Imogen Cooper - 2025

‘Imogen is one of the greatest musicians England has produced. She's utterly without show. Mozart, Schumann and Schubert could have been written for her. There's a poetic, reflective side to her which is always there in her playing. It isn't Imogen's style to play to the gallery. She's not someone who goes in for fireworks in the rafters. But I can bet you that if I were to ask any orchestral musicians who they rate as one of the best Mozart pianists, three out of four of them will come up with Imogen's name first time around. Orchestral musicians are the toughest critics.' Sir Simon Rattle

Biography

'Since there were no specialist music schools in England at the time, my parents decided I must go either to Paris or to Moscow. Moscow was too remote, so I went to Paris, alone – while they stayed at home with the rest of the family. It was an unconventional decision and caused a furore in the English musical establishment. I had to audition for the great French pianist friend of Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc, Jacques Février, which was unnerving for an 11 year old. He said to my parents, "She has a lot to learn but she already has what I cannot teach her”. I lived in a hostel and was taken to the Conservatoire every day by nuns. I came back to London for the holidays, but I was a little French girl. I didn't speak English that well, it was full of Gallicisms. But I loved Paris, and my main teachers, Février and Yvonne Lefébure, made a big mark on my young mind. Six years later the Conservatoire awarded me a Premier Prix de Piano. Back in London I played to Arthur Rubinstein and Clifford Curzon who were inspirational, and in 1969 I won the London Mozart Players' Mozart Memorial Prize. Mozart has remained a great love and he has a special place
in my heart.‘

‘Soon after my return to London I heard Alfred Brendel playing Schubert and Chopin at the Austrian Institute. It was fascinating. I went up to him afterwards and said, “I must work with you or I'll die”. He answered, “Why don’t you live and come to Vienna?” The experience changed my life. He gave me time without parameters, we would work for hours on end, then we would sit down and listen to Furtwängler, Fischer, Cortot, the Busch Quartet, Kempff, Lotte Lehmann . . . It was an education, and an enriching experience. He was absolutely uncompromising about how he felt things should be, but also completely convincing, articulate and eloquent. It was a privilege and I learned a huge amount from him: how to listen, how to be aware of what I was doing, the meaning and shape of the phrase and not just the notes. It was a seminally important time for me and formed the basis of my adult music-making... read more here at  https://askonasholt.com/artist/imogen-cooper