René Herbin

René Herbin (1911 – 1 September 1953) was a French composer and pianist. He was killed in the Mount Cimet air disaster in the French Alps. Life Born in Vitry-le-François, Herbin entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 14. There he studied piano with Isidore Philipp and composition with Noël Gallon and Henri Busser. He won two First Prizes. At 26, he accompanied the cellist Maurice Maréchal on a tour of the Middle East. After the Second World War broke out, Herbin was mobilized in 1939. He was taken prisoner in Germany where he remained in captivity for nearly five years in several forced labour camps. Interned in very precarious conditions, he nevertheless managed to write many works: a Sonata for violin and piano, Deïrdre des Douleurs for chamber orchestra, Sonata for piano, Album d’images, Preludes baroques, for piano. Returning to Paris in 1945, he resumed his activities as a pianist and composer, and premiered his first piano quartet in 1949 with the Trio Pasquier. In the early 1950s, he received commissions for work from the State and Radio . It was on this occasion that he composed Trois Songes pour orchestre (1951) and the Concerto pour piano (1952) whose posthumous