Magda Tagliaferro

Which is better? To love or to be loved?
Never one to be satisfied, I have always needed both. (Magda in her Memoirs)

Click here to see Magda's autograph.

My life has all been Love, in the widest sense of the word. Everything I have created within and around me has been created with Love.

Her life

Magdalena Maria Yvonne Tagliaferro was born in Petrópolis, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 19 January, 1893.
Her parents were French. She started studying Music with her father, also a musician and professor of singing and piano, who had studied with Raoul Pugno. Her first public appearance was in São Paulo, in 1902.
When she was 13 she moved to France with her family, due to her father's illness. She was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire and studied with Antonin Marmontel. While still a student at the Conservatoire, her talent called the attention of the director, Gabriel Fauré, who called "la petite brésilienne" to his office and gave her some of his compositions to work on. Less than a year after having joined the Conservatoire, she was awarded the Premier Prix (First Prize) by Saint-Saëns; Albéniz, the Spanish composer, was one of the members of the jury then. She toured some French towns in concerts with Gabriel Fauré, playing his works, including his Ballade for piano and orchestra with Fauré playing the second piano.
After the Conservatoire, she followed her studies with Alfred Cortot, who, she once recalled in a TV interview in Brazil, showed her how to put her fantasy and imagination at her service when playing. She became a friend of the members of the famous Casals-Cortot-Thibaud trio and used to play tennis with them, accompanied Casals and Thibaud in concerts, played under Cortot's baton.
Besides working as a soloist, Magda Tagliaferro had always a strong career in chamber music. The most powerful influence was violinist Jules Boucherit; she also toured twice with Geoge Enescu.
Still a young pianist in the flourishing Paris of the beginning of the century, she played at the famous salon of the Princess of Polignac, where other famous artists like Clara Haskil and Jacques Février also used to play for the Parisian elite. She became very attached to Reynaldo Hahn, Marcel Proust's lover, who dedicated to her his concerto for piano and orchestra; they recorded the work in the 30's.
Her youth in the flamboyant Paris was full of adventure: she recalled as being one of the first women drivers, of singing the part of Love in an open air production of Gluck's Orfeo. Among her recollections were walks with Ravel, always silent most of the time. She also met D'Indy, Poulenc, Milhaud.
She made frequent concert tours in Spain before the Franco regime and was a friend of the Spanish intellectuals and composers. The first world recording of a work by Mompou was made by her and won a Grand Prix du Disque. She also made the first world recording of Fauré's Ballade for piano and orchestra.
Among her friends was pianist Artur Rubinstein; once, she told it in a TV interview and in her memoirs, while they danced in Spain, he said ftattering that he wondered why he had never thought of marrying her but, instantly, said that he knew the reason: they were too much alike!
The Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos dedicated her his Momoprecoce, a fantasy for piano and orchestra; she gave its premiere in Paris in 1929 and later recorded it with Villa-Lobos in the 50's.
She met Prokofieff, according to her memoirs, and he gave her a copy of his newly composed 3rd piano concerto; she missed the chance of being the one to give its European première, but would only actually play it in public in the 50's, in one of her most memorable performances.
Some strain symptoms, according to Magda's information to one of her Brazilian students in Paris, led her to reviewing the classical technical foundation that she had received and to developping what would later be called the "Tagliaferro Technique"; it was based on muscular relaxation, with the elbows playing a very important role in the process of playing. Tagliaferro used to tell her pupils to forget about the hands and think, first of all, that they had elbows when playing. The hand position, with the wrist placed on a straight line with the top of the arm and top of the hand also became known as the "Tagliaferro hand".
Between 1937 and 1939 Magda Tagliaferro taught at the famous Paris Conservatoire.
During the second world war she travelled to the United States, where she played at the Town Hall in New York and at the Carnegie Hall with Barbirolli conducting, but, according to her, the Americans scared her off, when one NY agent said that he could "sell" Magda Tagliaferro for x dollars. She went to Brazil and spent the war years mainly between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, both giving memorable recitals and also teaching and starting her famous public Master Classes, which later would be taken to Europe and even Japan.
In Brazil she created the Tagliaferro School; her assistants trained, under her supervision, a whole new generation of pianists. Her assistants included Nellie Braga, Lina Pires de Campos, Edda Fiore, Maria Eliza Figueiredo, Zulmira Elias José, Georgette Pereira, Menininha Lobo, Helena Plaut.
In 1949 she went back to France and, from then on, her year included her European season of concerts and classes and a three month stay in Brazil, usually from June through August.
In Europe she founded her Parisian school. She was also invited to replace Alfred Cortot at the École Nationale the Musique in Paris, but left it because, in her words, bureaucracy would not fit her temperament. She created the Magda Tagliaferro International Piano Competition, in Paris, where, among the winners, was Cristina Ortiz, also one of her pupils. The Chopin International Piano Competition, in Warsaw, also had Magda Tagliaferro in its jury many times.
She toured, with great success, the eastern european countries; in Moscow the public made her repeat Debussy's Feux d'Artifice.
Magda Tagliaferro made some fine recordings in France, but they never called attention of the great markets outside France and Brazil. She was honored with the Légion d'Honneur in France and the Ordem do Rio Branco in Brazil. Once she gave a lecture in São Paulo, where she spoke in French about Villa-Lobos and in Portuguese about Gabriel Fauré, at the auditorium of the Alliance Française.
She got married twice (once in France and once in Brazil, according to her memoirs) and had no children. In a TV interview she said, with her usual fine sense of humor, that she had had fewer lovers, much less indeed, than some people attributed to her. The memoirs were published in Brazil in 1979 and were called "Quase Tudo" (Just About Everything).
Magda Tagliaferro recorded many times in Brazil, but the instruments and sound conditions were never good enough to give full measure of her real tone and dynamic range. Philips released in Europe a 3-CD album, called Magda Tagliaferro (The Early Years series), where some of her best French recordings are presented with good technical quality.
Harold Schonberg, the New York Times music critic, heard her in Paris during his vacations in Europe and wrote about it in his column, asking why American audiences had never heard Magda Tagliaferro. Immediately American agents contacted her in Paris and a Carnegie Hall recital was scheduled (she was 86 then). Schonberg wrote, about her Carnegie Hall interpretation of Schumann's Carnaval Op. 9: "This listener honestly doesn't remember when he has more enjoyed a Carnaval. In its improvisatory quality, its infallible rhythm and perfect pacings, it was the essence of Schumann."
Already in her 80's, she recorded in Paris an album dedicated to Fauré's works, with her former student Daniel Varsano. They played the four-hand suite Dolly, the Ballade in its two-piano version, and some solo pieces. That recording won her again a Grand Prix du Disque
Her last recital was in 1985. According to recent information, she was practically blind by then, but still managed to walk in and out of the stage all by herself, without letting the audience notice it. She died in Rio in 1986.

