LDV78.9

20 BEETHOVEN You were taught by Vlado Perlemuter and Jean Hubeau, both well known as eminent interpreters of French music, but less famed for their regular performances of Beethoven. Did you learn a tradition from these masters? Vlado Perlemuter – who spoke to us with admiration of Wilhelm Backhaus’s Beethoven – could lay claim to a certain Germanic tradition acquired from his teacher, Alfred Cortot, who was himself a pupil of Louis Diémer. I like this tradition because it corresponds to my way of thinking and the style of interpretation I appreciate. Perlemuter was extremely attentive to clarity of playing; he admired a polyphonic sound and quality of timbre and hated affectation, nuances and artificial ideas. I also studied with Raymond Trouard, but it was above all Marcelle Heuclin, Vlado Perlemuter’s assistant, who trained me as a pianist. They were my only teachers and I never felt the urge to work with other great pianists. It seems to me more beneficial to root your training in a specific artistic filiation than to ‘flit’ from one great master to another, as young pianists sometimes do.