Aldo Ciccolini (ˈaldo tʃikkoˈlini) (born 15 August 1925), is an Italian-French pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

.

Biography

Aldo Ciccolini was born in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

. His father, who bore the title of Marquis of Macerara, worked as a typographer. He took his first lessons with Maria Vigliarolo d'Ovidio, and entered Naples Conservatory in 1934 at the age of 9, by special permission of the director, Francesco Cilea

Francesco Cilea

Francesco Cilea was an Italian composer. Today he is particularly known for his operas L'arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur.-Biography:...

. There he studied piano with Paolo Denza, a pupil of Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

, and harmony and counterpoint with Achile Longo.

He began his performing career playing at the Teatro San Carlo at the age of 16. However, by 1946 he was reduced to playing in bars to support his family. In 1949, he won the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition

Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition

The Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition is an international classical music competition for pianists and violinists that has operated in France since 1943. It was created by the pianist Marguerite Long and the violinist Jacques Thibaud...

 in Paris (among the other prizewinners were Paul Badura-Skoda

Paul Badura-Skoda

Paul Badura-Skoda is an Austrian pianist.He won first prize in the Austrian Music Competition in 1947. In 1949, he performed with distinguished conductors like Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan...

 and Pierre Barbizet). He became a French citizen in 1969 and taught at the Conservatoire de Paris

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

 from 1970 to 1988, where his students included Akiko Ebi

Akiko Ebi

-Biography:Akiko Ebi was born in Osaka. She studied at the Tokyo University of the Arts, and won the piano prize of the 41st Music Competition of Japan. Her international career began with her winning second prize in the 1975 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris. She continued her...

, Géry Moutier, Jean-Yves Thibaudet

Jean-Yves Thibaudet

-Early life:Jean-Yves Thibaudet was born in Lyon, France, to non-professional musical parents. His father played the violin, and his mother, of German origin and a somewhat accomplished pianist herself, introduced the instrument to Jean-Yves....

, Artur Pizarro

Artur Pizarro

Artur Pizarro is a Portuguese pianist of international acclaim. He performs internationally in solo recitals, in duos, with chamber music groups, and as a soloist with the world's leading orchestras. He has an extensive discography available on Linn Records, as well as on Naxos, Hyperion, Collins...

, Nicholas Angelich and André Sayasov. Among his students at the Biella L.Perosi International Academy were Roberto Cominati, Andrea Padova, Filippo Faes, Francesco Libetta

Francesco Libetta

Francesco Libetta is an Italian pianist, composer and conductor.- Biography :Born in Galatone, South Italy, Francesco Libetta studied in Italy , France before basing himself in...

 and Angela Annese.

Ciccolini is a celebrated interpreter and advocate of the piano music of the French composers Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

, Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

 and Erik Satie

Erik Satie

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...

 as well as that of less prominent composers such as Déodat de Séverac

Déodat de Séverac

Déodat de Séverac was a French composer.-Biography:...

, Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

, Charles-Valentin Alkan

Charles-Valentin Alkan

Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of his day. His attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of six, earning many awards, and as an adult became a famous virtuoso...

, and Alexis de Castillon

Alexis de Castillon

Alexis de Castillon was a French composer of classical music....

. Ciccolini is also known for his playing of the music of the Spanish composers Isaac Albéniz

Isaac Albéniz

Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual was a Spanish Catalan pianist and composer best known for his piano works based on folk music idioms .-Life:Born in Camprodon, province of Girona, to Ángel Albéniz and his wife Dolors Pascual, Albéniz...

, Enrique Granados

Enrique Granados

Enrique Granados y Campiña was a Spanish pianist and composer of classical music. His music is in a uniquely Spanish style and, as such, representative of musical nationalism...

, and Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....

, as well as of Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

. The soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, DBE was a German-born Austrian/British soprano opera singer and recitalist. She was among the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century, much admired for her performances of Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, and Wolf.-Early life:Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike...

 said of him "I have hardly met a more wonderful partner and a more delightful companion."

On 9 December 1999 Ciccolini celebrated a career in France spanning 50 years with a recital at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées

Champs-Élysées

The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a prestigious avenue in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strip of real estate in the world. The name is...

 in Paris.

Recordings

Ciccolini has made more than a hundred recordings for EMI-Pathé Marconi and other record companies, including the complete sonata cycles of Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 and Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, and two separate cycles of the complete piano works of Erik Satie

Erik Satie

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...

.

In 2002 Ciccolini was awarded the Diapason d'or for his recording of the entire solo piano works of Janáček

Leoš Janácek

Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...

 for Abeille Music and of Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

 for Cascavelles. His complete Beethoven sonata cycle was re-published under Cascavelle label in 2006.

He has also recorded unusual repertoire such as selections from the Péchés de vieillesse

Péchés de vieillesse

In Gioachino Rossini's Péchés de vieillesse , the opera composer gathered together 150 vocal and solo piano pieces into fourteen unpublished albums, under his self-deprecating and ironic title. The grouping of pieces in albums do not reflect the sequence or the dates of their composition, which...

of Rossini.

Source

• Article on Aldo Ciccolini in French Wikipedia
• Bellamy, Olivier. Courage and silence. Essay included in Aldo Ciccolini: Enregistrements EMI 1950-1991 EMI 2009