Magda Tagliaferro's repertoire was huge. Her favorite composer was Chopin, whose works she included constantly in her recitals. She was a fine interpreter of Schumann, of Spanish composers like Grandados, Albéniz and de Falla, of the French Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc and Fauré and of the Brazilians Villa-Lobos and Camargo Guarnieri.
Her concerts with orchestra included works by Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Liszt, Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Brahms, Ravel, Villa-Lobos, Reynaldo Hahn, d'Indy, Manuel de Falla, Grieg, Prokofieff, Dandelot, Amfitheatrof.
Shortly before her death, a documentary was shot both in Paris and London by François Reichenbach, showing her at home and at her recitals at Salle Gaveau and Wigmore Hall. The documentary was unfinished when she died, but was edited and shown as "Magda Noble et Sentimentale" both in France and in Brazil.
The Magda Tagliaferro Foundation, in São Paulo, keeps a small museum where her pictures, concert programs and records can be seen and many of her live recordings, both on tape and video, are still being kept; the foundation sponsors scholarships for talented young musicians.
Former Tagliaferro Brazilian students include Flavio Varani, Cristina Ortiz, Caio Pagano, Daisy de Luca, Eudóxia de Barros, Isabel Mourão; from other coutries, Pnina Salzman, James Tocco, Daniel Varsano and many more. Most of the Brazilians now playing internationally probably played, or attended at least, her public Master Classes.

