Francis Planté in 1903.

FRANCIS PLANTÉ

Francis Planté had the longest career in musical history and he was a legend many years
before he died in 1934. * Referring to reports of his passing which the papers periodically
published he, like Mark Twain, would opine, “Accounts of my demise are greatly
exaggerated.” Planté had hardly turned seven when he made his professional debut (a benefit
for a Parisian charity) and by the time he was ten he was already launched in the career of
concert pianist. His tone was always distinctive and it was not long before the expression
“floating tone” was invented to describe it and took its place in musical parlance. Undreamed
of prior to Planté, “floating tone” became an ideal with pianists, teachers, students.
Everywhere. It was supposed to be quite a secret, but Planté did not regard it as such. Indeed,
he tried to teach it (if secret it was) to any and sundry. He had many piano pupils over the
span of his long life, and being the generous person that he was, he was never known to
accept so much as a sou for his inspired and inspiring lessons.
I was thus naturally very interested the day I was lunching with some French musicians
and the talk turned to Planté and his “floating tone,” and when Widor, the veteran French
organist, calmly informed the diners that he, too, “could make tone like Planté’s.” Without
ado, he went to a piano that happened to be in the room, struck a key, and there it was: the
Planté tone! “So you see, Messieurs,” Widor said, “it can be done, but with this difference:
whereas Planté can produce it on the entire keyboard and all the time, I can do it on only one
key at a time and then not always.”
But “floating tone” was not the only peculiarity (sic) that set Planté’s playing apart.
People noted that, while he was performing, he often had a way of talking to his hands, telling
them how beautiful they were, praising them for their response to his every wish, thanking
them for their obedience. “You surely have heard of de Pachmann?” he asked me. “Eh, bien,
did you know that Vladimir, who was quite notorious for that sort of thing, learned it from
me?” Later, when I was visiting with de Pachmann, I asked him, “Is it true?” Nodding
affirmation, he said, “Ich muss admit that c’est vrai.” De Pachmann may never have mixed
his Chopinesque metaphors, but, oh, how he mixed his languages!
Small wonder that a wealth of anecdotes quickly accumulated around Planté. He enjoyed
them thoroughly and never went out of his way to correct them, “Not even when they were
true.” And how the public marveled at his devoting all of his concert earnings to charity, - a
practice he continued up to and including his last concerts. When Planté had come to the point
where he felt assured of financial security for the rest of his life, from that moment on he gave
all of his profits to this or that philanthropy. In fact, it was the charitableness of his heart and
mind that kept him on the platform until nearly age ninety-six! He simply could not resist an
opportunity to contribute towards the relief of a manifest need. In addition to all of which,
when are taken into consideration his zest for life and its foibles, his unfailing sense of humor,
and his contagious bonhomie, - what a loving, loveable man he was.
“And when it came to the ‘unexpected,’“ Vincent D’Indy, French composer- conductor
and head of the Schola Cantorum reminisced to me, “you most certainly could count on
Planté. I admired him greatly and a number of times conducted concertos for him, though I
must confess that I was always a bit nervous when I worked with him because, as I just said,
Planté delighted in doing the most unpredictable things.”
“For example?” I asked.
“I remember one such occasion,” D’Indy complied, “when I was conducting for him in
Bordeaux. It was a concerto to which someone had appended a long, oh, extremely long,
cadenza. Vous me suivez, n’est-ce pas? Très bien alors, just before the end of the cadenza I
made ready, as the custom is, to signal the orchestra to come in, when, to my and everybody’s
amazement, Planté ignored the signal and repeated the cadenza from first note to last, when
he allowed the orchestra to take over. The performance brought him an ovation. After the
concert - the green room was packed with his admirers - I ever so gently chided Planté for his
petite manque de memoire in the concerto. ‘Lapse of memory,’ he chuckled, ‘who ever heard
such nonsense? I never forget a note, cher ami, which you know as well as I. But the way in
which I played that cadenza was so utterly enchanting, I simply could not resist the
temptation to repeat it!’“
This pianistic paragon was born at Orthez, Lower Pyrenees, France, March 2, 1839. He
died at his country home, Saint Avit, near Mont-de-Marsan, France, at the age of 95. Having
begun a career at seven and continued it to a short time before his passing, it was no doubt the
longest career in the annals of music, - not only impressive for duration, but for Planté’s
uninterrupted services to Music and his fellow men. Useless to enumerate his international
tours, his triumphs in recital, chamber music, concertos. Suffice it to say that, wherever this
“Dean of Pianists” appeared, he upheld the highest principles of personal probity and of the
French keyboard tradition: impeccable technic, formal clarity, exquisite virtuosity, and the art
of creating emotion, instead of merely classifying it, as so many have always done and no
doubt will continue to do.
Planté was also highly respected for his interest in new music. He was one of the first
(after Liszt himself) to play Liszt in public, and consistently kept abreast of the many
generations that came and went in the course of his long life. He continued to learn and
program “modern” music down to his final recitals - Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Poulenc, to
mention a few - and could look back to such “contemporaries” as Berlioz, Rossini,
Mendelssohn, and Debussy, all of whom had showered him with their praise. Trite though it
may sound, Planté is one of the few of whom it can truly be said, “He lived his art.” His
constant endeavor was to live up to his artistic credo (he wrote it off for me in 1926): Le
