Ricard Viñes

Ricard Viñes studied at Conservatoire de Paris. Training under Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, Benjamin Godard and Albert Lavignac is recorded. Francis Poulenc, Joaquín Nin-Culmell and Marcelle Meyer are recorded as having studied under Ricard Viñes. The recorded working language is Catalan, Spanish and French. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are classical. Distinctions recorded are Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.

• Name — Ricardo Viñes y Roda • Birth Name — Ricardo Viñes y Roda (Spanish) Ricard Viñes i Roda (Catalan) • Born — YYYY MM DD • Birthplace — Lleida, Spain • Died — 29 April 1943 • Genre — Impressionism • Instrument — Piano • Years Active — 1895-1943

Viñes was born in Lleida, Spain. He studied the piano at the Paris Conservatoire under Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, and composition and harmony with Benjamin Godard and Albert Lavignac. In 1895 Viñes made his début at the Salle Pleyel, Paris. From 1900 he had an international career, touring in Russia and throughout Europe and South America. Between 1930 and 1936 he lived in Argentina, returning to Paris in 1936. In Paris, he resumed a high-intensity schedule, introducing the work of the younger generation of French composers, such as Germaine Tailleferre and René Leibowitz, among others. In 1940, he settled in Barcelona after a tour of Spain, but the Second World War and the German occupation of Paris prevented him from returning to the French capital, leaving him isolated from the musical circuit and living a very precarious life, sustained by the few concerts he could give in a post-war country, supplemented by lessons and bolstered by the help of his friends. According to Charles Timbrell and Esperanza Berrocal in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Viñes's keyboard technique was magnificent and his repertoire extensive. In addition to the established classics he championed new works by the many composers of whom he was a close friend. They included Ravel, Debussy, Satie, Falla, Granados, Albéniz and Déodat de Séverac. He was also a proponent of Russian music, and introduced France to pieces by Mussorgsky (Pictures at an Exhibition), Balakirev (Islamey) and Prokofiev (Sarcasmes). Grove lists among the many works dedicated to him Ravel's Oiseaux tristes, Debussy's Poissons d’or and Falla's Noches en los jardines de España.José Cubiles was chosen as soloist for the 1916 premiere of the Falla piece in Madrid, but Viñes played it at its first performance outside Madrid, in San Sebastián, shortly afterwards. Viñes composed a small number of works, the best known of which are the two Hommages, for Séverac and Satie. He also wrote several articles, mostly on Spanish music, and his diaries are much quoted by biographers of his musical contemporaries. His piano students included Marcelle Meyer, Joaquín Nin-Culmell, Léo-Pol Morin and Francis Poulenc. Poulenc later said of his teacher: Viñes died in Barcelona at the age of 68. He was unmarried. An annual International piano competition "Ricard Viñes" has been held since 1995 in his birth town Lleida. The city council named one of the city's most popular squares the "Plaça Ricard Vinyes", and the main room of the Llotja de Lleida theatre and congress centre (opened in 2010) is also named after him.