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Colette Maze obituary: French classical pianist who specialised in the works of Debussy and was still recording at 109

When French composer Claude Debussy died at his home in Paris in 1918, he probably had no idea that one of his youngest fans lived just a few blocks a

Colette Maze was long an accomplished pianist and teacher. But it was only in the late 1990s, when she was over 80, that her son persuaded her to begin recording commercially.

Born before the outbreak of World War I, she began making albums in the 1990s. She released her latest, “109 Ans de Piano,” this year.

Colette Maze, who has died aged 109, began her recording career at the age of 90 after a lifetime spent teaching the piano; she made a speciality of Debussy’s music, pointing out that during her childhood in First World War Paris she lived near the Impressionist composer. “We could have seen each other,” she speculated.