French cellist Anne Gastinel early on established a reputation as one of the finest cellists of her generation. Winning several major international competitions, including Scheveningen, Prague, and Rostropovich, she represented France in the Eurovision Competition in Vienna. Her recordings have won major awards and reveal a refined artist capable of producing a charmingly attractive and resonant tone.
Anne Gastinel Plays Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3, “Sarabande”
Family Background
© William Beaucardet
Anne Gastinel was born on 14 October 1971 in Tassin-la-Demi-Lune, close to Lyon. Both her parents held faculty positions at the Lyon Conservatory. Her father is a composer, and her mother taught Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Roger Muraro and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, among others. Gastinel grew up with four highly musical brothers and a sister, all playing the piano and some specializing in violas and cellos.
As Gastinel remembers, “there was music at home all the time, it was something completely natural. Since we had four pianos and many piano students came to take lessons, the piano was the central instrument in the house.” Gastinel predictably started piano lessons at a very early age, and “it taught her to listen in terms of harmony.”
Frédéric Chopin: Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65 (Anne Gastinel, cello; Claire Désert, piano)
The Cello
Anne Gastinel
Gastinel would watch her sister play the cello for hours, and she was immediately fascinated and captivated by the sound. She started taking lessons at the age of four and remembers that “it immediately became a game, a real pleasure and never something that I considered a duty or a job. I had this delicious feeling of becoming one with the instrument, a relationship that from the very start was almost organic.”
As Gastinel explained in an interview, “When I was little, I did not say to myself that I would be a musician but a cellist. Since music is part of my daily life, it was not a composer, a concert or a work that acted as a trigger but really this irresistible attraction to this wonderful instrument. It was only later that I really discovered music and immersed myself in it.”
Anne Gastinel Plays Korngold’s Cello Concerto, Op. 37
Special Relationship
Anne Gastinel at La Folle Journée 2009
Gastinel developed a special relationship with the cello over time. Playing the cello became a wonderful means of expression beyond words “as it created a relationship where the physical and spiritual bond takes on a rather irrational form.” Gastinel frequently speaks to her cello while “knowing that it is totally unreasonable. However, the bond that unites me with the instrument is undeniably very special.”
Gastinel entered the Lyon Conservatoire at the age of eleven and studied with Patrick Gabard and Jean Deplace. She was awarded her Premier Prix in 1986 and went on to postgraduate studies at the Paris Conservatory. Among her teachers, we find Philippe Muller, Yo-Yo Ma, János Starker and Paul Tortelier, who profoundly influenced her personal and musical development. They immediately recognised in her the maturity of an exceptional artist.
Franz Schubert:
Arpeggione Sonata in A Minor, D. 821 (arr. A. Gastinel for cello and piano) (Anne Gastinel, cello; Claire Désert, piano)
Teachers
Anne Gastinel, 2023
Gastinel had the opportunity to meet and work with some of the great artists and pedagogues of the 20th century. As she recalls, “they taught me a lot, each in very different ways. It has enriched me enormously, both humanly and musically.” Apparently, Gastinel did have an eye-opening encounter with János Starker, who criticised her posture while playing the cello. As she remembered, “I played naturally and had never really thought about body posture. Nobody was talking about it but simply focused on small details.”
As Gastinel explains, “Starker’s remark acted as an electroshock. After that, I spent over a year completely reviewing my playing posture, becoming aware of my sitting and my breathing. It was a real turning point in my life as a cellist and something I still think about every day.”
She credits all her teachers with guiding her along the right lines while leaving her a great deal of freedom. Gastinel, a professor of cello at the Lyons Conservatoire since 2003, now passes on these philosophies to her own students.
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