Camille Stamaty

Camille-Marie Stamaty was a French pianist, piano teacher and composer predominantly of piano music and studies (études). Today largely forgotten, he was one of the preeminent piano teachers in 19th-century Paris. His most famous pupils were Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Camille Saint-Saëns.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article on Camille-Marie Stamaty.

From the period sources

Camille Stamaty, born in Rome in 1811 to a Greek father and a musical French mother, initially pursued a career in business, taking an employee’s post in the Prefecture of the Seine in 1828, according to Grove’s Dictionary (1922). However, music retained its hold, and he became a “remarkable player” under Fessy and Kalkbrenner. An attack of rheumatism later compelled him to shift his focus from performance to composition. His public debut in March 1835, featuring his own concerto and other pieces, led to him being highly sought after as a teacher.

Dissatisfied, Stamaty sought further instruction in Leipzig in 1836, “attracted, doubtless, by the fame of Mendelssohn and Schumann,” then resident there, as Grove’s Dictionary (1922) notes. After a brief period of study with Mendelssohn, he returned to Paris in 1837, enriching his programs with classical works by Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1862. Stamaty’s influence as a pedagogue was profound; among his “crowd of pupils,” Grove’s Dictionary (1922) specifically names Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Camille Saint-Saëns. Robert Schumann, a contemporary, reviewed Stamaty’s concerto and some brilliant variations “very favourably” (Grove’s Dictionary, 1908). His most enduring contributions include educational works like Le Rhythme des doigts, Etudes progressives, and Etudes concertantes.