Michel Dalberto

A prolific pianist and recording artist, Michel Dalberto has concentrated chiefly on repertory outside the French tradition and produced a comprehensive survey of Schubert’s piano output. He maintains an active parallel career as a vocal accompanist while serving as a respected teacher.

Born in Paris on June 2, 1955, into a non-musical household, Dalberto began piano lessons at the age of three. In 1969 he joined Vlado Perlemuter’s class at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he remained for nine years; he also worked with Nikita Magaloff and Jean Hubeau. International recognition arrived through major British competitions: he captured the Clara Haskil Competition in 1975 and, three years later, the first prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition. In the Leeds final he performed a Mozart concerto, the first time any winner of the top award had chosen to do so, and he deliberately refrained from forging an association with French repertoire from the outset. Dalberto made his first recording in 1980 for Erato, an album of Beethoven sonatas, followed in 1981 by a Mozart concerto disc; in 1983 he accompanied soprano Jessye Norman on a release of Chausson songs. He returned to Erato in 1988 for Schumann’s Kreisleriana, Op. 16, then moved to Denon the next year for Schubert sonatas, remaining with that label for much of his early career.

Already an established recitalist and concerto soloist who had performed in leading cities of Western Europe and North America, Dalberto devoted much of his recording activity in the 1980s and 1990s to a fourteen-volume complete edition of Schubert’s piano music. Between 1990 and 2005 he also acted as artistic advisor to the Les Arcs Academy-Festival in Bourg Saint-Maurice, France. Equally prominent as a soloist and collaborative pianist, he has partnered soprano Barbara Hendricks and numerous instrumentalists in chamber settings in addition to Norman. Dalberto joined the BMG/RCA roster in 1997 and issued a recording of Debussy’s Images and Préludes, one of his rare forays into French repertoire. He joined the faculty of the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) in 2011. In recent decades he has recorded for RCA, Erato, and La Dolce Volta; the last of these issued a 2024 album featuring works by Berg, Brahms, Poulenc, and Schumann with clarinetist Michel Portal. His discography now exceeds fifty releases.