Who was Yvonne Loriod? To most, she is known as a virtuoso pianist, an inspirational teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, and the dedicatee of many pieces by Olivier Messiaen, whom she married in 1961. Few are aware that she was also a composer, which is hardly surprising as none of her works were published in her lifetime. But the Cambridge academic Peter Asimov has rediscovered her compositions, which were deposited in the Bibliothèque nationale de France after her death in 2010. A recent performance of Loriod’s song cycle “Grains de cendre” (Flakes of ash) at Oxford International Song Festival was just the third performance of this intriguing work, an opportunity to hear an unsung aspect of this musician in the centenary of her birth.
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