veritable artiste doit créer le beau pour la seule joie d’embellir le monde! What a yardstick,
and what impetus would be given to Art if music practitioners would start using it!
 The sad part of the Planté story is the Planté discography, which, so far as can presently
be ascertained, consists of only nine Columbia records: all, of course, 78’s. Six are 10”, three
are 12”. The search for Planté records would seem to be practically world-wide, and, who
knows, some may yet come to light? In the meantime, we can be thankful for those we have.
Like many another artist, Planté had a genuine antipathy to recording. The very idea, he
confided, was repugnant to him. Pour faire mon mieux, he needed a live audience. Studio
paraphernalia, studio va et vient, men ordering him to begin, to stop, to replay, and so on,
made him nervous. Consequently, he did not record. Or did he? However that may be, when
listening to the present compilation, it might be well to remember (not that the various
numbers need an apology) that this recording was made under stress and when Planté was
eighty-nine . With your auditory perspective thus adjusted, the music will most certainly come
through, which is, after all - or am I mistaken? - the important consideration.
The specimens of Plantés playing (which Marston has transferred to this CD) were a
result of the two piano recitals that Planté gave in the Modern Cinema, at Mont-de-Marsan,
France, on May 10, 1928. Two programs in one day and by an almost nonagenarian! Both
programs (shown in facsimile) were entirely different, each had different encores, and to each
Planté added different numbers. An addition to the afternoon program was Danse Hongroise
by Brahms; while Rhapsody in C# Minor (Liszt), Spinning Song (Mendelssohn), Romance
and Valse Caprice (Rubinstein), and the A flat Polonaise (Chopin), augmented the evening
list.
Unperturbed and undaunted, Planté faced the intellectual, emotional, and physical
demands of these programs not as a young pianist might, but as a young pianist ought to. That
he had the résistance necessary to the occasion was evident from the fact that he played even
better and more excitingly at the conclusion of the second concert than at the beginning of the
first. “Preparing a concert,” he later told me, “may be fatiguing, but playing the concert rests
me.”
When Planté organized the May 10, 1928 Piano Festival, as he called it, he intended it to
be the celebration of both his 90th birthday and the 83rd anniversary of his career, also his
farewell to the public. On the latter score, however, he was mistaken, for he was heard many
times after the Festival in the French provinces, and always in response to an urge to raise
money for this or that charity, for victims of this or that catastrophe. Not until he was on the
threshold of 95 did he stop.
Nor were the May 10 recitals “free,” as has been variously reported. On the contrary,
they were benefits for the Mont-de-Marsan Maternity Hospital! In a letter to me, dated March
27, 1928, Planté had written: “83 ans de carrière active! Ceci me donne droit à la retraite
définitive, ce qui ne m’empèche pas de préparer pour lere semaine du mois de Mai prochain,
une manifestation pianistique qui sera originale, puisqu’elle se produira 2 fois dans la meme
journée, en matinée et en soirée, avec deux programmes entiérement différents, le tout au
profit d’une grand’oeuvre locale, de Bienfaissance de Mont-de-Marsan: LA MAISON DE
MATERNITÉ. Ce sera probablement mon chant de cygne!” And to think that there are writers
who have insinuated that Planté gave concerts gratis in order to have an audience. Well I
remember how strenuously Planté objected to my doing, when I insisted on paying for my
two tickets.
It was during the morning following the two recitals - Planté urged me to betrès matinal -
that I broached the subject of making some records. In addition to his objections listed above,
he could not see that “there might be the slightest interest in doing anything like that at his
time of life, and if he would consent to make records, he certainly would not go to Paris for
the ordeal,” - which gave me the openings I wanted. “La, mon cher Maitre,” I put in, “vous
trompez, permettez-moi de vous le dire: for you would not only be the first, but no doubt the
only pianist to record at eighty-nine. That in itself, would be more than enough to make the
records unique. And above all,” I insisted, “Posterity will be asking for Planté records. It is
really very easy: if Mohammed objects to coming to the Mountain, eh bien, then let the
Mountain come to Mohammed!” “Peut- etre. Nous verrons,” was all he said.
Planté’s “Nous verrons,” put on end to our record-making discussion but not to my
interest in the project: back in Paris, I at once contacted a friend of mine who had
considerable authority chez Columbia. He was keenly interested in my account of Planté’s
two concerts and agreed that some records might be worthwhile. “Planté,” I assured him,
“would be willing to record provided he did not have to come to Paris for the sessions.” “That
is just the difficulty we are having,” he replied, “he positively refuses to come to Paris. We
contacted him some days ago but he is obdurate. Apparently there is nothing to do about it.”
“Oh, yes, there is,” I said, “take the Studio to him.”
Which they finally did and that is how Planté was induced at long lost to “move into the
groove.” The recording was done in Planté’s country home at St. Avit (not far from Mont-de-
Marsan) and with equipment that well, your guess is as good as mine. Planté’s post-recording
opinion was, “Ca laissait beaucoup à désirer.”
So here you have the memorable nine! After their first issuance, so many admirers sent
Planté letters of appreciation that he was finally convinced that “l’effort valait bien la peine.”
Hoping to follow up the victory, I asked Planté a number of times if he would not consent to
making more records. In a letter to me, under date of June 1, 1929, he wrote: “Mille
remerciements de votre si aimable lettre. Je n’ai pas de projets arretés, et le repos me
l’éclarait. Si je décidais quelque chose, je vous préviendrais aussitot. Fidèles souvenirs pour
vous et votre ami. Votre bien dévoué, Francis Planté. He never again recorded.
Facsimile of the program of 10 May 1928

