Marcelle Mercenier (21 April 1920 – 13 March 1996) was a Belgian pianist and teacher.

Life

Mercenier was known as an influential pedagogue in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, then in

Liège Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...

. She was a fervent advocate of

contemporary music Contemporary music is whatever music is produced at the current time. Specifically, it could refer to: Genres or audiences * Adult contemporary music * British contemporary R&B * Christian adult contemporary * Christian contemporary hit radio * Con ...

but also performed Chopin under the baton of Charles Munch and

Poulenc Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (; 7 January 189930 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include mélodie, songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among th ...

with the composer. She was a member of the group "Séminaire des Arts" created in August 1944 in Brussels. In the concert series of this group, on 28 February 1947 she premiered, together with the flautist Herlin Van Boterdael, the Sonatina for flute and piano by

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 19255 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war contemporary classical music. Born in Montb ...

, a work that had been composed a year earlier for

Jean-Pierre Rampal Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal (7 January 1922 – 20 May 2000) was a French flautist. Rampal popularised the flute in the post–World War II years, recovering flute compositions from the Baroque era, and spurring contemporary composers, ...

, but had not been performed by him. The Sonatina was the second work in which Boulez used

serial technique In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also ...

, after the ''Notations'' for piano of 1945. She premiered works by

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

('' Klavierstücke I–IV'', which are dedicated to her),

Henri Pousseur Henri Léon Marie-Thérèse Pousseur (; 23 June 1929 – 6 March 2009) was a Belgian classical composer, teacher, and music theorist. Biography Pousseur was born in Malmedy and studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 19 ...

, and

Philippe Boesmans Philippe Boesmans (17 May 1936 – 10 April 2022) was a Belgian pianist, composer and academic teacher. He studied to be a pianist at the Royal Conservatory of Liège, and was self-taught as a composer, influenced by the Liège Group of Henri Po ...

Discography

Mercenier recorded the complete

Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

Etudes.''Douze Études pour le Piano'',

References

Sources

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Life

Discography

References

Sources

Further reading