Blanche Selva

As a child she studied piano with a number of teachers, took preparatory classes with Sophie Chéné, and was admitted to the Paris Conservatory in 1893.

Blanche Selva was the only French pianist of her time to specialise in Czech music, and she was consequently very popular in Czechoslovakia.

In January 1925 Selva moved to Barcelona, where she founded her own music school and performed in a duo with violinist Joan Massià.

In 1936 she left Barcelona because of the Spanish Civil War and lived for a while in Marseille, then Moulins, Allier, and Saint-Saturnin, Puy-de-Dôme, Auvergne.

Her predilection for big arm gestures and her detailed descriptions of the most unusual types of attack, combined with the constant attention to the resulting tone-color, make his book a unique contribution to the history of the piano and its literature.