Yves Nat was a child prodigy, giving his first piano recital at the age of seven. His first lessons were received in his home town of Beziers, and at the age of ten he conducted an orchestral composition of his own. By the age of eleven he knew Bach’s Das wohltemperierte Klavier by heart; he was heard by Faure and Saint-Saens who both insisted that the young Yves attend the Paris Conservatoire. Nat spent some time in Toulouse before reaching Paris. Once there, he joined the piano class of Louis Diemer and won a premier prix for his performance of Liszt’s Mephisto-Waltz No. 1. Nat was fortunate to have important friends, including Debussy, who two years later took him to England to participate in a concert of his works at the Bechstein (later Wigmore) Hall. He accompanied Helena Luquiens in some of Debussy’s songs whilst piano solos were played by Ricardo Vines. Four months later at a concert of the Societe des Concerts Francaise, Vines played Cesar Franck’s Prelude, Choral et Fugue and Chausson’s Piano Quartet whilst Nat again accompanied Luquiens ‘in really sympathetic style’. Nat continued to participate in the programmes of the Societe des Concerts Francaise in London up to the beginning of World War I. At this time he was befriended also by Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaye who introduced him to the chamber music repertoire.

Not until 1934 did Nat appear in London again, and when he did, it was in effect a farewell recital. He played a standard programme of Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue BWV 903, some ‘wellknown’ Chopin, Schumann’s Fantasie in C major Op. 17 and some ‘hackneyed examples’ of Liszt.

During the first two decades of the twentieth century Nat had the life of a touring virtuoso but he retired from the concert stage in 1934 and began teaching at the Paris Conservatoire, remaining there until his death in 1956. Only in 1953, after an absence of nearly twenty years, did Nat return to the concert stage. He gave recitals at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees and the following year gave the first performance of his own Piano Concerto; this was his last appearance in public.

Nat made his first recordings in 1929 for French Columbia. The Danse russe from Stravinsky’s Petrushka is played with great abandon (and some wrong notes) whilst Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 is played with great bravura. He also recorded a piece of his own composition, Pour un petit moujik. During the 1930s Nat recorded Schumann for Columbia: Kinderszenen Op. 15 in 1930, the Piano Concerto Op. 54 with Eugene Bigot in 1933, the first three of the Fantasiestucke Op. 12 in 1937 and the Faschingsschwank aus Wien Op. 26 in 1938. The Intermezzo Op. 117 No. 2 by Brahms was recorded as a filler. The best of these early Schumann recordings is the Faschingsschwank aus Wien Op. 26, but Kinderszenen Op. 15 is spoiled by having nearly all the repeats removed.

In 1942 Nat recorded Cesar Franck’s Variations Symphoniques with the Orchestre de la Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire and Gaston Poulet, and the following year two songs of his own composition with Irene Joachim. With the introduction of the LP record, in 1950 Nat began a series of recordings for Les Discophiles Francais label which continued until his death in 1956. During these last six years he recorded the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, major works of Chopin including a dramatic Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor Op. 35, some Brahms, including an excellent version of the Variations and Fugue on a theme of Handel Op. 24, and Schubert. He also embarked upon recording the complete works of Schumann but at his death had not completed the cycle. These later recordings of Schumann are preferable to his earlier ones; Nat seems to have acquired more maturity in his playing, and displays a deeper understanding of the poetic elements in Schumann’s music.

A French pianist who specialised in the German repertoire, Nat was also a composer whose works include a Piano Concerto (1952), a symphonic poem L’Enfer (1942) a book of preludes and a Sonatina for piano (1920).

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — Jonathan Summers (A–Z of Pianists, Naxos 8.558107–10).