The Boccherini and Gluck selections are Planté’s own arrangements of these works,
followed by popular pieces by Mendelssohn, of which Planté’s delivery of Spinning Song is
perhaps the outstanding one, - redolent of French esprit and the “tasteful lyricism” mentioned
above. Mendelssohn felt the same way about Planté’s performance of the delightful number.
Then come the Chopin Etudes, each one of which may be allowed to speak for itself. Planté
named the Etudes on the original records: Op. 25 No. 2 was Les Abeille, Op. 25 No. 9 La
Vilanelle, and Op. 10 No. 7 became La Promenade in Auto. “Titles are merely for the purpose
of capturing the imagination of the listener,” he explained, “that is their only object.” If you
listen closely, you will hear Planté’s voice at the end of the C Major Etude, Op. 10, No. 7.
Only one word: “Bien!” One little word, and Planté must have known that he deserved it
many times over; and I feel certain that, when you come to the last note of this record, you
will whisper, as I do every time I play it or part of it, “Bien, cher Maitre, très, très bien!” **
For his renditions of Debussy’s arrangement of À La Fontaine, by Schumann, Planté also
was honored by compliments from the famous Claude de France. The last selection, the
Sérénade de Méphisto, from “La Damnation de Faust,” by Berlioz, similarly won the
approbation of the great Hector himself for Planté’s performance of the charming tidbit.
Irving Schwerké

* Mieczyslaw Horszowski (1892 – 1993) lived for more than two decades after these notes were
written, and ultimately eclipsed Planté as the longest-lived pianist with the longest career.

** Mr. Schwerke was here obviously revising history on behalf of his friend Planté. This is one of the
best-known moments in recorded piano. What the pianist can be heard exclaiming is the word
“Merde!”

IRVING SCHWERKÉ, native of Appleton, Wisconsin (born July 21, 1893) was an
international music and dramatic critic, musician, writer, lecturer, and teacher who
contributed throughout the years to many newspapers and magazines, and to various
encyclopedias. For well-nigh twenty-five years he lived in Paris (he was the Dean of the
writers of The Chicago Daily Tribune, Paris Edition) where his studio was the rendezvous of
musicians, composers, actors, singers, writers, painters, and others gathered inla Ville lumière
from all corners of the world. He escaped from occupied France in late 1941, and from 1942
made his native Appleton his headquarters, where he maintained a successful studio for the
teaching of piano, voice, violin, and music (with assistant teachers) and from whence he
frequently embarked on concert and lecture tours. Student of many of the great European
masters (St. Saëns, Moriz Rosenthal, Ravel, Weingartner, De Falla, Dukas and others) his
engagements took him from one end of Europe to the other, over the USA, West Indies, and
parts of South America and the Orient.
For his propaganda in favor of American music and musicians, and for having organized
the first all-American concert (Paris 1929) and the first all-American music festival (Germany
1931) given in Europe, he was known as “The Ambassador of American Music in Europe.”
He was the author of such books as American Music at Bad-Homburg; Alexander Tansman,
Polish Composer; Views and Interviews and Kings Jazz and David. He was working on
hismemoires in 1969 when he wrote these notes for the International Piano Library LP issue
of the Planté recordings. He was a member of many musical and professional societies
(Société des Gens de Lettres, Paris, for instance) and also recipient of dedications to him of
poems, writings, and compositions, such as Afro-American Symphony by the American
Negro composer William Grant Still, the original MS of which he presented (along with other
MS from his collection) to The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Mr. Schwerké was
thrice honored by the French Government for his services to music and musicians: Officer of
the French Academy (Les Palmes Académiques), Officier de l’Instruction Publique, and
Knight of the Legion of Honor. He died in 1975. His original article has been slightly adapted
for this CD issue.

