Album Notes

Marin Marie-Martin (1769-1861)

Founder of the French School of Harp, his methods and techniques were used by generations of players and composers. His students included Charles Nicolas Robert Bochsa (1789-1856), who was a professor of harp at London's Royal Academy of Music and Théodore Labarre (1805-1870), who was a professor of harp at the Paris' Conservatoire.

Born in Saint-Jean de Luz, his parents began teaching music to him by the time he was four years old. By seven, he already composed a piano concerto. He traveled to Italy where he studied violin under Nardini, who got to consider him his best student and with whom he made much progress thanks to his great organizational skills. On his return to France, he took harp lessons from Hochbrucker; however, upon realizing that plenty of ideas came to him on their own, he soon decided he would no longer have any other teacher but himself.