Her recordings

In France

H. Villa-Lobos - Momoprecoce for piano and orchestra - Villa-Lobos cond.
R. Hahn - Concerto pour piano et orchestre - Reynaldo Hahn cond.
R. Hahn - Piano Sonatine in C; Les rêveries du Prince Eglantine
C. Saint-Saëns - Concerto nš 5 Op. 103 - Jean Fournet cond.
R. Schumann - Carnival of Vienna Op. 26; Carnival Op. 9; Sonata Op. 11; Romance Op. 28 nš 2
W. A. Mozart - Sonata for keyboard and violin in B flat K 454 - Denise Soriano violin; Alla Turca from piano Sonata K 331; Concerto nš 26 K 537 (Coronation) - Reynaldo Hahn conductor; piano Sonata K 576
M. de Falla - Dance from La Vida Breve; Dance from The Three Cornered Hat
E. Granados - La Maja y el Ruiseñor; Spanish Dances nš 2, 5 and 6
I. Albéniz - Seguidillas; Córdoba; Sevilla; Evocación; Triana
H. Villa-Lobos - Festa no Sertão; Impressões Seresteiras; O Polichinelo
E. Chabrier - Scherzo-Valse; Idylle
D. de Severac - Le retour des Muletiers
C. Saint-Saëns - Etude en Forme de Valse
C. Debussy - Suite Pour le Piano (Prélude; Sarabande; Toccata); Arabesques 1 and 2; L'Isle Joyeuse; Jardins sous la pluie; Clair de lune
G. Fauré - Nocturnes nš 4 Op. 36 and nš 6 Op. 63; Dolly Op. 56 for four hands (with Daniel Varsano); Ballade Op. 19 pour piano et orchestre (Daniel Varsano second piano); Impromtpus nš 2 Op. 31, nš 3 Op. 34 and nš 5 Op. 102
G. Fauré - Andante for violin and piano Op. 75 - Denise Soriano violin; Sonata for violin and piano Op. 13 - Denise Soriano violin
F. Liszt - Liebestraum nš 3; La Leggierezza
F. Chopin - Polonaise nš 1 Op. 26 nš 1; Polonaise nš 2 Op. 26 nš 2; Polonaise-Fantasie Op. 61; Valse nš 5 Op. 42; Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise Brillante Op. 22; Fantaisie-Impromptu Op. 66; Impromptu nš 1 Op. 29
C. M. von Weber - Rondó Brillante Op. 62 (La gaîté)
J. Brahms - Sonata nš 3 Op. 5; Intermezzo Op. 118 nš 2; Capriccio Op. 116 nš 3; Intermezzo Op. 117 nš 2; Capriccio Op. 76 nš 2; Intermezzo Op. 76 nš 4; Rhapsody Op. 79 nš 1
F. Schubert - Sonata in A Major D. 664
F. Mompou - Jeunes Filles au Jardin; La rue, le guitariste et le vieux cheval
F. Mendelssohn - Andante con moto Op. 72 nš 4; Etude Op. 104b nš 2
J. S. Bach-Kreisler - Partita nš 3 BWV 1006 - Prélude - Denise Soriano violin
L. van Beethoven - Sonatas for violin and piano Op. 25 and 47 - Manoug Parikian violin
G. Bizet- Girard - Adagietto (L'Arlésienne) - Denise Soriano violin
D. Paradis-Dushkin - Sicilienne - Denise Soriano violin
F. Schubert - Di Biene Op 13 nš 9 - Denise Soriano violin
N. Porpora-Kreisler - Menuet - Denise Soriano violin
G. Tartini-Salmon - Sonata for violin and piano in C - Denise Soriano violin
J. S. Bach-Saint-Saëns - Sinfonia (Cantata BWV 29)

In Brazil

Live Recordings

G. Fauré - Impromptu nš 2 (1965)
C. Franck - Prelude, Choral and Fugue (1965)
F. Moupou - Jeunes Filles au Jardin (1965)
M. Ravel - Alborada del Gracioso (1955)
C. Debussy - Poissons d'Or (1965)
C. Debussy - Clair de Lune (1955)
C. Debussy - Toccata (1965)
F. Poulenc - Pastourelle (New York Town Hall, April 1, 1940)
F. Poulenc - Toccata (New York Town Hall, April 1, 1940)

In 1997 (actual date the CD was available on the market; release date 1995), a 2-CD album released by FUNARTE and called Piano Brasileiro (Brazilian Piano), featured Magda Tagliaferro playing Villa-Lobos' Impressões Seresteiras, recorded live during a rehearsal in Santos, in 1977.

A new CD was released by ECHO in 1997, with additional live recordings. The album is called A Arte de Magda Tagliaferro. Following the disc, a book called "A Arte de Magda Tagliaferro" was also released; it was written in Japan by Asako Tamura, a former Tagliaferro student in Paris, and contains all the fundamentals and ilustrations about the Tagliaferro technique. (For information on how to buy that CD, try Concerto). The works included in the CD are:

W.A. Mozart - Sonata in D major K 576 (1963)
L. van Beethoven - Sonata Op. 57 "Appassionata" (1964)
F. Chopin - Ballade in F minor Op. 52 (1957)
F. Chopin - Mazurka Op. 24 nš 2 in C major (1957)
F. Chopin - Waltz nš 14 in E minor Op. Posth. (1959)
G. Fauré - Nocturne nš 6 in D flat major (1952)
C. Debussy - Golliwogg's Cake Walk from "Chidren's Corner" (1962)
C. Debussy - Feux d'Artifice (1962)
S. Prokofieff - Sonata nš 3 in A minor Op. 28 (1963)

In November, 2000 a new CD was released by Master Class. It is volume 3 of a series called Great Brazilian Pianists (Grandes Pianistas Brasileiros). According to the notes, the program was a studio recording at Sala Cecília Meireles (Rio de Janeiro) in April, 1970 and hadn't been released yet. It can be ordered at Concerto, MCD, FNAC do Brasil or Saraiva Megastore. The CD includes:

E. Chabrier - Scherzo-Valse
E. Chabrier - Idylle
D. de Séverac - Le Retour des Muletiers (nš 5 from Cerdaña)
R. Hahn - Les Rêveries du Prince Églantine
C. Saint-Saëns - Étude en Forme de Valse
C. Debussy - Suite Pour le Piano (Prélude, Sarabande, Toccata)
C. Debussy - Arabesques nš 1 and nš 2
C. Debussy - L'Isle Joyeuse
G. Fauré - Nocturnes nš 4 Op. 36 and nš 6 Op. 63

Special Acknowledgement - we would like to express our deepest thanks to Mr. Philippe Rougier (Paris, France), who provided us with most valuable information about Magda Tagliaferro's discography, as well as many contributions to her biographical data.