FRANCIS PLANTÉ

When Francis Planté made these recordings in 1928, he was the last of the great pianists
who could be considered a direct link with the earliest period of piano playing for, although
he had made his debut as a prodigy in Paris in 1846 when Mendelssohn and Chopin were
already nearing the end of their lives and when Liszt had almost finished with his public
career as a virtuoso, the future of piano playing forecast by Chopin’s music and Liszt’s
playing was far from being realized. Tomaschek, Czerny, Wieck and Moscheles were only a
few of the early great pianists and teachers who were still training most of the gifted young
pianists and, in France in particular, of the three noted figures who had shaped the French
school of piano playing, old Louis Adam, its original founder and himself a contemporary of
Clementi and Mozart, had only recently retired from the Paris Conservatory, Zimmerman still
taught there, and Kalkbrenner was still teaching privately.
Zimmerman had also retired by the time Planté entered the conservatory in 1849 and it
was as one of the first (with Bizet) of the many remarkable pianists taught by Zimmerman’s
pupil, Marmontel,
that he - still only eleven years old – won the first prize for piano playing the following
year. He was chosen very soon after by Alard and Franchomme to succeed Alkan as the
pianist in their celebrated chamber concerts and le petit Planté soon became a favorite protegé
of Rossini and the Erards, at whose musicales he met most of the famous pianists and
musicians of the time. It was in Rossini’s home that he played with Liszt some of the latter’s
symphonic poems, in Mme. Erard’s London home that he played with Moscheles, and his
enduring friendships with Liszt, Thalberg and the young Anton Rubinstein began during those
early years.
It is not surprising that the Planté we sense most immediately in his recordings is that
remarkable old man, described so vividly to us by Irving Schwerké, whose irrepressible
vitality and love for the piano and whose generosity of spirit were too great to allow him to
retire into a passive old age. If all we had to remember him by were the remarkable brio with
which Planté - as loathe to abandon his zest for hunting as he was to abandon his piano -
evokes from the Schumann D Minor Romance the excitement of the chase, we would still be
fortunate. But it would be a mistake to overlook the other valuable evidence that Planté’s
records preserve.
Although it seems clear that the acoustic of his home, where the records were made, left
much to conjecture about the particular qualities of tone and touch that so impressed Widor,
Saint-Saëns and others, one has only to note the telling points that Planté often makes in the
bass or inner voices, to understand why it was his playing, rather than that of such equally
brilliant contemporaries as Ravina or Dièmer, that particularly won the esteem of serious
musicians in his time. Nor need we ascribe the moderate tempi of most of the Chopin Etudes
too hastily to his years. If we compare the modest tempo of the ‘Black Keys’ Etude - one of
the finest of the records - with the far from dawdling tempo in Schumann’s F Sharp Major
Romance, we may also recall the statement of that canny observer, William Mason, who
wrote that pianists, by the end of the century, were already playing the fast sections in Chopin
much faster, and the slow sections much slower, than the pianists who had known or heard
Chopin and whom he had heard when he reached Europe shortly after Chopin’s death. Of the
authenticity of one performance there can be no doubt - none who know Plançon’s old record
of the ‘Serenade to Mephisto’ could fail to detect that Plançon and Planté must have derived
from the same source. It is from a work that had its premiere in the same year as Planté’s
debut as a prodigy and the transcription by Redon was a favorite number with his early
audiences.
Although Planté had become in his early youth one of the most admired pianists in
France, he did not begin to extend his career seriously abroad until the late 1860’s, after he
had retired to his home in the south of France for several years of further study. A tour of Italy
(where Thalberg lent him his piano), followed at intervals by tours of Switzerland, Austria,
Germany, Russia (at Rubinstein’s invitation) and other countries of Europe, won him
recognition as sharing, with Saint-Saëns, the foremost position among the French pianists of
the latter half-century and it was Planté, for the beautiful, velvety quality of his tone, who was
more often cited as representing the ideal of French piano playing. In Paris, where he had
resumed his association with Alard and Franchomme, his playing in chamber music was one
of the most highly admired features of the musical life in the 1870’s and he apparently found
few things as congenial as any opportunity to join with his colleagues in works for two
pianos.
In addition to Liszt and Moscheles, he had played often with Saint-Saëns from their
childhood prodigy days, later on we find him playing with Paderewski in the latter’s home in
Morges, and the young Casella, encountering the by-then legendary elder pianist early in this
century, found himself promptly drafted as the partner in Planté’s next concerts. What must
have been one of the most memorable events of Planté’s career took place in Paris, in 1907,
when he was joined by Dièmer, Pugno, Risler and Cortot in a two concert festival of works
for two and three pianos.
The following year, Planté, deeply affected by the sudden death of his wife and perhaps
persuaded by the conventions of the time that it was time to retire, resolved never to play in
public again. He did, in fact, devote the next seven years to his home and his community but
the First World War brought him back again to play over forty war-relief concerts and,
although he never played again in Paris or any other music center after that time, his concerts
for worthy causes continued in the south of France until a year or so before he died in 1934, at
the age of ninety-five. No other great pianist’s career, whether in its length or in its timing,
had come so close to touching on the whole span of piano playing.
Harry L. Anderson

The name HARRY L. ANDERSON (born 1910) is almost legendary to the world’s many
piano-philes and record collectors, not only because he assembled what was probably the
finest collection of piano recordings and historical material relating to pianists and piano
composers that existed in private hands, but also for the fact that he was one of the very first
persons to consider recordings as tools for basic musicological research. Mr. Anderson
contributed articles and discographies to many of the trade journals, and was engaged in work
on his magnum opus, a complete catalogue of all important piano recordings made up to the
invention of the long playing record, when he wrote this article for International Piano
Archives. He died in 1990, and in 1995 his widow Mary Anderson donated his collections to
the International Piano Archives at the University of Maryland. A two compact disc set of rare
selections from his collections entitled “A Multitude of Pianists – Rare recordings from the
Harry L. Anderson Collection” is available from I.P.A.M. See their website
at:www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/IPAM/
 PLANTÉ DISCOGRAPHY

(All recordings made on Planté's own Erard)

