Marcelle Meyer -
French Keyboard Masters (1954)
This may be the first classical album cover I've seen that looks like it belongs in Mad Magazine. The music itself is impeccable: subtly emotional with a true empathy for the feelings imparted by the composer.
Marcelle Meyer was the chosen pianist for every major French composer of the early 20th Century. Wiki tells us:
Marcelle Meyer was born in
Lille, France, on 22 May 1897. She was taught piano from the age of five by her sister Germaine, and entered the
Conservatoire de Paris in 1911 at age 14, studying with
Alfred Cortot and
Marguerite Long and was awarded the "Premier Prix" at age 16. She then studied
Maurice Ravel and Spanish composers with
Ricardo Viñes. She coached with
Claude Debussy about how to play his Preludes after having met him when she played the premiere performance of
Erik Satie's
Parade in 1917. Meyer became Satie's favored pianist and premiered
Francis Poulenc's Sonata for
piano four hands with the composer. She premiered several of his other works and recorded with him.
In the early 1920s she played for
Darius Milhaud and
Igor Stravinsky. She became famous for her talent and gave recitals in England, Netherlands and Germany, as well as giving many premieres, including works by
Arthur Honegger,
Alexis Roland-Manuel, and
Igor Markevitch. She was also among those pioneers who re-discovered in France the keyboard music of
Johann Sebastian Bach,
Jean-Philippe Rameau,
François Couperin and
Domenico Scarlatti.
In 1922
Jacques-Émile Blanche painted Marcelle Meyer in the company of
Jean Cocteau and
Les Six, a group of composers consisting of
Georges Auric,
Louis Durey,
Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and
Germaine Tailleferre.
She died on 17 November 1958 aged 61 after suffering a heart attack while playing in her sister's Paris apartment.

Meyer with "Les Six".
