Thierry de Brunhoff


Thierry de Brunhoff is a French pianist and Benedictine monk.

Biography

Thierry de Brunhoff is the son of Jean and Cécile de Brunhoff, creators of Babar the elephant, and younger brother of Laurent de Brunhoff.
He started taking piano lessons from Alfred Cortot at the age of 11. It is the personality which will have the greatest musical influence on him, as he testified several times: Thereafter, he also followed the teaching of Edwin Fischer, before becoming himself a teacher at the École normale de musique de Paris for over ten years. Among his students was Hüseyin Sermet.
He is particularly known for his interpretations of Chopin and Schumann, but his repertoire is very broad, from Beethoven to Debussy and Ravel, through Carl Maria von Weber, whose ostracism Brunhoff regrets, even the condescension with which he would be treated by musicians.
His preference, however, goes to Chopin, whom he praises in these terms:
In 1974, he retired as a monk to the in the Tarn department and became Brother Thierry Jean. In this regard, he declared in 2004 in a letter to Rodolphe Bruneau-Boulmier:
He was also a huge fan of Maria Callas.
Pianist and radio producer Philippe Cassard has devoted several series of programs to Thierry de Brunhoff on France Musique between 2008 and 2015.

Discography

In 2004, EMI Classics published a double record in the series "Les Rarissimes", with interpretations of works by Chopin, Weber and Schumann, revealing this pianist who was almost forgotten at the time.