Maurice Gendron born near Nice on 26 December 1920, Gendron was brought up in a poor household by his mother and grandmother, his father having deserted them. He could read music at the age of three and began violin lessons at four with his mother, a professional player in the silent cinema, but he did not get on with the instrument and at five changed to a quarter-sized cello specially made for him.
Gendron entered the Nice Conservatoire at 12, under Jean Mangot, taking a first prize in 1934 for his Dvorak Concerto, and was soon giving local concerts.
In 1938, with the help of his teacher Jean Mangot, who gave him a rail ticket and 1,000 francs, he entered the Paris Conservatoire, in Gerard Hekking's class. All his life Gendron remembered this help from Jean Mangot and later helped pupils when they came long distances to him for study
His Paris "debut" came in 1943 after the Dutch art connoisseur Jan Heyligers heard him practising and invited him to play for a few friends. With Jean Neveu at the piano, he found himself among such luminaries as Francis Poulenc, Georges Auric, Jean Cocteau and Jean Fran�aix, Messiahn.
Gendron's London debut was a more public affair but just as dazzling. On 2 December 1945 he shared the platform of the Wigmore Hall with Pierre Bernac, Poulenc and Benjamin Britten, with whom he played Debussy and Faure. Eight days later he appeared at one of Myra Hess's National Gallery Concerts with Britten and Peter Pears,performing Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata and Faur�s Second Sonata. His reputation with the wider London public was sealed when he gave the first Western performance of Prokofiev's Cello Concerto, Op.58, with the LPO under Walter Susskind. "That's how I began my career," he recalled. "No one wanted to hear Maurice Gendron, but they all wanted to hear Prokofiev!" He was given exclusive rights to the concerto for three years and it made his name.
For his New York debut in January 1958 he chose a memorial concert for Feuermann, playing the Haydn D major and Dvorak Concertos also with Mr. Barzin and the National Orchestral Association. He returned to the US a number of times, scoring a smashing success in an appearance with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic with Schumann's cello concerto in February 1959 and 27 February 1959 together with pianist Philip Entremont.
His friendship with Britten and Pears continued and he appeared at the first Aldeburgh Festival in 1948; but Britten's offer to write a work for him was withdrawn, to Gendron's chagrin, when the composer formed a close artistic relationship with Rostropovich. Even so Gendron played at the festival in 1963 with Britten and Menuhin. Gendron gave another recital with Britten that included the Arpeggione sonata, Faure's Elegi� and the sonata Britten had written for Rostropovich, when the Russian cellist was unable to appear. After this concerts Britten thanked Gendron in a letter of 5 July 1963: "We were all immensely grateful to you for coming to the festival, at such short notice, and for playing so magnificently. Your playing created quite a sensation, as you noticed, and it was for me personally a great pleasure to do the Sonata with you. I thought you played it wonderfully".
Maurice Gendron played solo concerts in Asia as Japan, Corea, Sud Africa, America. Gendron made close musical friendships with Hephzibah and Yehudi Menuhin, and agreat musical patnership with Yehudi Menuhin. In 1956 Gendron formed a famous trio which lasted for 25 years, made records and premi½red works such as the trio by Alexander Goehr.
One of the umanitair concert in Paris for Unesco in 1976 whit Menuhin and other big of the classical music of the time, in this concert Gendron played in other a pice of Mozat for cello and piano - Hephzibah Menuhin:"Andantino" a rare composition of Mozart. All people think Mozart never write for cello and piano, of this esecution is available in premier a recording (live of this concert).
On his own, Gendron was a fine player of solo Bach, "the best interpretation of the cello suites" available now a memorable recording (1968-69), and he made his own contribution to the concerto literature by rescuing the two works by Boccherini which Friedrich Grutzmacher had vandalised into a ghastly pastiche. Until Gendron came on the scene, all cellists had played this mangled version. He not only rediscovered the original B minor Concerto which formed most of the basis of the pastiche, but persuaded Pablo Casals after a travel in Prades to conduct his recording of it with the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux.
He taught in Saarbrucken (from 1954), at the Menuhin School and at the Paris Conservatoire (1970-87) and summer Master Classes at Mozarteum of Salzburg (last in 1989, and one of the last concerts and recording in Japan in 1985 whit two concert day for day at 65 years old. In the early 1970s he suffered a fearful car accident in which a shoulder was severely damaged. He fought his way back and in 1985 reappeared in London for a 40th anniversary recital, but was not the same force as before (65 years old).
He died on 20 August 1990 at the riverside home in Grez-sur-Loing where he and his wife, a former violinist and gentel person, had lived for years surrounded by the paintings and drawings given to Gendron by his artist friends. Maurice Gendron admired Casals but modelled himself much more on Feuermann. In his early days he had a coruscating technique and although he was always his own man, there was something of Feuermann in the intense focus of his beautiful tone. Apart from excellent versions of the Haydn D major and Saint-Saens Concertos for a label, his early records were made for Decca. Maurice Gendron recording more classic pices for him time and all are masterpiece of interpretation him patner in this recording are the best of conductors and orchestra.