MATRIX SELECTION ISSUE
July 3, 1928
WL 1217 SCHUMANN: Romance Op. 28 No. 2, F Sharp Major D 13061
WL 1218 GLUCK-PLANTÉ: Gavotte (fr. 'Iphigenia in Aulis') D 13062
WL 1219 BOCCHERINI-PLANTÉ: Célèbre Menuet D 13062
BERLIOZ-REDON: Sérénade de Mephisto
WL 1220 D 13061
(fr. 'The Damnation of Faust')
WL 1221 MENDELSSOHN: Scherzo, Op. 16 No. 2, E Minor D 13057
WL 1222 LISZT. Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 - Finale Unissued
WL 1223 SCHUMANN: L'Oiseau Prophète, Op. 82 No. 7 Unissued
WL 1224 MENDELSSOHN: Song Without Words, Op. 38 No. 3 Unissued
MENDELSSOHN: Song Without Words, Op. 67 No. 6
WL 1225 D 13057
('Sérénade')
MENDELSSOHN: Song Without Words, Op. 67 No. 4
WL 1226 D 13058
('La Fileuse' - 'Spinning Song')
MENDELSSOHN: Song Without Words, Op. 62 No, 6
WL 1227 D 13058
('Le Printemps' - 'Spring Song')
MENDELSSOHN: Song Without Words, Op. 19 No. 3
WL 1228 D 13059
('La Chasse' - ' Hunting Song')
WLX 506 SCHUMANN: Romance Op. 32 No. 2 ('La Chevauchée') D 15091
WLX 507 UNIDENTIFIED: Hungarian Dance No. 6 Unissued
WLX 508 SCHUMANN: Romance Op. 28 No. I Unissued

MATRIX SELECTION ISSUE

July 4, 1928
WL 1229 CHOPIN: Etude, Op. 25 No. 2 ('Les Abeilles') D 13060
WL 1230 CHOPIN: Etude, Op. 25 No. 9 ('La Vilanelle') D 13059
WL 1231 CHOPIN: Etude, Op. 10 No. 7 ('La Promenade en Auto') D 13060
WLX 509 SCHUMANN-DEBUSSY: A La Fontaine, Op. 85 No. 9 D 15089
WLX 510 WEBER: Sonata No. 2, Op. 39 - Scherzo Unissued
WLX 511 CHOPIN: Etude, Op. 25 No. I ('La Horpe') D 15090
 NEXT NUMBER VACANT - NO TRACE OF RECORDING
WLX 513 CHOPIN: Etude, Op. 10 No. 5 ('Sur Les Touches Noires') D 15090
NEXT NUMBER VACANT - NO TRACE OF RECORDING
WLX 515 CHOPIN: Etude, Op. 10 No. 4 ('Le Torrent') D 15091
WLX 516 CHOPIN: Etude, Op. 25 No. 11 ('La Psaume Pendant La Rafaele') D 15089

All recorded in Planté’s home in Mont-de-Marsan, France. WL Matrix numbers are ten inch, WLX are
twelve inch. Released in France in April 1, 1929. D 13062 and D 15089 were also released somewhat
later in Japan on J 5174 and J 8297. It has been suggested that Planté recorded the Chopin Etudes while
reading his music, a first edition containing many variants from what is accepted as authentic today,
and that can be heard in these recordings.

Reprinted with permission from the International Piano Archive.

NOTE: Silent newsreel footage was taken of Planté making these recordings, which can be
seen on the Wea/Nvc Arts commercial video/DVD, “The Art of Piano – Great Pianists of the
20th Century.”

Francis Planté (1839-1934)

“He was tireless,” recalled Marcel Dupré, composer and organist, of Francis Planté. Even at
age eighty-nine, Planté regaled Dupré and his family with reminiscences, telling their young
daughter how at age seven he had played for a pupil of Haydn. The vigorous ninety-five years
of Planté’s life span a musical arc reaching from Chopin’s pupils and colleagues to Prokofiev,
Milhaud, and Stravinsky. Even his final moments did not lack enthusiasm and spirit. A
relative described him as dying “for his passion” – or rather, the second of his passions:

“One morning at breakfast he saw a woodcock (becasse) pass by, which is a very difficult
bird to hunt as it is so fast and only found at certain times of the year, and moreover, it is
succulent to eat. He went out in his nightshirt to see where the woodcock had gone, to hunt
for it later. He caught a cold and died from pneumonia soon after.”

Planté’s musicianship was appreciated from his debut at seven up to the series of charity
concerts he gave at ninety. He began his lessons in Paris at age four with Mme. de Saint-
Aubert, a Liszt pupil. As he progressed, he was given to Marmontel; a fellow pupil of
Marmontel’s and, later, a colleague, was Bizet, whom Planté came to know well. In July 1850
he received a First Prize at the Paris Conservatory for playing the finale from Thalberg’s
Sonata, Op. 56.

Although Planté knew several Chopin pupils, a far more important link came through two
musicians associated with Chopin – the violinist Alard and the cellist Franchomme; after
Chopin’s death, Alkan was briefly deputized as their accompanist before being replaced, in
January 1854, by Planté, then fourteen. The trio played publicly in 1855, 1856, 1858, 1860,
1872, and 1873, a period during which Planté matured considerably.

Rossini’s wife soon heard Planté and invited him to her home, where she introduced him to
her illustrious husband. Planté so impressed Rossini that he invited him to perform in his
salon, which was frequented by the leading figures of the day, including Alexandre Dumas.
Rossini also expressed enthusiasm for an Ave Maria composed by Planté, and wrote to him in
1866:

“I am calling you on your kind promise to spend a day with me in Passy. I love and appreciate
your fine talent even more with the heart than with the judgement of a master. You possess
that which cannot be acquired: elegance of sentiment and the execution of a consummate
artist. Not everyone should sing (play) [on] this instrument, with which a performer is more
likely to want to impress (stun) listeners than to transport them musically, which is the sole
task of a performer.”

