Lucette Descaves

Lucette Descaves (1 April 1906 – 15 April 1993) was a French pianist and teacher, whose pupils included Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Geneviève Joy, Brigitte Engerer, Pascal Rogé, and Katia and Marielle Labèque.

Born in Paris, daughter of the police commissioner Eugène Descaves (brother of the writer Lucien Descaves) and goddaughter of Camille Saint-Saëns, Lucette Descaves studied piano, encouraged by her mother. She entered the Paris Conservatoire while Gabriel Fauré was the director, in the class of Marguerite Long. Having won first prize for piano in 1923, she was herself put in charge of Long's preparatory class (during the Second World War, she taught the young student Michel Legrand, who in 1988 asked her to appear in his autobiographical film Cinq Jours en Juin). Subsequently, she became Yves Nat's teaching assistant. Lucette Descaves was regarded by Marguerite Long as her spiritual heir. In 1941, Descaves was made a piano professor at the Conservatoire.

As a pianist, she has premiered works by Jolivet (ritual dances, 1942 Concerto for piano, 1951) and Rivier (Concerto for Piano, 1954).

Until her retirement from the Conservatoire in 1976, she taught several outstanding pianists, including Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Geneviève Joy, Brigitte Engerer, Pascal Rogé, Katia and Marielle Labèque, and Georges Pludermacher. Upon retirement of the Conservatory, she continued her teaching at the Rueil-Malmaison conservatory, directed by one of her former students, Jacques Taddei. See: List of music students by teacher: C to F#Lucette Descaves.

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