Isidor Philipp - Biography

Biography

Isidor Philipp studied piano under Georges Mathias (a pupil of Frédéric Chopin and Friedrich Kalkbrenner) at the Conservatoire de Paris and won First Prize in piano performance in 1883. Other teachers included Camille Saint-Saëns, Stephen Heller (a pupil of Carl Czerny, one of Beethoven's students) and Theodore Ritter (a pupil of Franz Liszt). At the Conservatoire, he met fellow student Claude Debussy. They remained lifelong friends, and Philipp often played his compositions. After Debussy's death, Philipp was regarded as the leading authority on his piano music. After graduating from the Conservatoire, Philipp commenced a career which took him to various European countries, and he was a regular performer at the Colonne, Lamoureux and Conservatoire concerts in Paris. He was able to hear concerts, recitals or master classes by many of the leading pianists of the day, including Liszt and Anton Rubinstein.

In 1890, Philipp formed a trio with Loeb and Bertelier which toured for about a decade. He revived the Société des Instruments à Vent from 1896 to 1901. However, he eventually curtailed his concertizing, as he found lasting satisfaction in teaching. He returned to the Conservatoire de Paris, where he was a pre-eminent professor of piano from 1893 to 1934, one of the youngest ever appointed to that institution. From 1921 to 1933, Philipp was also the head of the piano section at the American Conservatory of Fontainebleau, which became famous for starting the careers of many notable American composers. His home in Paris contained many ancient and unusual instruments and other musical artifacts. When the Nazis entered Paris in World War II and Philipp fled to the United States in 1940, the Nazis confiscated the contents of his apartment. During the war, he taught piano in New York and at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal. While he was in New York, he gave recitals with the violinist John Corigliano, Sr. (Corigliano was the longtime concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic). After the war, he spent the rest of his life between New York and Paris.

Philipp married once but he obtained a divorce shortly afterwards.

On 20 March 1955, aged 91, he played the piano part in both Saint-Saëns' D minor Sonata and César Franck's Violin Sonata in New York, returning to Paris a year later. He gave his farewell recital at the age of 92, in Paris. He died there in 1958 after a fall on the Paris metro. He is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.