Élie-Miriam Delaborde

Élie-Miriam Delaborde, born Eraïm-Miriam Delaborde, (7 February 1839 – 9 December 1913) was a French pianist and composer. He was also renowned as a player of the pedal piano.

His birth was registered under the name of his mother Lina Eraïm Miriam, aged 38, of Nantes, and an unnamed father. Delaborde was generally believed to be the illegitimate son of the composer and pianist Charles-Valentin Alkan and one of his high-class married pupils. Delaborde was the maiden name of Antoinette, mother of George Sand, the author and sometime lover of Alkan's friend Frédéric Chopin, and some writers have seen some significance in this. Alkan's withdrawal from public life coincided with the birth and upbringing of Delaborde. It was claimed that the pianist Isidor Philipp averred that Delaborde detested his father, but this seems doubtful as Delaborde played Alkan's music and edited his works.

He was a pupil of Alkan, Ignaz Moscheles and Adolf von Henselt. He made successful tours of England, Germany and Russia, and travelled with Henri Vieuxtemps and Henryk Wieniawski. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, he escaped from France to London with his 121 parrots and cockatoos. He also shared his rooms with two apes, one of which he named Isadora, in honour of Isidor Philipp. In 1873 he was appointed professor at the Paris Conservatoire, where his pupils included Olga Samaroff (one-time wife of Leopold Stokowski) and Marie Poitevin, the first performer of César Franck's Prelude, Chorale and Fugue in 1885. Other pupils were Carrier-Belleuse, Loire, Lefour, Haincelain and Van Barentzen.

...
Wikipedia