Biography
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Born
17 June 1933
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Born In
Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, Pas-de-Calais, Hauts-de-France, France
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Died
14 September 1982 (aged 49)
Christian Ferras (1933 - 1982) was a French violinist. He began studying the violin with his father, who was a pupil of Marcel Chailley. He entered the Conservatoire de Nice as a student of Charles Bistesi in 1941, and in 1943 obtained the First Prize. In 1944 he went to the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1946 he won the First Prize in the both disciplines (violin and chamber music), and started his performing career with the Pasdeloup orchestra under the conductor Albert Wolff, and later Paul Paray. He worked with Romanian violinist and composer George Enescu, who also acted as an instructor. Ferras created the Federico Elizalde concerto, under the direction of Gaston Poulet.
In 1948 Ferras won First Prize at the international Scheveningen contest; Yehudi Menuhin was amongst the judges. In 1949 Ferras won the second prize in the international Long-Thibaud competition. It was at this contest that he met Pierre Barbizet, with whom he formed one of the most famous partnerships in the history of piano-violin collaboration. In 1950 he, along with Jean-Pierre Rampal and George Enescu, recorded various works by Bach. It was at this point that his career took off when he was invited by Karl Böhm to play with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1951.
In 1954 he recorded Brahms' concerto with Karl Schuricht; it was his first recording which can be said to have been a veritable success. 1959 was a year in which Ferras rose to real prominence: he began his career in the USA by playing Brahms' concerto under Charles Munch; recorded Bach's double concerto with Yehudi Menuhin; played at the Prades festival with Pablo Casals and Wilhelm Kempff; and premiered Gyula Bando's violin concerto.
Ferras then made many recordings with EMI, including Beethoven's sonatas for piano and violin with Barbizet (1958) Berg's chamber concerto and his Violin Concerto, à la mémoire d'un ange ('to the memory of an angel'). He went on in 1964 to record Brahms' violin concerto with Herbert von Karajan under the Deutsche Grammophon label, and then the violin concerti of Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Bach, which are the recordings for which he is most admired.
In 1975 he was awarded recognition by the Conservatoire de Paris for his works, and retired from regular public performance for health reasons. He returned to playing in Paris on March 9 1982 with Alain Lefèvre and then on May 6 with Pierre Barbizet. He gave his last concert in Vichy on August 25 1982.
In spite of the beautiful music he produced from his instrument, Christian Ferras struggled with severe lifelong depression. The illustrious career of this distinguished violinist came to a tragic end when he committed suicide on September 14 1982.
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