Yvette Horner

[dunlustin]

For those of you fond of the accordion 'des variétés' in France, the death has been announced of Yvette Horner on Monday last, aged 95.

 

[maugein96]

For those of you fond of the accordion des variétés in France, the death has been announced of Yvette Horner on Monday last, aged 95.

Thanks for that, dunlustin. I mentioned her in a post the other day and reckoned she was about that age.

A great player in all styles, but made her money in musette, the same as many others.

Yet another one for the history books.

 

[Fratelli Crosio 60]

Well, Yvette was very talented, that's undisputable. Music was really HER life. She would play musette of course (like many others), but she was also able to play classical pieces with great sharpness. She even recorded in 1977 a LP in Nashville with Charlie Mc Coy (featuring tracks such as Orange Blossom Special, Release Me, I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Rocky Top, Amazing Grace or Tennessee Waltz, to quote only some examples).
One should remember that she started as a pianist, and she was able to play piano and accordion at the same time !
My father saw her playing for the first time during the second world war, in 1943 (she was only 21), at a location which was called La Terrasse, right above Pau's river, in the very south of France. He was just 17 and already fond of button accordion, and he told me he was very impressed by her performance. Nice memory despite troubled time.
Later on, he would meet her again many times in the Paris area of course, but that's another story...

 

[maugein96]

Hi Eric,

Very few people outside of France knew that Yvette could play just about any type of music on the accordion. I bought a few of her albums on K7 cassette and just thought she was a musette player the same as most other French accordionists.

A few years later I saw her on French TV performing classical music with full orchestra backing, and was amazed, especially as she was playing on a little 3 row "beginner's" Cavagnolo accordion.

I do believe I also saw her in the US with Charlie McCoy (again on TV or video), and I was again surprised, as she played as though the music was her own speciality.

An amazing lady indeed. She made everything look so easy, especially when she played musette, to the point where I sometimes got the impression that her heart wasn't really in that style. It didn't matter, as she was unique.

Hope an album comes out with some of her best material on it.

Thanks for the bio Eric,

Cheers,

John