Magda Tagliaferro
| Magda Tagliaferro | |
|---|---|
| Born | 19 January 1893 Petrópolis, Brazil |
| Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Instruments | Piano |
Magdalena Maria Yvonne Tagliaferro (19 January 1893 – 9 September 1986) was a Brazilian-born pianist of French parents.
Magda Taglisferro was born in Petrópolis, Brazil. Her father, who had studied piano with Raoul Pugno, was a professor of singing and piano at São Paulo Conservatory, and he was young Magda's first teacher.[1]
She went to Paris with her father. The cellist Pablo Casals heard Tagliaferro play in public for the first time when she was nine, and he encouraged her to study with Alfred Cortot at the Conservatoire de Paris.[2] Her father arranged for her to play to Cortot, then a young pianist becoming increasingly renowned. Cortot was impressed and he accepted young Magda into his class at Conservatoire. She also studied under Antonin Marmontel at the Conservatoire.
By the end of that year, even before her fourteenth birthday, she got her Premier Prix (the highest exam for performers), though she continued studying with Cortot and the two remained friends throughout his life.[3] She developed a reputation[citation needed] for striving towards the realization of the musical ideals exemplified by Cortot: a perfect union of clarity and tenderness, inner strength and emotion and classical balance in shaping the works being interpreted.[4]
During her studies at the Conservatoire, the director, Gabriel Fauré invited her on a short tour with him. Later, she performed many of his compositions. During her career, her recital engagements took her to the musical centre of more than 30 countries in Europe, Africa, America, and Asia. She was also very active as a soloist, performing with celebrated orchestras. Tagliaferro appeared with the elite of 20th century conductors, among them Felix Weingartner, Issay Dobrowen, Pierre Monteux, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Hans Knappertsbusch, Paul Paray, Vincent d'Indy and Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht. Other solo artists, such as Cortot, Jacques Thibaud, George Enescu, Jules Boucherit and Pablo Casals, performed with her in joint recitals. Composers sought her for premieres of their works, sometimes specifically intending that Tagliaferro be the first artist to perform the piece.[citation needed] She, in turn, applied herself to performing new works by composers such as Reynaldo Hahn, Jean Rivier, Gabriel Pierné and Heitor Villa-Lobos.
Tagliaferro had an important career as a pedagogue. She taught at the Paris Conservatoire from 1937 to 1939, where Polish pianist Władysław Kędra was among her students, invited by her when she heard him play as she judged the III International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland in February–March, 1937. She also created her own school in Paris and later in Rio de Janeiro and in São Paulo. She gave numerous masterclasses in many countries and created a piano competition. Among her innumerable students, one can also mention Pnina Salzman, Jeanne Demessieux, Lycia de Biase Bidart, Flavio Varani, Cristina Ortiz, Jorge Luis Prats and James Tocco.
Tagliaferro maintained a critically acclaimed[citation needed] capacity for beautifully crafted playing into her nineties. She died in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
