If you’re a classical music nut, the Internet Algorithm Overlords may have introduced you to Colette Maze. Maze amazed with her videos of centenarian keyboard dexterity and grace as likely the oldest pianist ever to record. Maze died this week at the age of 109. Her last record was released earlier this year.

In 1929, at the age of 15, she entered the École normale de musique de Paris to study with Alfred Cortot and Nadia Boulanger. Alfred Cortot! This woman was living history. She continued playing daily right up to the very end, the better to maintain her memory. An amazing feat.

The longest-lived pianist I had previously been aware of was one-time Philadelphian Leo Ornstein (founder of the now-defunct Ornstein School of Music). Ornstein, who also gained notoriety as an avant-garde composer, died in 2002 at the age of 106. I have no idea if he was still playing up to that time. He certainly was not recording.

In 2017, I mused about Ornstein’s unlikely resurrection as a video game character. You can read the post here:

https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=classic%20ross%20amico%20ornstein

Maze plays Debussy at 108

A four-minute tribute from her 106th year

A life dedicated to beauty can never be long enough. R.I.P.