Marguerite Long play Ravel - Piano Concerto - 1932

Marguerite Long was born in Nîmes on November 13, 1874. She is the daughter of Pierre Long and Anna Théron. His older sister, Claire, was appointed piano teacher at the Conservatory of Nîmes at the age of 17. Théodore Dubois, professor at the Paris Conservatory, noticed her during one of his tours at the Nîmes Conservatory, when she was only 12 years old. Thanks to him, she will be admitted to the Paris Conservatory. After having obtained a first piano prize at the age of fifteen, she became a pupil of Antoine-François Marmontel. On February 28, 1893, she made her concert debut in Paris, aged 19. However, her career was slowed down by the lack of taste in musical circles at the time for virtuoso soloists and by social prejudices which denied women any creative capacity. She did not perform again in public until 1903, at the Concerts Lamoureux. In 1906, she married the musicologist Joseph de Marliave in Paris, known in particular for his work on Beethoven’s quartets, he was very close to Gabriel Fauré who introduced Marguerite into the world of the famous “French music of the beginning of the century“. In 1914, her husband was killed in the war, she wanted to stop all musical career, but Claude Debussy put her back on the piano, offering to work directly with him. It will therefore be an important repository of the work of Debussy. She died on February 13, 1966 at her home in the 17th arrondissement of Paris and is buried in the Saint-Baudile cemetery in Nîmes.