Pierre Georges was born in Épinal on 30 September 1899 to Georges, a ‘commercial clerk’, and Fernande Kampmann; he had two younger sisters, Juliette, called Yette (1900-1975), and Marianne (1906-1983), my paternal grandmother. In 1924 he married Simone Klugshertz in Paris.
His family’s artistic vein runs strong in Pierre’s veins, making him a great piano talent known to the press from the 1920s on wards. A professor of piano, he gave numerous radio concerts with well-known artists, the Swiss composer Arthur Honegger, the Belgian musician and composer Arthur Hoérée and his wife, the soprano Régine de Lormoy, famous in the theatres of the 1930s. Their trio even deserves an elegant black-and-white Parisian photo shoot.
Pierre directed the prestigious École normale de musique de Paris Alfred Cortot until 1954, where he was also professor of piano. At the same time, he did not cease to take care of his hometown, Épinal, in the Vosges region, Grand Est. Already in the 1920s, with the aim of promoting classical music, he got together with other melomaniacs from Épinal to hold ‘Concerts Classiques’, which officially became the ‘Association des Concertes Classiques d’Épinal’ in 1946, as soon as they had recovered a little from the war (still in existence and operating successfully today). Maire was its first vice-president and secretary and then, after the death of President Robert Chevalier in June 1955, its successor in the post until his death a few months later. Classical music has many fans in Épinal, and in 1952, the École Municipale de Musique d’Épinal (now Conservatoire Gautier-d’Épinal) opened its doors, again headed by Pierre Maire, who also taught piano here as well as being the director until his death.
Tragedy, in fact, is just around the corner, and is described as follows in the notes for the 60th anniversary of the Épinal Concert Association: ‘Exhausted by his multiple activities as a piano teacher, concert pianist and director of the burgeoning Music School, Pierre Maire died tragically on 25 January 1956. Mayor Henry NAJEAN paid tribute to him in the press and, officially, at the cemetery, in eloquent terms worthy of an André MALRAUX” (P.J., “Soixante ans au service de la musique. La saison 1955-1956”).
Uncle Claudio Caprotti, my father Bernardo Caprotti’s last brother, still speaks with sorrow about the death of Pierre, who hanged himself in the garden of his parents’ house in Épinal. In his account, the uncle is distraught not because of physical or mental fatigue – or not only – but because of a rheumatic disease that is deforming his hands, making it extremely painful for him to play again. Apparently it is his wife Simone who finds him, a beautiful, charming woman with a rock-like character, who not only does not let the rest of the family go to pieces herself. Grandma Marianne is devastated, rushes straight to France, and it is my father who accompanies her to Épinal.
Pierre Maire was only 57 years old.
The photo on the cover was taken in Epinal
Sources:
“MAIRE, Pierre Georges“, entry in “Filæ. Registre des naissances en France – Etat civil à partir de 1529′.
Albiate (MB), Villa San Valerio, Villa San Valerio Archives, Caprotti Manufacturing Archive, Correspondence of Marianne Maire Caprotti, 1974.
Florence, Claudio Caprotti Archives, Photographic Archives.
Bibliography:
Association des concertes classiques d’Épinal, P.J., “Soixante ans au service de la musique. La saison 1955-1956‘.
Conservatoire Gautier- d’Épinal, ‘Projet d’Établissement 2018-2023. RAPPEL HISTORIQUE‘.
