have heard of (...) Maria Curcio, but within this world she is a legend (...)"

student

Maria Curcio was a musical advisor to pianists such as Martha Argerich , Leon Fleisher , Claude Frank and Radu Lupu . Her students included (in alphabetical order) Pierre-Laurent Aimard , Saleem Abboud Ashkar , Douglas Ashley , Kim Barbier , Angela Brownridge , Chiao-Ying Chang , Eric Chumachenco , Barry Douglas , Julian Evans , Peter Frankl , Sam Haywood , Seung-Yeun Huh , Niel Immelman , Terence Judd , Alfredo Perl , José Maria Pinzolas , Hiromi Okada , Rafael Orozco , Éric Le Sage , Sergio Daniel Tiempo , Mitsuko Uchida and Bob Versteegh .

Information base

literature

  • Douglas Ashley: Music Beyond Sound. Maria Curcio, a Teacher of Great Pianists. American University Studies, Series XX, Fine Arts. Peter Lang, New York 1993, ISBN 978-0-8204-2101-8 .
  • Items. In: Independent , February 2, 2001 (English); Retrieved April 19, 2009.
  • Obituary. In: Daily Telegraph , April 7, 2009; Retrieved April 19, 2009.
  • Obituary. In: Guardian , April 14, 2009 (English); Retrieved June 16, 2010.
  • Obituary. In: Times , April 25, 2009 (English); Retrieved June 16, 2010.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Latin clarity was the outstanding characteristic of the piano playing of Miss Maria Curcio of Naples." - quoted in the Daily Telegraph of April 7, 2009.
  2. "Few people outside the world of classical music have heard of 82-year-old Maria Curcio, but within that world she's a legend: as Artur Schnabel's favorite pupil, as the muse of Rafael Orozco and Radu Lupu, and as a tutelary goddess second to none. ”- from the article about Maria Curcio in the Independent of February 2, 2001.