Yvonne Loriod was born in Houilles on 20 January 1924, studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Isidor Philipp, Lazare Lévy and Marcel Ciampi, and became Olivier Messiaen’s devoted pupil and, later, his second wife; her sister Jeanne was the great ondes Martenot player. She premiered nearly all of Messiaen’s piano music, taught at the Conservatoire, and died in Saint-Denis on 17 May 2010.

Loriod is the source for Messiaen’s piano music: the Vingt Regards, the Catalogue d’oiseaux and the Turangalîla piano part were written on her hands, and her recordings are the composer-sanctioned text. Every later interpreter on this site is, knowingly or not, in dialogue with her — which makes her rows the fixed star of that repertoire’s comparisons.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_Loriod
• https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q235500