Music like Isidor

Isidor Edmond Philipp (first name sometimes spelled Isidore) (2 September 1863 – 20 February 1958) was a French pianist, composer, and pedagogue of Jewish Hungarian descent. He was born in Budapest and died in Paris.

Isidor Philipp studied piano under Georges Mathias (a pupil of Frédéric Chopin and Friedrich Kalkbrenner) at the Conservatoire de Paris and won First Prize in piano performance in 1883. Other teachers included Camille Saint-Saëns, Stephen Heller (a pupil of Carl Czerny, one of Beethoven's students) and Théodore Ritter (a pupil of Franz Liszt). At the Conservatoire, he met fellow student Claude Debussy. They remained lifelong friends, and Philipp often played his compositions. After Debussy's death, Philipp was regarded as the leading authority on his piano music. After graduating from the Conservatoire, Philipp commenced a career which took him to various European countries, and he was a regular performer at the Colonne, Lamoureux and Conservatoire concerts in Paris. He was able to hear concerts, recitals or master classes by many of the leading pianists of the day, including Liszt and Anton Rubinstein. He knew Charles-Valentin Alkan, a close friend of Chopin's, and was a pall-bearer at Alkan's funeral in 1888; he subsequently edited many of Alkan's works for republication.