French music educators

Charles-Valentin Alkan (French: [ʃaʁl valɑ̃tɛ̃ alkɑ̃]; 30 November 1813 – 29 March 1888) was a French composer and virtuoso pianist. At the height of his fame in the 1830s and 1840s he was, alongside his friends and colleagues Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt, among the leading pianists in Paris, a city in which he spent virtually his entire life.
Alkan earned many awards at the Conservatoire de Paris, which he entered before he was six. His career in the salons and concert halls of Paris was marked by his occasional long withdrawals from public performance, for personal reasons. Although he had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in the Parisian artistic world, including Eugène Delacroix and George Sand, from 1848 he began to adopt a reclusive life style, while continuing with his compositions – virtually all of which are for the keyboard. During this period he published, among other works, his collections of large-scale studies in all the major keys (Op. 35) and all the minor keys (Op. 39). The latter includes his Symphony for Solo Piano (Op. 39, nos. 4–7) and Concerto for Solo Piano (Op. 39, nos. 8–10), which are often considered among his masterpieces and are of great musical and technical complexity. Alkan emerged from self-imposed retirement in the 1870s to give a series of recitals that were attended by a new generation of French musicians.
Alkan's attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He was the first composer to incorporate Jewish melodies in art music. Fluent in Hebrew and Greek, he devoted much time to a complete new translation of the Bible into French. This work, like many of his musical compositions, is now lost. Alkan never married, but his presumed son Élie-Miriam Delaborde was, like Alkan, a virtuoso performer on both the piano and the pedal piano, and edited a number of the elder composer's works.
Following his death (which according to persistent but unfounded legend was caused by a falling bookcase), Alkan's music became neglected, supported by only a few musicians including Ferruccio Busoni, Egon Petri and Kaikhosru Sorabji. From the late 1960s onwards, led by Raymond Lewenthal and Ronald Smith, many pianists have recorded his music and brought it back into the repertoire.

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck (French pronunciation: [sezaʁ oɡyst ʒɑ̃ ɡijom ybɛʁ fʁɑ̃k]; 10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a French Romantic composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher born in present-day Belgium.
He was born in Liège (which at the time of his birth was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands). He gave his first concerts there in 1834 and studied privately in Paris from 1835, where his teachers included Anton Reicha. After a brief return to Belgium, and a disastrous reception of an early oratorio Ruth, he moved to Paris, where he married and embarked on a career as teacher and organist. He gained a reputation as a formidable musical improviser, and travelled widely within France to demonstrate new instruments built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.

In 1858, he became organist at the Basilica of St. Clotilde, Paris, a position he retained for the rest of his life. He became professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1872; he took French nationality, a requirement of the appointment. After acquiring the professorship, Franck wrote several pieces that have entered the standard classical repertoire, including symphonic, chamber, and keyboard works for pipe organ and piano. As a teacher and composer he had a vast following of composers and other musicians. His pupils included Ernest Chausson, Vincent d'Indy, Henri Duparc, Guillaume Lekeu, Albert Renaud, Charles Tournemire and Louis Vierne.

André Bloch (14 January 1873, in Wissembourg – 7 August 1960, in Paris) was a French composer and music educator.

Suzanne Sarroca (21 April 1927 – 15 September 2023) was a 20th-century French operatic soprano.

(Jean Baptiste) Charles Dancla (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ batist ʃaʁl dɑ̃kla]; 19 December 1817 – 10 November 1907) was a French violinist, composer and teacher.

France Clidat (Nantes, 22 November 1932 – Paris, 17 May 2012) was a French pianist renowned for her interpretations of the works of Franz Liszt, a great many of which she recorded, and Erik Satie, whose complete piano works she recorded.

Michel Léon Chapuis (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl ʃapɥi]) (15 January 1930 – 12 November 2017) was a French classical organist and pedagogue. He was especially known as an interpreter of the French and the German Baroque masters and dedicated to historically informed performances.

Jeanne-Marie Darré (30 July 1905 – 26 January 1999) was a French classical pianist. She was known for her lyrical and elegant interpretations of the solo works of Chopin and Liszt, and of the Saint-Saëns Concertos. She was awarded the Légion d'honneur and made a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres.

Adolphe-Léopold Danhauser (26 February 1835 – 9 June 1896) was a French musician, educator, music theorist and composer.

Pierre Léon Marie Fournier (24 June 1906 – 8 January 1986) was a French cellist who was called the "aristocrat of cellists" on account of his elegant musicianship and majestic sound.