Biography (read more)
Cyprien Katsaris was born in Marseille on 5 May 1951 to Greek-Cypriot parents and grew up in Douala, Cameroon, beginning the piano at four. At the Paris Conservatoire he studied with Aline van Barentzen — a pupil of Alkan’s son Élie-Miriam Delaborde — and Monique de la Bruchollerie, whose line runs through Emil von Sauer back to Liszt himself.
Katsaris is the modern standard-bearer of the transcription tradition: his recordings of the Liszt arrangements of the Beethoven symphonies remain a summit of the discography, delivered with a command of inner voicing that makes an orchestra audible in two hands. His vast recorded repertoire, much of it on his own Piano 21 label, keeps alive precisely the virtuoso literature this site’s comparisons need a yardstick for.
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