Pierre Sancan

Pierre Sancan was a French pianist, composer, and educator of the mid-20th century. He is particularly known for his Sonatine for flute and piano, but he also composed vocal, orchestral, and theatrical works. As a performer he was a respected Debussy interpreter, and the preferred accompani st of cellist André Navarra. He was born in 1916 in the French commune of Mazamet, which was known for producing wool. His mother was a nurse in the French army, and his father was an editor, author, and a scholar of Russian literature. He moved with his family to Morocco when he was three years old, and he later attended the École Municipale de Musique de Meknès. He also studied piano with Lecler and by the age of 13, he was a skilled pianist with impressive technique and a mature sense of musicality. When he graduated in 1931, he won the first prize in theory, solfège, accompaniment and improvisation. In the following fall, he enrolled at the Toulouse Conservatory, where he studied with Blanc-Durat. In 1933, he moved to Paris and became a student at the Paris Conservatoire, where his professors included Yves Nat for piano, Charles Münch for conducting, and Henri Büsser for composition. When he was 19 years old, he was enlisted in the French military and stationed in Morocco as part of the resistance movement. His military service was short, and he promptly resumed his education in Paris. In 1943, he was awarded the Prix de Rome for his cantata La Légende d’Icare, which included a two-year long residency at the Villa Médicis. However, due to the tumultuous circumstances of World War II, the residency was delayed until 1946. The same year, he also married Line Madeleine Labarche, and he composed the popular Sonatine for flute and piano, which was commissioned by the Paris Conservatoire for its Concours du Conservatoire. This led to nine other commissioned works for the Concours for other instruments that included chamber music, concertos, and solo pieces for harpsichord and harp. Sancan began an appointment as a piano professor at the Conservatoire in 1956, and some of his more prominent students included Michel Béroff and Jean-Philippe Collard. He continued teaching into the '60s, recorded Ravel’s piano concertos, and collaborated with Jean-Bernard Pommier and André Navarra. He also composed Symphony for Strings, an opera, Ondine, and two ballets around this time. From the '70s to the early '80s he was highly sought after as a piano instructor, and he taught 13 hours per day, but his performances became much less frequent. He retired from the conservatoire in 1985 due to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, and he continued teaching privately until 1989. He passed away in Paris in 2008. Since then, his works have been recorded by Louise DiTullio, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and by Yan Pascal Tortelier and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet on the 2023 release Sancan: A Musical Tribute.
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