Lazare Levy

Lazare Lévy (sometimes seen in a hyphenated version: Lazare-Lévy) (18 January 1882 – 20 September 1964) was an influential French pianist, organist, composer and pedagogue. As a virtuoso pianist he toured throughout Europe, in North Africa, Israel, the Soviet Union and Japan. He taught for many years at the Paris Conservatoire.

Lazare Lévy was born of French parents in Brussels, Belgium. After early lessons with an English piano teacher there, he entered the Paris Conservatoire at age 12 in 1894. The noted pedagogue Louis Diémer supervised the young boy's studies, and Lévy received a Premier Prix in 1898. He also studied harmony with Albert Lavignac and counterpoint with André Gedalge. Among his comrades and early music partners were Alfredo Casella, Alfred Cortot, George Enescu, Pierre Monteux, Maurice Ravel, and Jacques Thibaud.

At age twenty, Lévy made his début récital at the Concerts Colonne, under Édouard Colonne' s own baton, in Schumann's A minor Piano Concerto. In the front row of Lévy's earliest recitals was Camille Saint-Saëns, who considered him to possess "that rare union of technical perfection and musicality."

Lazare Lévy premiered works by French composers of his time, including Paul Dukas and Darius Milhaud. He was also an early champion of Isaac Albéniz, whose "Iberia" (Book I) he played in 1911.

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