Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot

Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot

Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot (12 February 1833 – 22 October 1914) was a French pianist, teacher and composer.

He was born in Paris in 1833, the son of the violinist Charles Auguste de Bériot and his then common-law wife, the famed soprano Maria Malibran^[1][2] (they were to marry when Charles-Wilfrid was three, but his mother died only three months later as a result of a fall from a horse, while pregnant with Charles-Wilfrid’s sibling).^[3] His stepmother, Maria Huber, was an orphan who had been adopted by Prince von Dietrichstein, the natural father of Sigismond Thalberg. Thalberg was one of Charles-Wilfrid's earliest teachers.^[4]

He became a professor of piano at the École Niedermeyer, and later at the Paris Conservatoire, where his pupils included Maurice Ravel and Ricardo Viñes. His private students included Enrique Granados. As a teacher, he insisted on extreme refinement in tone production, which strongly influenced Granados’s own teaching of pedal technique.^[5]

He composed four piano concertos.^[6] There is also a Sonata for Two Pianos, Op. 61.^[7] His Flute Sonata, Op. 64 has been recorded.^[8] Many of his scores are preserved at the Ricardo Viñes Piano Music Collection at the University of Colorado at Boulder.^[9]

Ravel dedicated his Rapsodie espagnole to Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot.^[10]

He died at Sceaux-du-Gâtinais in 1914, aged 81.

References

1. ^ Schubertiade Music
2. ^ 400 lettres de musiciens
3. ^ Naxos
4. ^ Michael Kennedy, Joyce Bourne, The Oxford Dictionary of Music
5. ^ Harumi Kurihara, Selected Intermediate-Level Solo Piano Music of Enrique Granados: A Pedagogical Analysis
6. ^ Encyclopedia.com
7. ^ Highbeam
8. ^ Presto Classical
9. ^ Ricardo Viñes Piano Music Collection at the University of Colorado at Boulder
10. ^ Cantorion

Persondata
Name	Beriot, Charles-Wilfrid de
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Date of birth	1833
Place of birth
Date of death	1914
Place of death