That same year Rossini organized a soirée at which Liszt and Planté performed Liszt’s Les
Preludes and Tasso on two pianos – performances which, for Liszt, “succeeded beyond my
expectation.” The following year, Liszt wrote to Planté from Rome, thanking him for toiling
over his compositions. Planté was very drawn to the two Legends, performing them
frequently, even in his last recitals. When Liszt learned that Planté and Saint-Saëns had
played his Tasso and l’Héroide funèbre on two pianos, he again sent a note of appreciation.
Through Rossini and Liszt, Planté also met the young Wagner.

A late encounter between Planté and Liszt took place at another Paris soirée, and was
described by Planté in a letter to Édouard Ganche (23 December 1929):

“Just as I was to be seated at the piano with Liszt at my side – he asked me to turn the pages –
I saw him place a manuscript several pages long on the music-stand. . . He announced to the
listeners how it came to be written by him for his young friend, the cellist Brandoukov. The
handwriting wasn’t very legible, far from it; this he understood and he hesitated a moment. . .
‘Most certainly’, he said rather loudly, ‘it has too many flats, I don’t see well, and you
(addressing me) here, with your young eyes, go and read the manuscript.’ I didn’t dare refuse
his request and didn’t do so badly in pulling off the accompaniment. Liszt turned to Gounod,
who was at his right, and jotted down: ‘and you see, he didn’t miss a single flat on the music-
stand,’ recalling Mozart to his Sovereign à propos the Don Giovanni Overture.”

J.-P. Nectoux (Fauré, les voix du clair-obscur. Paris, 1990) surmises that Liszt intentionally
and good-naturedly lured Planté by leading him to believe that he would play Chopin’s Cello
Sonata. (The soirée took place on 28 March 1886, four months before Liszt’s death.)

Planté visited London in 1878, where he took part in a recital at the French Embassy, playing
solos and movements of chamber music with an ensemble including the Hungarian violinist
Reményi – this was a common format for concerts in those years – and was a guest of the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Mendelssohn’s second concerto. (Planté was a lifelong
champion of Mendelssohn’s concertos.) That year he also went to Brussels, where he gained
favor with the country’s music-loving monarchs and met Franck and Albeniz, the latter of
whom became a great friend. In 1883, Anton Rubinstein invited him to perform several
concertos under his baton in St. Petersburg. During this period he also gave concerts in
Dresden and possibly other German cities.

Because Planté was the foremost pianist of France after Chopin, he knew all of France’s
composers, from Berlioz to d’Indy. Indeed, in Bordeaux in 1893, Planté performed d’Indy’s
Sur un chant montagnard français (Cévenole) under the composer’s baton, along with the
Beethoven Choral Fantasy and Franck’s Variations Symphoniques. D’Indy’s diaries record
the first time he heard the pianist, then thirty-three (12 May 1872):

“As for Planté, all were aware that he plays admirably, that it is impossible to find a finer
touch, more delicate, more penetrating and accurate, yet I do not see him as a great artist. It’s
all well with his virtuosity and delicatesse romantique, he plays Mendelssohn’s [Songs
without Words] and Chopin to perfection, but as for Beethoven, it’s no use, it just doesn’t go!
He played the final movement of the Sonata in F minor, Op. 57, all with common sense, with
the ritenendo à la Chopin, without the least passion, all like a buttoned-up frock coat from
start to finish, except for the hammered passage at the end, but it certainly isn’t the way
Beethoven ought to be played, at least not how I understand my grand, my immense
Beethoven!”

Another meeting took place in August of 1896, when d’Indy stayed near the Spanish border
with the Duparcs and Planté in a musical household:

“Planté was melting: he sincerely and passionately loves music and we played on two or three
pianos before dinner and afterwards until one in the morning. He will come to meet me in
Bilbao and is enthusiastic for my Symphony which he would like to play everywhere, which
is not to be dismissed because he plays jolly well. He could not have been kinder.”

Two days later (28 August), d’Indy joins Planté in Bilbao:

“As soon as we arrived at the hotel we fell into the arms of Guilmant [organist], Pedrell
[Falla’s teacher], Gailhard, and above all, Planté, whose southern exuberance he hasn’t the
means to restrain while he is there, but, as he is very wrapped up in our music, I believe him
to be an excellent recruit.”

Two days after that, Planté arranged (at his expense) for three pianos and an organ to be
delivered to the Bilbao hotel, where he led the musicians in ensemble playing until two in the
morning, exhausting even the younger d’Indy. The indefatigable Planté even asked d’Indy to
accompany him and Guilmant on an expedition to inspect a new organ at Loyola and stop in
Hendaye, across the border. A farewell banquet for the musicians that lasted until three in the
morning was held on 1 September 1896, at which D’Indy gave a speech and Planté, a recital.
Their paths crossed a few weeks later in Les Faugs, where d’Indy, Guilmant and Paul Vidal
were guests: Planté insisted that they perform Bach [concertos] each day on two and three
pianos.

The following year Planté and d’Indy collaborated publicly for the last time. The organist and
composer Antoine de la Tombelle joined them in a performance of Bach’s Concerto for Three
Pianos, given in Bordeaux in April, 1897. D’Indy:

“Planté was extraordinarily nervous. I don’t know if it was the tempo but I never believed we
would ever start the famous concerto. As soon as he was seated at his piano he got up to
affectionately shake hands with me, then, seated again, he rose to go over and say a few
words to Tombelle, then we finally began before a delighted and absolutely packed hall,
proceeding quite well despite the earlier rehearsal, on to the end, where the enthusiasm was
such that we had to repeat two of the three movements.”

