Over to Paris this weekend for a studio session featuring Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto Number 2 performed by Jean Doyen, piano with Louis Frémaux and Orchestre National de l’ORTF – recorded in Studio 103 at Maison de la Radio in Paris on August 30, 1968.
Jean Doyen: Born in Paris, Doyen graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris as pianist in 1922. He began learning the instrument with Sophie Chéné (teacher of Blanche Selva), then studied with Louis Diémer (1919) and finally with Marguerite Long. In 1924, he made his solo debut with the Concerts Colonne. He also participated in Jacques Ibert’s ballet Les Rencontres, at the Opera Garnier.
In 1926 he worked at the Radiodiffusion Française, but at the same time he returned to the Conservatoire in counterpoint class with Georges Caussade and music composition with Paul Vidal and Henri Büsser.
From 1941 to 1977, he was professor of piano at the Conservatoire de Paris, succeeding Marguerite Long. Among his pupils were İdil Biret, Roger Boutry, Philippe Entremont, Marie-Thérèse Fourneau, Claude Kahn, André Krust, Arthur Moreira Lima, Bernard Job, Dominique Merlet and Chantal Riou.
Jean Doyen is best known for his interpretations of 19th and 20th century French music, notably in the works of Gabriel Pierné, Reynaldo Hahn and Vincent d’Indy and is considered one of the great interpreters of this repertoire and above all, of Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Fauré. He also enjoyed playing Vincent d’Indy’s Fantaisie sur un vieil air de ronde française[6] and Samazeuilh’s Trois Danses. However, he recorded Chopin’s waltzes, and premiered the Variations sur un thème de Don Juan.
Louis Frémaux studied music at the conservatoire in Valenciennes, but his studies were interrupted by the Second World War, when he joined the French Resistance; at the end of the war he was commissioned in the French Foreign Legion and was posted to Vietnam in 1945-46. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1947, studied under Louis Fourestier and Jacques Chailley, and graduated in 1952 with a first prize in conducting.
Frémaux worked with the orchestra of the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, after having been released from the French Foreign Legion (to which he had been recalled for service in Algeria) at the request of Prince Rainier. For ten years he helped build the reputation of the Monte Carlo orchestra, as well as conducting opera premieres there. He was the first music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique Rhône-Alpes (later the Orchestre National de Lyon), from 1969 to 1971.
The Mendelssohn goes without saying – Press play and fill the room.
