23 June 1907 - 16 March 2000

French composer Victor Serventi was born in Algiers in 1907 and studied at the Paris Conservatoire from 1921, learning piano with Joseph Morpain then Lazare-Lévy, harmony with Jean Gallon, counterpoint and fugue with Noël Gallon and musical composition with Henri Busser. He won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1937, and in 1943 became a professer at the Paris Conservatoire. His most famous work, regularly given in concert and recorded several times, is the Largo et scherzando for double bass and piano which he composed in 1944.