Maurice Gendron

Maurice Gendron Born Near Nice On 26 December 1920 Gendron Was Brought Up In A Poor Household By His Mother And Grandmother His Father Having Deserted Them. He Could Read Music At The Age Of Three And Began Violin Lessons At Four With His Mother A Professional Player In The Silent Cinema But He Did Not Get On With The Instrument And At Five Changed To A Quarter-Sized Cello Specially Made For Him. When He Was Ten His Teacher Stéphane Odero In The City Of Cannes Took Him To Hear The Virtuoso Cellist Emanuel Feuermann Whose Playing Was A Revelation To The Boy. He Met Feuermann And Played For Him A Number Of Times But Could Not Afford To Travel For Lessons To Vienna Zurich Or Feuermann’s Final Base New York – And His Hero Died There During The War Aged 39. Meanwhile Gendron Entered The Nice Conservatoire At 12 Bat Play At Only 11 Years Old The Dvorak Cello Concerto! Under Jean Mangot Taking A First Prize In 1934 And Was Soon Giving Local Concerts. But His Mother Had Lost Her Job With The Advent Of The ‘talkies’ And He Was Forced To Leave The Conservatoire To Scrub Floors Clean Windows And Iron Shirts In Order To Help The Family Finances. In 1938 With The Help Of His Teacher Jean Mangot Who Gave Him A Rail Ticket And 1 000 Francs He Entered The Paris Conservatoire In Gérard Hekking’s Class. Gendron In His Life Remember This Halp From Jean Mangot And Later Halp Pupils For Study When Coming From Long Country To Him For Study. In Paris Gendron Was At 14 Years Old He Had To Live In Unheated Lodgings And Sell Newspapers To Subsidise His Studies. Again He Carried Off A First Prize. At The Outbreak Of War He Was So Poor And Undernourished That He Was Found Unfit For Army Service And In Due Course He Joined The Resistance. Unlike Fournier He Refused To Play In Germany. His Paris ‘début’ Was Made In 1943 After The Dutch Art Connoisseur Jan Heyligers Heard Him Practising And Invited Him To Play To‘a Few Friends’. With Jean Neveu At The Piano He Found Himself Among Such Luminaries As Francis Poulenc Write In Other A Serenade Cello & Piano For Gendron Georges Auric Jean Cocteau And Jean Françaix Messiahn And As His Reputation Spread In Bohemian Society He Got To Know Picasso Picasso Make A Picture For Gendron Braque Chagall Sartre Mauriac And Camus. In 1945 Play The Dvorak Cello Concerto Under Mengelberg Whit Paris Orchestra And Make A Live Recording Of It Whit Mengelberg In Other Study Conducting. Gendron’s London Début Was A More Public Affair But Just As Dazzling. On 2 December 1945 He Shared The Platform Of The Wigmore Hall With Pierre Bernac Poulenc And Benjamin Britten With Whom He Played Debussy And Fauré. Eight Days Later He Appeared At One Of Myra Hess’s National Gallery Concerts With Britten And Peter Pears Performing Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata And Fauré’s Second Sonata. His Reputation With The Wider London Public Was Sealed When He Gave The First Western Performance Of Prokofiev’s Cello Concerto Op.58 With The LPO Under Walter Susskind. “That’s How I Began My Career ” He Recalled. “No One Wanted To Hear Maurice Gendron But They All Wanted To Hear Prokofiev!”. He Was Given Exclusive Rights To The Concerto For Three Years And It Made His Name. For His New York Début In January 1958 He Chose A Memorial Concert For Feuermann Playing The Haydn D Major And Dvor?ák Concertos Also With Mr. Barzin And The National Orchestral Association And He Returned To The US A Number Of Times He Scored A Smashing Success In An Appearance Whit Leonard Bernstein And The New York Philharmonic Whit Schumann Cello Concerto In February 1959 And 27 February 1959 Together Whit Pianist Philip Entremont Whit Memorabil Concert Meet Grat Success. His Friendship With Britten And Pears Continued And He Appeared At The First Aldeburgh Festival In 1948 But Britten’s Offer To Write A Work For Him Was Withdrawn To Gendron’s Chagrin When The Composer Formed A Close Artistic Relationship With Rostropovich. Even So Gendron Played At The Festival In 1963 Whit Britten And Menuhin Gendron Gave In Other A Recital Whit Britten That Included The Arpeggione Sonata Faure's Elegiè And The Sonata Britten Had Written For Rostropovich When The Russian Cellist Was Unable To Appear. After This Concerts Britten Thanked Gendron In A Letter Of 5 July 1963 "We Were All Immensely Grateful To You For Coming To The Festival At Such Short Notice & For Playing So Magnificently. Your Plaing Created Quite A Sensation As You Noticed & It Was For Me Peronally A Great Pleasure To Do The Sonata Whit You. I Thought You Played It Wonderfully". Maurice Gendron Played Solo Concerts In Asia As Japan Corea Sud Africa America. Gendron Make A Great Music Friends With Hephzibah And Yehudi Menuhin And Very Great Music Patnerin Whit Yehudi Menuhin In 1956 Gendron Formed A Famous Trio Which Lasted For 25 Years Made Records And Premièred Works Such As The Trio By Alexander Goehr. One Of The Umanitair Concert In Paris For Unesco In 1976 Whit Menuhin And Other Big Of The Classical Music Of The Time In This Concert Gendron Played In Other A Pice Of Mozat For Cello And Piano - Hephzibah Menuhin "Andantino" A Rare Composition Of Mozart. All People Think Mozart Never Write For Cello And Piano.. Of This Esecution Is Available In Premier A Recording Live Of This Concert . Another Quarter-Century Partnership Was With The Witty Elegant Composer Françaix A Marvellous Pianist With Whom He Made Up A Distinguished Duo Françaix Write For Gendron Same Pices For Cello And Orchestra And For Cello & Piano.– An Earlier Duo With Dinu Lipatti Was Of Short Duration Because Of The Romanian Pianist’s Illness Other Pianist Play Whit Maurice Gendron Was C.Ivaldi J.Février P.Gallion Rudolf Serkin. On His Own Gendron Was A Fine Player Of Solo Bach "the Best Interpretation Of The Cello Suites" Available Now A Memorable Recording 1968-69 And He Made His Own Contribution To The Concerto Literature By Rescuing The Two Works By Boccherini Which Friedrich Grützmacher Had Vandalised Into A Ghastly Pastiche. Until Gendron Came On The Scene All Cellists Had Played This Mangled Version. He Not Only Rediscovered The Original B Minor Concerto Which Formed Most Of The Basis Of The Pastiche But Persuaded Pablo Casals After A Travel In Prades To Conduct His Recording Of It Whit The Orchestre Des Concerts Lamoureux. Gendron Published A Number Of Transcriptions And Was A Superb Deviser Of Cadenzas For Classical Concertos Such As Those By Haydn – He Also Made The First Critical Edition Of The D Major Concerto And Now This Editions Is Requared In All Cello Competitons. He Taught In Saarbrücken From 1954 At The Menuhin School And At The Paris Conservatoire 1970-87 And Summer Master Classes At Mozarteum Of Salzburg Last In 1989 And One Of The Last Concerts And Recording In Japan In 1985 Whit Two Concert Day For Day At 65 Years Old. In The Early 1970s He Suffered A Fearful Car Accident In Which A Shoulder Was Severely Damaged. He Fought His Way Back And In 1985 Reappeared In London For A 40th Anniversary Recital But Was Not The Same Force As Before 65 Years Old . He Died On 20 August 1990 At The Riverside Home In Grez-Sur-Loing Where He And His Wife A Former Violinist And Gentel Person Had Lived For Years Surrounded By The Paintings And Drawings Given To Gendron By His Artist Friends. Maurice Gendron Admired Casals But Modelled Himself Much More On Feuermann. In His Early Days He Had A Coruscating Technique And Although He Was Always His Own Man There Was Something Of Feuermann In The Intense Focus Of His Beautiful Tone. In 1970 He Took Up Conducting A Discipline He Had Studied With Mengelberg Scherchen And Désormière Make Label Recording And Concerts In Asia And Europe. Apart From Excellent Versions Of The Haydn D Major And Saint-Saëns Concertos For A Label His Early Records Were Made For Decca. They Began With A 1946 Dvor?ák Concerto On 78rpm Discs With Karl Rankl Conducting The Recordings Reissued Here Were More Fortunate And Established A Foothold In The Catalogue For Years As More Works Of Gendron As J.S.Bach Cello Suites Haydn Cello Concert 1&2 Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations Under Anserment And Other Great Conductors - Decca Schumann Cello Concert Whit A Great Cello Cadenza By Gendron Decca And Philips All The Great French Cellists Played The Schumann Concerto Better Than Their Rivals From Other Schools Bat Gendron’s Superb Interpretation Was A Most Refined Elegant Performer. The Impression Of All Gendron's Performances Is Of Gendron’s Dreams Music As Rondò Of Dvorak Whit Bernard Haiting And Orchestra Filarmonica Of London And Seemingly Easy Tonal Production – Up To 1958 When He Acquired His 1693 Stradivari He Played A 1610 Giovanni Grancino Cello Which Dare One Say Suited Him Even Better. Maurice Gendron Recording More Classic Pices For Him Time And All Are Masterpiece Of Interpretation Him Patner In This Recording Are The Best Of Conductors And Orchestra. read less