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Ricardo Viñes
(February 5, 1875 - April 29, 1943) Spain

Ricardo Viñes

Pianist, composer

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Ricardo Viñes, born in Lérida, Catalonia, was well known for his exceptional technique, his large repertoire, and his affinity for the music of his time. After a period of study with pianist Juan B. Pujol in Barcelona, Viñes went to Paris in 1887. With the exception of his several concert tours throughout Europe and South America, Viñes remained in Paris for most of his life.

Viñes enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire, from 1889 onwards. There he studied piano with Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, as well as composition and harmony with Benjamin Godard and Albert Lavignac. Amongst his classmates was the composer Maurice Ravel, with whom Viñes developed a close social and professional relationship. Viñes also became acquainted with composer Claude Debussy and premiered almost every piano work written by the two composers during the first decade of the twentieth century.

He introduced Ravel to the works of many writers who were to be influential upon the composer, including Baudelaire, Verlaine, Mallarmé, Poe, and Huysmans. He gave the first performances of Menuet antique (1898), of Jeux d'eau and the Pavane (1902), of Miroirs (1906), and of Gaspard de la nuit (1909). Friendship did not keep Ravel from criticising Viñes's playing of this last work, but Ravel dedicated to him the Menuet antique, and also the movement Oiseaux tristes in Miroirs.

The relationship of Viñes, a fellow dandy and bachelor, with Ravel was very close, but it is not certain whether their friendships was sexual.

Viñes became known as a champion of new music, particularly that from the French-Spanish school of his contemporaries. In addition to Ravel and Debussy, he premiered works by Manuel de Falla, Isaac Albéniz, Déodat de Séverac and Erik Satie, as well as later composers Darius Milhaud, Oliver Messiaen, Daniel Lesur, and his most famous student, Francis Poulenc. Many new Russian works were also given first French performances by Viñes.

Two Hommages - one to Satie and one to Séverac - are the best known of Viñes's few compositions. He contributed several articles on Spanish music to French and Spanish publications, and kept an informative journal covering performance practices of his day. Viñes died in Barcelona.

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