Christian Ferras
Encyclopedia
Christian Ferras was a French violin
ist.
Ferras was born at Le Touquet in 1933. He began studying the violin with his father, who was a pupil of Marcel Chailley. He entered the Conservatoire de Nice
as a student of Charles Bistesi in 1941, and in 1943 obtained the First Prize. In 1944 he went to the Conservatoire de Paris
. In 1946 he won the First Prize in both disciplines (violin and chamber music), and started his performing career with the Pasdeloup Orchestra
under Albert Wolff, and later Paul Paray
. He worked with Romanian violinist and composer George Enescu
, who also acted as an instructor. The Violin Concerto by Federico Elizalde
was premiered by Ginette Neveu
in Paris in 1944, but Christian Ferras gave its London premiere under the direction of Gaston Poulet, in the presence of the composer, and made the world premiere recording on November 7, 1947, when he was aged only 14.
In 1948 Ferras won First Prize at the international Scheveningen Festival; Yehudi Menuhin
was among the judges. He premiered Arthur Honegger
's Sonata
for Solo Violin in the Salle Gaveau
on November 16, 1948. In 1949, Ferras won the second prize (the first prize was not awarded) in the international Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition
. It was there that he met Pierre Barbizet, with whom he formed one of the most famous partnerships in the history of piano-violin collaboration. In 1950 he, along with Jean-Pierre Rampal
and George Enescu, recorded various works by J.S. Bach
. It was at this point that his career took off when he was invited by Karl Böhm
to play with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1951. He subsequently gave a series of concerts in, amongst other places, Japan
and South America
.
In 1952, he premiered both Claude Pascal's violin sonata and, with Pierre Barbizet, Ivan Semenoff's Double Concerto. In 1954, he recorded Brahms
's Violin Concerto
with Carl Schuricht
. This was his first recording that can be said to have been a veritable success. 1959 was a year in which Ferras rose to real prominence: he began his career in the United States
by playing Brahms's concerto under Charles Munch
; recorded Bach's Double Concerto with Yehudi Menuhin; played at the Prades Festival with Pablo Casals
and Wilhelm Kempff
; and premiered Gyula Bando's Violin Concerto. In 1960 he premiered Serge Nigg
's Concerto, which the composer is said to have written "for the violin and not without the violin".
Ferras then made many recordings with EMI, including
He went on in 1964 to record the Brahms Concerto with Herbert von Karajan
under the Deutsche Grammophon
label, and then the concertos of Sibelius
, Tchaikovsky
, Beethoven and Bach, which are the recordings for which he is most admired. He continued to make recordings with Deutsche Grammophon: with Barbizet, the violin sonatas of Brahms, Schumann
, Franck
and Lekeu
; and also a disc with Jean-Claude Ambrosini at the piano.
Please refer to the French Wikipedia page for a list of Ferras' commercially available recordings.
In 1975, he was awarded recognition by the Conservatoire de Paris for his works, and retired from regular public performance for health reasons. He returned to playing in Paris on March 9, 1982 with Alain Lefèvre
and then on May 6 with Pierre Barbizet. He gave his last concert in Vichy
on August 25, 1982.
Christian Ferras struggled with severe lifelong depression. He committed suicide
in Paris on September 14, 1982.
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist.
Ferras was born at Le Touquet in 1933. He began studying the violin with his father, who was a pupil of Marcel Chailley. He entered the Conservatoire de Nice
Conservatory of Nice
The Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Nice is the regional music and dance conservatory for Nice, founded in 1916.-Alumni:* Maurice Jaubert composer of film music.* Claude Bolling, French jazz pianist....
as a student of Charles Bistesi in 1941, and in 1943 obtained the First Prize. In 1944 he went to the Conservatoire de Paris
Conservatoire de Paris
The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...
. In 1946 he won the First Prize in both disciplines (violin and chamber music), and started his performing career with the Pasdeloup Orchestra
Pasdeloup Orchestra
The Pasdeloup Orchestra is the oldest symphony orchestra in France.-History:Founded in 1861 by Jules Pasdeloup with the name Concerts Populaires, it is the oldest orchestra still in existence in Paris...
under Albert Wolff, and later Paul Paray
Paul Paray
Paul Paray was a French conductor, organist and composer. He is best remembered in the United States for being the resident conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for more than a decade. He married Yolande Falck on 25 August 1944.-Biography:Paray's father, Auguste, was a sculptor and organist...
. He worked with Romanian violinist and composer George Enescu
George Enescu
George Enescu was a Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher.-Biography:Enescu was born in the village of Liveni , Dorohoi County at the time, today Botoşani County. He showed musical talent from early in his childhood. A child prodigy, Enescu created his first musical...
, who also acted as an instructor. The Violin Concerto by Federico Elizalde
Fred Elizalde
Federico "Fred" Elizalde was a Philippines-born Spanish classical and jazz pianist, composer, conductor, and bandleader.-Biography:...
was premiered by Ginette Neveu
Ginette Neveu
Ginette Neveu was a French violinist.-Biography:Born in Paris into a musical family, Ginette Neveu became a violinist and her brother Jean-Paul Neveu a classical pianist. She was also the grandniece of composer Charles-Marie Widor...
in Paris in 1944, but Christian Ferras gave its London premiere under the direction of Gaston Poulet, in the presence of the composer, and made the world premiere recording on November 7, 1947, when he was aged only 14.