When Planté later gave a Beethoven sonata, d’Indy left to chat with a lady he recognized,
depriving posterity of a progress report on his interpretation.

In semi-retirement, Planté appeared in provincial cities. Alfredo Casella writes:

“In the summer of 1902, I was engaged as solo pianist for the whole season at the Casino in
Dieppe. The orchestra was conducted by Pierre Monteux, who was already demonstrating his
magnificent qualities as musician and director.
“In that season old Francis Planté came to appear as soloist. He was a pianist of a very
aristocratic and worldly type which has completely disappeared today. He was, however, an
extremely able performer. Gifted with a limpid technique, he played a heterogeneous
repertoire with Olympian serenity. He immediately took a strong liking to me, wanted to hear
me play, and from then on wanted me around for the entire duration of his stay. He was a
frightfully crazy old man. He came with an enormous valise full of all kinds of things,
including a collection of twelve toothbrushes, and I had the high honor of carrying this valise
for him. He played a Mozart concerto and one of Saint-Saëns’ with the orchestra, and played
them as a very great master, with an unforgettable perfection of style. Several days later he
wanted me to play with him the Saint-Saëns Scherzo [on this CD with Philipp and
Herrenschmidt] and Caprice Héroique for two pianos, and the rehearsals of this performance
were genial and entertaining. Because of his continual jests, his assurance, and his mania for
talking in public, he somewhat resembled Vladimir de Pachmann, and like him, excelled in
the miniature.” When Pachmann and his wife played together in America in 1890, this
Scherzo was one of the works on their programs.

Planté was also heard in Paris on 20 and 27 April 1902 with Hennebain (flute) and Nadaud
(violin) in Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto.
When the composer Gustave Samazeuilh visited his family in the Gironde, he would stop
over to see Planté at his home in St. Avit. From their earliest encounters, Planté showed great
interest in the young man’s compositions, becoming the first to perform a Suite (in 1902) and,
later, his Violin Sonata, Fantasie Elégiaque, and the Chant de la Mer. Planté meticulously
wrote fingerings into these and all his scores. Samazeuilh wrote of Planté at home:

“Long hours at his Erard grand piano, unraveling new works by Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Vincent
d’Indy, Paul Dukas, Debussy, Ravel, Roger-Ducasse, Schmidt, Roussel, Albeniz, Falla,
Richard Strauss, Balakirev, Prokofiev, etc. Planté asserted himself as an amazing sight-reader,
enthusiastic, avid to share his impressions with casual listeners. . . to delight in, for example,
the sumptuousness of Dukas’ La Peri, or the Daphnis et Chloe of Ravel!

“Following an afternoon spent in this way, it was not unusual for me to accompany him at the
second piano in concertos by Chopin, Schumann, Franck, Fauré, d’Indy. Furthermore, there
were sessions of chamber music with Noëla Cousin, Lucien Capet, André Hekking, Marcel
Darrieux, and the most advanced sonatas, such as those of Darius Milhaud, didn’t terrify him
at all! His curiosity was unceasingly renewed, an incessant effort to penetrate the composers’
intentions, to serve them in piety, to guide the taste of his listeners. One of them asked him
insistently to play a virtuosic piece – I don’t know which – and he answered: ‘Here, my dear
friend, one does not play piano. One makes music!’

“The following years I always found Francis Planté equal to himself – the youngest, most
vibrant of French pianists, and, at the same time, the most sensitive and understanding friend.
His marvellous vitality overcame illnesses, allowing him to face ordeals.” At ninety-two, he
could still play Samazeuilh’s Suite and the Fauré Ballade “with an irresistible verve.”

Planté started organizing concerts to benefit the victims and survivors of the First World War.
He played chamber music on 11 and 12 July 1916, with Hekking and Cousin. Together they
offered Chopin’s Trio, Op. 8, a violin sonata by Saint-Saëns, and Rachmaninoff’s Cello
Sonata. In 1917, another benefit took place in the crypt of Saint-Honoré d’Eylau. Debussy
attended:

“Not wanting to start every letter [to publisher Jacques Durand] with everlasting variations on
‘I’m no better’ and ‘I’m very tired’, may I be allowed to tell you about Francis Planté? He’s
been at Saint Jean-de-Luz these last few days and gave two concerts at the Ch[arles] B[ordes]
Society. He’s prodigious. He played – very well – the Toccata [Pour le Piano] and was
marvellous too in Liszt’s Feux follets. Much less good in Ravel’s Jeux d’eau. This piece’s
butterfly wings can’t support a virtuoso’s weight (or his pedaling, whichever you will.) At the
second concert he’s going to play ‘Reflets dans l’eau’ and ‘Mouvement’ and he’s asked my
advice.”

Planté allowed his legacy to be preserved, in part, on recordings, made at his mountain-top
villa. A silent film scans his expansive property above the town where he also served as
mayor, and offers glimpses of the eighty-nine year old pianist recording Chopin’s Etude Op.
10/7. He is seen, possibly a day later, in the adjacent room where the equipment has been
installed, wearing a smock, at work with the engineers in selecting discs for publication:
several were rejected and one hopes they might survive as test pressings in family archives or
elsewhere. (Planté’s descendants claim his music library was sold off and denied access to his
archive.) His recordings brim with energy, offering a clear and unified conception of each
work, at times suggesting his legendary “floating tone” while simultaneously projecting an
angular sound that seems to have influenced the younger Alfred Cortot, whose touch and
accents impress as being derived, at least in part, from Planté’s playing.

