Monique Haas

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Monique Haas (October 20, 1909 - June 9, 1987) was a French pianist.

Born in Paris, she studied at the Conservatoire there with Joseph Morpain and Lazare Lévy, taking a premier prix in 1927. She went on to study with Rudolf Serkin and Robert Casadesus. She was married to the French-Romanian composer Marcel Mihalovici. As a performer she toured all over the world, winning much praise for her performances of 20th-century music.

[edit] Repertoire, recordings

Like many of the French pianists who grew up in the aftermath of the First World War, Monique Haas's repertoire was characterised by an avoidance of romantic composers and a significant representation of French music. Pieces by François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau appeared regularly on her programmes, as well as that of Mozart and Haydn. The music of Schumann was the significant exception to her neglect of romanticism, though she also included Chopin's studies in her repertoire.

However, it was as a performer of twentieth-century French music that Haas is best remembered. Her recordings of Debussy include the comparatively neglected Douze Etudes, which won a Grand Prix du Disque, and the Préludes. She also recorded both of the Ravel concertos, the G major one twice, as well as solo piano music.

She was a noted interpreter of Béla Bartók's music, and narrowly missed giving the world première of his third piano concerto (the honour went to György Sándor, though only by a matter of days). Another non-French composer whose output appealed to her was Hindemith; she made a valuable recording of Hindemith's suite for piano and strings, The Four Temperaments.

[edit] Style

French piano players of Haas's generation were moving away from the facile and often brittle technique associated with Marguerite Long (frequently referred to as the "diggy-diggy-dee" style). Haas combined the cleanness and precision associated with the older school with a warmth of tone colour that reflected the influence of Alfred Cortot. Her unsentimental readings, especially of Debussy and Ravel, give a different view of their music, presenting them as both modern and as inheritors of the tradition of Couperin and the clavencinistes of the 18th century.

Fascinating contrasts can be found between her two recordings of the Ravel concerto in G. The earlier one, made in 1948, makes much of the work's connections with the jazz idiom of the twenties. The later recording, made in 1965, on the other hand, is far more "Mozartean", reflecting Ravel's self-confessed debt to Mozart when he wrote the concerto.