Isidor Philipp, pianist

(1863-1958)

This is a very strange painting.  I was always under the impression that Isidore Philipp was a Jew -- although I don't know that for a fact.  I do know that he wrote: his niece was 'betrayed as a Jew' and then deported and exterminated by the Germans.  Philipp himself fled France in 1940 after the Nazi invasion.  He arrived in the US in 1941, staying first in New York with Emma Boynet.  While he was in New York, he gave recitals with the violinist John Corigliano Sr. -- who by coincidence was my husband's uncle by marriage.  In any event, I don't understand the symbolism in the painting of the crucified Christ -- unless the painting is simply a photograph-like representation of a concert Philipp played in some church.

Isidore Philipp with Emma Boynet

French pianist, teacher, composer, editor. Pre-eminent teacher of piano at the Conservatoire National de Musique de Paris and the American Conservatory of Fontainebleau.

Philipp fled France during the Nazi invasion in 1940, arriving in the United States in 1941. In November 1941, Philipp's pupil in Paris in the 1920s, music school dean Dwight Anderson, namesake of the library, hosted Philipp in Louisville. Philipp taught, gave lectures and spoke to L'Alliance Francaise de Louisville. Philipp gave Anderson autograph letters and items of famous colleagues to add to previous gifts. These served as foundation for the collection.

In 1977 librarian Marion Korda established the Philipp Archive under the aegis of the American Liszt Society.  The archive's hundreds of items include: Philipp's compositions, pedagogical works, editions, magazine articles; letters from celebrities, letters to and from Philip's many prominent friends and students, news reports, photographs and memorabilia. The Speed Art Museum, adjacent to the University of Louisville, holds five casts of Philipp's right hand, an early 1942 project of Hattie Bishop Speed in collaboration with noted American sculptor Brenda Putnam.
 

The collection also contains 205 autograph letters from Philipp to his pupils, and letters from noted musicians such as Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), Franz Liszt (1811-1886), Jules Massenet (1842-1912), and Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921).