Antoine François Marmontel - Nocturne élégant,

Antoine François Marmontel (1816 – 1898) was a French pianist, teacher and musicographer. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1827. His teachers were Pierre Zimmerman in pianoforte, Victor Dourlen in harmony, Jacques Fromental Halévy in fugue and Jean-François Le Sueur in composition. He achieved first prizes in theory of music and piano. In 1837, he became an assistant in theory of music at the Conservatory. In 1848 he succeeded Zimmerman as Professor of Keyboard at the Conservatory, beating his former teacher Charles-Valentin Alkan, and as a consequence derailing the latter’s career. His memoir of his sometime colleague in his book ’Les pianistes célèbres’ is nonetheless one of the most valuable sources for Alkan’s biography. Marmontel achieved renown as an effective and imaginative teacher. He had many pupils including Antoine Simon, Georges Bizet, Vincent d’Indy, Théodore Dubois, Dominique Ducharme, Gustave Gagnon, Ernest Guiraud, Émile Paladilhe, Edward MacDowell, Gabriel Pierné, Paul Rougnon, Paul Wachs, Louis Diémer, Francis Planté, André Wormser, Marguerite Long, Zulema Garcia Olsen and Claude Debussy. Marmontel’s career is marked by a great number of pedagogical works (more than 200 opus numbers) as well as nocturnes, romances and many other pieces. Marmontel’s musicographical works number among the best sources for the history of piano and pianists, particularly for the 19th century. They include his Symphonistes et virtuoses (“Symphonists and Virtuosi“) in 1880; Les Pianistes célèbres (“Famous Pianists“) in 1878; Virtuoses contemporains (“Contemporary Virtuosi“) in 1882; Éléments d’esthétique musicale et considérations sur le beau dans les arts (“Fundamentals of Musical Aesthetics and Thoughts on Beauty in the Fine Arts“) in 1884; and Histoire du piano et de ses origines (“History of the Piano and Its Origins“) in 1885.