In 1948 Ferras won First Prize at the international Scheveningen Festival; Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
was among the judges. He premiered Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...
's Sonata
Sonata
Sonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...
for Solo Violin in the Salle Gaveau
Gaveau
Gaveau of Paris was a French piano manufacturer. The company was established by Joseph Gabriel Gaveau in 1847 in Paris and used to be one of the three largest piano makers in France . A large factory was located at Fontenay-sous-Bois....
on November 16, 1948. In 1949, Ferras won the second prize (the first prize was not awarded) in the international Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition
Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition
The Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition is an international classical music competition for pianists and violinists that has operated in France since 1943. It was created by the pianist Marguerite Long and the violinist Jacques Thibaud...
. It was there that he met Pierre Barbizet, with whom he formed one of the most famous partnerships in the history of piano-violin collaboration. In 1950 he, along with Jean-Pierre Rampal
Jean-Pierre Rampal
Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal was a French flautist. He has been personally "credited with returning to the flute the popularity as a solo classical instrument it had not held since the 18th century."-Early years:...
and George Enescu, recorded various works by J.S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
. It was at this point that his career took off when he was invited by Karl Böhm
Karl Böhm
Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...
to play with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1951. He subsequently gave a series of concerts in, amongst other places, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
.
In 1952, he premiered both Claude Pascal's violin sonata and, with Pierre Barbizet, Ivan Semenoff's Double Concerto. In 1954, he recorded Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
's Violin Concerto
Violin Concerto (Brahms)
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 is a violin concerto in three movements composed by Johannes Brahms in 1878 and dedicated to his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim...
with Carl Schuricht
Carl Schuricht
Carl Adolph Schuricht was a German conductor.Schuricht was born in Danzig , German Empire; his father's family had been respected organ-builders. His mother, Amanda Wusinowska, a widow soon after her marriage , brought up her son alone...
. This was his first recording that can be said to have been a veritable success. 1959 was a year in which Ferras rose to real prominence: he began his career in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by playing Brahms's concerto under Charles Munch
Charles Munch
Charles Munch may refer to:*Charles Munch , American artist*Charles Munch , orchestral conductorSee also:*Charles Munch discography, recordings of Munch, the conductor...
; recorded Bach's Double Concerto with Yehudi Menuhin; played at the Prades Festival with Pablo Casals
Pablo Casals
Pau Casals i Defilló , known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time...
and Wilhelm Kempff
Wilhelm Kempff
Wilhelm Walter Friedrich Kempff was a German pianist and composer. Although his repertory included Bach, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms, Kempff was particularly well-known for his interpretations of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert, both of whose complete sonatas he also...
; and premiered Gyula Bando's Violin Concerto. In 1960 he premiered Serge Nigg
Serge Nigg
-Biography:After initial studies with Ginette Martenot, Nigg entered the Paris Conservatory in 1941 and studied harmony with Olivier Messiaen and counterpoint with Simone Plé-Caussade. In 1945, he met René Leibowitz, who introduced him to the twelve-tone technique of composition...
's Concerto, which the composer is said to have written "for the violin and not without the violin".
Ferras then made many recordings with EMI, including
- BeethovenLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's sonatas for piano and violin with Pierre Barbizet (1958) - BergAlban BergAlban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
's chamber concerto and his Violin ConcertoViolin Concerto (Berg)Alban Berg's Violin Concerto was written in 1935 . It is probably Berg's best-known and most frequently performed instrumental piece.-Conception and composition:...
'to the memory of an angel'.
He went on in 1964 to record the Brahms Concerto with Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
under the Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
label, and then the concertos of Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
, Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
, Beethoven and Bach, which are the recordings for which he is most admired. He continued to make recordings with Deutsche Grammophon: with Barbizet, the violin sonatas of Brahms, Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
and Lekeu
Guillaume Lekeu
Guillaume Lekeu was a Belgian composer of classical music.- Life :Lekeu, who was born in Verviers, Belgium, took his first lessons at the conservatoire in that city. In 1879, his parents moved to Poitiers, France. There, he finished school while he continued his music studies autodidactically...
; and also a disc with Jean-Claude Ambrosini at the piano.
Please refer to the French Wikipedia page for a list of Ferras' commercially available recordings.
In 1975, he was awarded recognition by the Conservatoire de Paris for his works, and retired from regular public performance for health reasons. He returned to playing in Paris on March 9, 1982 with Alain Lefèvre
Alain Lefèvre
Alain Lefèvre, CQ is a Quebecois pianist and composer. He is one of the Québécois pianists who have sold the greatest number of musical recordings.In 2009, he was made a Knight of the National Order of Quebec....
and then on May 6 with Pierre Barbizet. He gave his last concert in Vichy
Vichy
Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...
on August 25, 1982.
Christian Ferras struggled with severe lifelong depression. He committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
in Paris on September 14, 1982.