Aldo Ciccolini, an Italian-born pianist who specialized in the music of French composers and was known in particular as a champion of Erik Satie, has died at his home outside Paris. He was 89.
His manager, Paul Blacher, told Agence France-Presse that Mr. Ciccolini died either Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
Mr. Ciccolini began his international career in the late 1940s and continued performing until he was well into his 80s. His work, which can be heard on more than 50 recordings, took in renowned French composers like Saint-Saëns, Debussy and Ravel as well as less familiar ones like Déodat de Séverac and Alexis de Castillon. His repertoire also spanned a wide array of non-Frenchmen, including Bach, Scarlatti, Salieri, Mozart, Beethoven and Liszt.
Throughout Mr. Ciccolini’s career, critics praised his playing for its technical virtuosity, airy lyricism and cool, assiduous elegance.
Mr. Ciccolini was born in Naples on Aug. 15, 1925, and began piano studies as a boy. He entered the Naples Conservatory while still a child and made his recital debut at 13; he taught at the conservatory after World War II.
Taking part in the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition, a prestigious international contest, in 1949, Mr. Ciccolini shared first prize with the Bulgarian pianist Ventsislav Yankov. Soon afterward, Mr. Ciccolini moved to France, where he taught at the Paris Conservatory. His students there included the distinguished pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
Mr. Ciccolini made his United States debut in 1950, performing Tchaikovsky’s B flat minor concerto with the New York Philharmonic under Dimitri Mitropoulos. Reviewing the concert in The New York Times, Olin Downes praised Mr. Ciccolini’s “very powerful muscles and virtuoso temperament,” adding, “He has brilliancy and also beauty of tone” and “He can generate excitement.”
Through his recordings and live performances, Mr. Ciccolini was credited with bringing the work of Satie (1866-1925) to wide public attention. (In 1979, for instance, he played a program of Satie at the Bottom Line, the Greenwich Village cabaret.) Satie’s music, known for a hypnotic aural pointillism that prefigured minimalism, is today ubiquitous on film and television soundtracks.
Mr. Ciccolini’s other recordings include the work of Franck, Massenet, Albéniz and de Falla.
Information on survivors was not available.
His long acclaim notwithstanding, Mr. Ciccolini was cleareyed about his place in the musical firmament.
“I should be a very foolish pianist if I had to worry about reinforcing my popularity,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1986, before embarking on an all-Liszt recital. “People will not speak of me in 100 years, but they will still be talking about Liszt. That’s the reality.”
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