An unprecedented transporting of heavy and sensitive recording equipment from Paris to

Planté’s remote home in the Pyrenees drew attention from French music journals and
newspapers. The critic Emile Vuillermoz wrote an article on the pianist ‘s plans to record at
his house and received the following note (14 April 1928) in reply:

“How can I say, how can I express how deeply I was touched, I should even say moved while
reading the current, August 11th issue of L’Illustration. Really, you overwhelm me! … It is
not a review, or even a biography, but a veritable apotheosis, while my only ambition is
simply that people should say of me: “He was a man of good will and hard work”…

“Your extravagant kindness has not left me without some embarrassment, and I have only one
recourse, to hide behind my piano to preserve my modesty which, because of you, is seriously
in danger!! In this regard, I recall at this moment a naive and charming statement made by
one of my countrymen, a young Seminarian, responding to his Bishop who asked him, as well
as his comrades, what was his best quality. ‘Humility, Monseigneur’, he quickly responded,
‘and that is why I fear no one!’

“Be that as it may, I choose to see in your great forbearance fresh encouragement to prepare
my best for what I call my ‘Swan Song’!.. I am going to give, in my little ville natale of
Orthez, Basses Pyrénées (I am Béarnais by birth) next Saturday, the 22nd of September, a
Festival pianistique in the form of two recitals (in the afternoon and evening) with two
entirely different programs…

“To those who might wish to express their regrets at this end to my very long career, I would
respond: rest assured that I have known some old swans who still sing…

“During my brief visit to Orthez, my grandfather’s house (which has remained in my family)
will be my residence, and I will stay in the room occupied successively by Marshal Soult and
Wellington, after the retreat from Toulouse. (It is, furthermore, the room in which I was born
in 1839.)

“The conclusion of these lines must be for me a debt of gratitude owed to Columbia and its
amiable associates, for it is to them I am indebted for having welcomed you, which vividly
renewed my memories of Paris, when I had the great pleasure of going to see you during the
Great War, alas, of 1914! With all my heart, I am your faithfully devoted, F. P.”

Planté entertained American guests at the time of his farewell recital [see program on the
center pages and back cover]. Marguerite Morgan Wolf left a typescript account of the event:

“It has been our privilege to be able to attend ‘A Day of Music’ by the unbelievably joyous
Francis Planté. Encores were generously added to the printed program [on which she noted
the duration of most works], and at the end of the evening concert no-one wanted to leave.

“The year we heard him I think the concert’s proceeds went to the improvements of the
Market Place – or perhaps new sidewalks.

“The privilege of any music lover has been for years almost like a myth. Mr. Planté as was
Ravel was a small in size person of independent means. He had a gentle way about him like a
country ‘gentilhomme’ who went horseback riding each day as a change from his great love –
music. With my mother, and two sisters we were devoted musicians who were in the vicinity
of Mont-de-Marsan, near St. Avit, when we decided not to miss the annual Music Festival of
which we had heard so much.

“Did anyone ever witness a concert where the applause was discouraged? Mr. Planté had a
tiny bell like a silver half of grapefruit at the end of the keyboard with which he felt so ‘at
home’ that in a gentle yet firm way he rang the bell so that he could play the next number.

“We had the honor and thrill to meet Mr. Planté and as we talked music – one of us asked his
secret ‘supplesse’ [suppleness], and he [replied that he has] lived as he had since childhood.
He won first prize at the age of 11[sic].

“Before the afternoon concert telegrams and messages were read aloud. Paderewski’s wire of
over 100 words, Cortot’s telegram were two of the many tributes which were shared with the
audience which was crowded in the Town Hall. After a musical[e] in our honor a rare smile
lighted the face of A. Brailowsky who told us he was fortunate enough to play for M. Planté
who was so happy to help he wrote an introduction to his friends The Royal Family of
Belgium, real musicians. Alexander Brailowsky went to Bruxelles and the door having been
opened thus A. Brailowsky’s career was launched in a magic way.”

Planté also encouraged and advised the young Clara Sansoni, who had earlier left Turin for
studies in Barcelona with Albeniz; Busoni, Cortot, Diémer, Lazare-Lévy, Long, Loyonnet,
Marguerite de Pachmann, and Viñes were said to also have received hiscouncil.

A final glimpse of Planté comes from Milhaud:

“We stopped at Mont-de-Marsan because I wanted to pay homage to the oldest living French
pianist. It was thrilling to meet one of the greatest virtuosos of the nineteenth century, a living
witness to a period of music so remote from our own. Planté lived on a magnificent estate. In
spite of his great age, he was still very active and year after year indulged in his favorite sport
of hunting. Every morning in bed he had the latest works of contemporary pianoforte music
brought to him, and amused himself by annotating and fingering them. He gave me the
pleasant surprise of hearing him play one of my works, using his own fingering. He was the
very incarnation of a pianist, and especially marvelous interpreting his beloved romantics, for
playing with special qualities of precision, elegance, and subtlety in the use of the pedals are
required. Here his technical mastery was particularly superb. He would comment on them as
he played: ‘Pretty modulation. . . lovely passage. . . Bravo! Bravo! What do you think of this
tune? Adorable!’

“Our parting from him was rather melancholy. With a plaid shawl round his shoulders, he
came as far as the car with us. The sunlight was gliding the trees, whose yellowing leaves
already spoke of autumn.”