Samson François

Samson Pascal François (May 18, 1924 - October 22, 1970) was a French pianist.

François was born in Frankfurt where his father worked at the French consulate. His mother, Rose, named him Samson, for strength, and Pascal, for spirit. François discovered the piano early – at the age of two – and his first studies were in Italy, with Mascagni, who encouraged him to give his first concert at the age of six. Moving from country to country with his itinerant family, he studied in Belgrade with Cyril Licar, obtaining a first prize in performance. Licar also introduced him to the works of Bartók.

Having studied in the Conservatoire in Nice from 1932 to 1935, where he again won first prize, François came to the attention of Alfred Cortot, who encouraged him to move to Paris and study with Yvonne Lefébure at the l'École Normale de Musique. He also studied piano with Cortot (who reportedly found him almost impossible to teach), and harmony with Nadia Boulanger. In 1938, he moved to the Paris Conservatoire to study with Marguerite Long, the doyenne of French teachers of the age.

He was particularly admired for his performances of Chopin, Schumann, Debussy, and Ravel. Many of these interpretations are now available on compact disc. François was a keen jazz fan, and claimed that jazz influenced his playing. He composed, among other works, a concerto for piano and incidental music for film.

He married Josette Bahvsar, and their son Maximilien was born in 1955. Maximilien published a biography of his father in 2002 (see bibliography below).

Samson François' extravagant lifestyle, good looks, and passionate but highly disciplined playing, gave him a cult status as a pianist. Though, his passion for night life and his reckless behavior (characterized by lavish drinking and drug use) resulted in a heart attack on the concert platform in 1968. His early death followed only two years later.

Critic John Bell Young, in the "St Petersburg Times" of Florida, called François (on May 5, 2002) "a charismatic figure, an iconoclast and musical maverick", who, along with Long and Cortot, was "the most important pianist in postwar France. There was something of the swashbuckler about him; his playing was as daring as it was rhapsodic, but also notable for its uncompromising integrity and extraordinary intelligence."

François himself said "never play simply to play well". And, in a remark that was clearly inspired by his jazz influences, "It must be that there is never the impression of being obliged to play the next note".

Bibliography

* Spycket, Jérôme, "Scarbo", 1985 (in French – a biography of François)
* François, Maximilien-Samson, "Samson François, histoire de… mille vies (1924-1970)". Editions Bleu Nuit (2002). ISBN-10: 2913575544 (In French)

External links

* [http://www.pianobleu.com/samson_francois.html Biography, in French] from which the quotes in this article were translated.