- Duo Crommelynck
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Duo Crommelynck was the name of a notable classical piano duo team active from 1974 to 1994, consisting of the Belgian Patrick Crommelynck and his Japanese-born wife Taeko Kuwata. In 1994, at the height of their fame, they committed suicide.
Patrick Crommelynck was born in Brussels in 1942[1][2], Taeko Kuwata in Tokyo in 1945. Patrick studied with Stefan Askenase at the Brussels Conservatory, with Victor Merzhanov at the Moscow Conservatory, and with Dieter Weber in Vienna, where he met Taeko Kuwata, who was another of Weber's students.[1] They married and formed their duo in 1974. They came to attention with their two-piano version of Brahms's 4th Symphony.[1] They achieved considerable praise and recognition and were considered one of the world's leading piano duos.[3] They toured widely and a number of composers wrote works for them.[3] These included Andre Tchaikowsky's Invention 5b, dedicated to Patrick, and another Andre Tchaikowsky composition Tango and then Mazurka were arranged for the duo.[1]
Duo Crommelynck made a number of recordings for the Swiss Claves label. They recorded music by Georges Auric, Georges Bizet, Johannes Brahms, Claude Debussy, Antonín Dvořák, Gabriel Fauré, André Messager, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Maurice Ravel, Franz Schubert, Bedřich Smetana, Johann Strauss II[4], and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.[5] These included 2-piano arrangements of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony, Dvořák's New World Symphony, and Smetana's Vltava from Má vlast. Their three-disc set of the four-hand piano works of Schubert won a Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros. They also recorded an entire CD of fragments and unfinished pieces by Mozart.
On 14 July 1994, in a case unprecedented among classical musicians, and at the height of their joint careers, they took their own lives in Brussels[3] after an apparent crisis in their relationship.[6] Patrick died first and his body was discovered by Taeko, who also decided to end her own life.[7]
The Athénée Royal de Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, a Brussels school founded in 1956, was renamed Athénée Royal Crommelynck, de Woluwe-Saint-Pierre after their death, in commemoration not only of them but also of other famous Crommelyncks, including the dramatist Fernand Crommelynck.[8]
Sources
References
- ^ a b c d andretchaikowsky.com
- ^ Some sources say Patrick Crommelynck was born in 1945 or 1947.
- ^ a b c Women at the Piano
- ^ CD mail
- ^ emusic
- ^ Commentary
- ^ kammermusik.org
- ^ Athénée Royal Crommelynck, de Woluwe-Saint-Pierre
Categories:- 1942 births
- 1945 births
- 1994 deaths
- Belgian classical pianists
- Japanese classical pianists
- Classical piano duos
- Classical musicians who committed suicide
- Moscow Conservatory alumni
- Articles about multiple people
- Married couples
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