Louis Joseph Diémer (14 February 1843 – 21 December 1919) was a French pianist and composer. He was the founder of the

Société des Instruments Anciens Groupe Lactalis S.A. (doing business as Lactalis) is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier S.A. Lactalis is the largest dairy pr ...

in the 1890s, and also gave recitals on the

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

. His output as a composer was extensive, including a

piano concerto A piano concerto, a type of concerto, is a solo composition in the classical music genre which is composed for piano accompanied by an orchestra or other large ensemble. Piano concertos are typically virtuosic showpieces which require an advance ...

and a quantity of

salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment that provides Cosmetics, cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, ...

pieces.

Life

Diémer was born and died in Paris. He studied at the

Paris Conservatoire The Conservatoire de Paris (), or the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (; CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue Jean Ja ...

, where his teachers included

Ambroise Thomas Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas (; 5 August 1811 – 12 February 1896) was a French composer and teacher, best known for his operas ''Mignon'' (1866) and ''Hamlet (opera), Hamlet'' (1868). Born into a musical family, Thomas was a student at the C ...

for composition, Antoine Marmontel for piano, and

François Benoist François Benoist (; 10 September 1794 – 6 May 1878) was a French organist, pedagogue, and composer. Life and career Benoist was born in Nantes on 10 September 1794. He took his first music lessons under Georges Scheuermann. Benoist studied m ...

for organ. From the age of twelve, he won several first prizes (''Premiers Prix'') at the Conservatoire, in piano, harmony and accompaniment, counterpoint and fugue, and solfège, and a ''second prix'' in organ. He quickly built a reputation as a virtuoso and toured with, among others, the violinists

Delphin Alard Jean-Delphin Alard (8 March 181522 February 1888) was a French violinist, composer, and teacher. He was the son-in-law of Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, and had Pablo de Sarasate amongst his students. Biography Alard was born in Bayonne, the son of an ...

and

Pablo de Sarasate Pablo Martín Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués (; 10 March 1844 – 20 September 1908), commonly known as Pablo de Sarasate, was a Spanish violinist, composer and Conducting, conductor of the Romantic music, Romantic period. His best known work ...

. In 1888, Diémer succeeded Marmontel as professor of piano at the Paris Conservatory. He taught, among others,

Robert Casadesus Robert Marcel Casadesus (; 7 April 1899 – 19 September 1972) was a renowned 20th-century France, French pianist and composer. He was the most prominent member of a Casadesus, distinguished musical family, being the nephew of Henri Casadesus an ...

Alfredo Casella Alfredo Casella (25 July 18835 March 1947) was an Italian composer, pianist and conductor. Life and career Casella was born in Turin, the son of Maria (née Bordino) and Carlo Casella. His family included many musicians: his grandfather, a f ...

Marcel Ciampi Marcel Paul Maximin Ciampi (29 May 1891 – 2 September 1980) was a French pianist and teacher. He held the longest tenure in the history of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and also became head of piano classes at the ...

Alfred Cortot Alfred Denis Cortot ( , ; 26 September 187715 June 1962) was a French pianist, conductor, and teacher who was one of the most renowned classical musicians of the 20th century. A pianist of massive repertory, he was especially valued for his po ...

José Cubiles José Antonio Cubiles Ramos (15 May 1894 5 April 1971) was a noted Spanish pianist, Conductor (music), conductor and teacher. Biography Cubiles was born in Cádiz in 1894. His pianistic gifts were already apparent by the age of five. He first st ...

Lazare Lévy Lazare Lévy Lazare Lévy, also hyphenated as Lazare-Lévy, (18 January 188220 September 1964) was an influential French pianist, organist, composer and pedagogue. As a virtuoso pianist he toured throughout Europe, in North Africa, Israel, the Sov ...

Robert Lortat Robert Lortat (12 September 1885 – 5 May 1938) was a French pianist, well known in his native Paris and in other musical centres including London. He was closely associated with the works of Frédéric Chopin and Gabriel Fauré. Ill health cause ...

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, and

Édouard Risler Joseph-Édouard Risler (23 February 1873 – 22 July 1929) was a French pianist. Biography Risler was born in Baden-Baden (Germany) of a German mother and an Alsatian father. He studied under Louis Diémer, Théodore Dubois and Émile Decomb ...

. He was also instrumental in promoting the use of historical instruments, giving a series of harpsichord performances as part of the 1889

Universal Exhibition A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition, is a large global exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specific site for a perio ...

and contributing to the founding of the Société des Instruments Anciens.

Works dedicated to Diémer

Several composers dedicated compositions to Diémer. They included

César Franck César Auguste Jean Guillaume Hubert Franck (; 10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a French Romantic music, Romantic composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher born in present-day Belgium. He was born in Liège (which at the time of h ...

's '' Symphonic Variations'',

Jules Massenet Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are ''Manon'' (1884 ...

's only

Camille Saint-Saëns Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (, , 9October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano ...

's 5th Piano Concerto, and

Édouard Lalo Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo (27 January 182322 April 1892) was a French composer, violist, violinist, and academic teacher. His most celebrated piece is the '' Symphonie Espagnole'', a five-movement concerto for violin and orchestra that re ...

's Piano Concerto in F minor.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popula ...

's 3rd Piano Concerto was intended to be dedicated to him.

Recordings

Diémer was also among the earliest pianists to record for the

gramophone A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physic ...

. His recordings are said to show the best aspects of the 19th-century French piano school: clarity, point, and control in rapid, detaché passages and limpid

pianissimo In music, the dynamics of a piece are the variation in loudness between note (music), notes or phrase (music), phrases. Dynamics are indicated by specific musical notation, often in some detail. However, dynamics markings require interpretation ...

scales Scale or scales may refer to: Mathematics * Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points * Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original * Scale factor, a number ...

. They clearly attest to Diémer's title in the French press as "the king of the scale and the

trill TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links) is a networking protocol for optimizing bandwidth and resilience in Ethernet networks, implemented by devices called TRILL switches. TRILL combines techniques from bridging and routing, and ...

.Schonberg (1987), p. 287. They also give evidence to comments made by his pupil

, who himself would become an influence on the French musical scene. Lévy wrote: "The astonishing precision of iémer'splaying, his legendary trills, the sobriety of his style, made him the excellent pianist we all admired".

Bibliography

* * Roger Cotte, Bernard Haultier: "Diémer, Louis (Joseph)", in: ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'' (MGG), biographical part, vol. 5 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2001), cc. 998–1000.

References

External links

*
The French School: Louis Diémer and his Pupils
Retrieved 31 Jul 2013.

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Diemer, Louis 1843 births 1919 deaths 19th-century French classical composers 19th-century French male classical pianists 19th-century French classical pianists 20th-century French classical composers French Romantic composers French male classical composers French male classical pianists Musicians from Paris Academic staff of the Conservatoire de Paris Conservatoire de Paris alumni Burials at Montmartre Cemetery Pupils of Antoine François Marmontel