Pierre Fournier

Coming from a family with deep military roots, Pierre Léon Marie Fournier entered the world as the son of a general whose wife possessed strong musical leanings and introduced him to piano at an early age. A mild bout of polio struck when he reached nine, leaving his legs too weak for comfortable pedaling at the keyboard, so he shifted his focus to the cello instead. Swift advancement on the new instrument led to his acceptance at the Paris Conservatoire, where Paul Bazelaire and Anton Hekking guided his studies until his graduation in 1924 at seventeen.

The following year he launched his professional life with a solo engagement alongside the Concerts Colonne Orchestra, drawing positive critical response. From that point he built a thriving path as both a touring recitalist and a frequent participant in chamber-music settings, establishing a distinguished presence across Europe. Between 1937 and 1939 he served as director of cello studies at the Ecole Normale.

In 1941 he joined the teaching staff of the Paris Conservatoire, yet wartime conditions halted his concert schedule. Once hostilities ended he returned to the stage and swiftly attained wider renown and international standing; listeners who remembered him from earlier seasons noticed a new depth in his interpretations. Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti, reunited with Fournier during rehearsals for their 1947 Edinburgh Festival performance after more than a decade apart, later recorded that he was “tremendously impressed by the Apollonian beauty and poise that his playing had acquired in the intervening years.” In the same period Szigeti, Fournier, violist William Primrose, and pianist Artur Schnabel formed a piano quartet whose celebrated programs encompassed virtually the entire piano-chamber output of Schubert and Brahms; unfortunately the BBC acetate recordings of those concerts were later lost to deterioration.

Fournier crossed the Atlantic for his initial American tour in 1948, an event heralded in advance by Artur Schnabel among cellists, fellow musicians, and reviewers. Critics in New York and Boston responded with unrestrained enthusiasm. The mounting demands of his concert calendar forced him to relinquish his Conservatoire position; his first Moscow appearance occurred in 1959. Commentator Lev Grinberg observed that his performances stood out for their romantic approach, structural clarity, incisive phrasing, and clean, expansive bowing, all “aimed at revealing the content.”

His repertory stretched from Bach and Boccherini through the Romantics to Debussy, Hindemith, and Prokofiev, and composers including Martinů, Martinon, Martin, Roussel, and Poulenc created pieces expressly for him. Every Friday evening he maintained a private chamber-music session with the celebrated pianist Alfred Cortot, sometimes joined by colleagues such as Jacques Thibaud. In 1953 he was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, advancing to officer rank in 1963.

He withdrew from the concert platform in 1972 and settled in Switzerland, where he conducted master classes while still appearing publicly as late as 1984 at the age of seventy-eight; a London critic that year commended the fluency of his execution and the strength and firmness of his left-hand technique.