Of Richard Clayderman
• • • • • • Richard Clayderman, the prince of romance and the world’s most successful pianist, is playing for me in an apartment overlooking the Seine. His fingers glide deftly over the keys as the Steinway responds to the rolling chords of Moonlight Sonata. Moonlight Swoonata would be more apt. Despite the approach of his 60th birthday, Clayderman could reduce Caligula to tears.
Games Workshop Magazine - White Dwarf Issue 50. His blue eyes are still limpid and his smile boyish, though his blond hair is flecked with grey. He needs no metronome as he plays.
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He’s accompanied by the beat of Cupid’s wings. Gallic charm: The prince of romance, Richard Clayderman, plays for Petronella Wyatt in a Paris apartment ‘Romance — we need it more than ever. Don’t you agree?’ He winks at me. To celebrate this Gallic philosophy, he has his first album out in more than a decade. A compilation of classical and popular songs, it is called, predictably, Romantique. Despite selling 85 million records, his life has not been one long, swoony path to an MGM-style rainbow. It has been littered with heartbreak and broken marriages.
Share Even his name is an invention. Born Philippe Pages, his producer suggested he change it to Clayderman — his great-great-grandmother’s maiden name. ‘Someone else chose Richard and there I was,’ he says. The son of a piano teacher, he started playing aged just six. At 12, he won a place at the Paris Conservatoire and graduated with first prize. ‘I thought about a classical career, but I was already interested in reinterpreting popular standards,’ he says.
Then a cruel twist of fate forced his hand. His father became ill and young Richard became a studio musician to support him.
‘He was 40 when he died,’ he says. ‘He never saw my success.’ Meanwhile, Clayderman had acquired his first wife, Rosaline, at the tender age of 18.