The co -author of the song Ne Me Quitte Pas died

Gerard Zhuannest, an outstanding pianist and composer, died in his house in the south of France. He was 85, in the history of music he will enter as a co -author and accompanist Jacques Brev and Juliet Greco.

Zhuannest was born on May 2, 1933 in Vanve (suburb of Paris). In 1954, he became the owner of the first prize of the Paris Higher National Conservatory. After urgent service in a military orchestra, he was preparing for a career as a professor of music, but his father’s sudden death and the need to feed his family tore his plans. The pianist began to earn a living in Parisian restaurants. In one of them, in December 1958, he met Jacques Brell.

They will work together ten years with Brell until the moment when the singer decides to end his career. Juannest will become the co -author of most of the most famous Brelevo songs, including La Chanson des Vieux Amants and Ne Me Quitte Pas.

“It was a union of“ water and fire ”, an alliance of a native of a working family, a communist Zhuannest and the offspring of the Catholic bourgeois, Brussels Jacques Bel. Juannest - modest and taciturn, Brel - quick -tempered, pretentious, Solder. After the first concert, they will become inseparable ... ”, writes Le Monde.

After Broke's departure from the Juannest scene, until the end of his life, he will work with the Queen Saint-Germain, an outstanding singer, beauty Juliette Greco, who will become his wife.

On this video of Le Parisien’s newspapers, shot in the house of musicians a few years ago, Juannect talks about how the song Ne Me Quitte Pas was born: “It was in 1959 ... Brel was played by the motive on the guitar. And he did (something very fast), like a Mexican waltz ... And he could not find a word ... I tell him: look what will happen if he played slowly ... And suddenly there were words-because there was time to pronounce them ... But he did not have this piece of melody ... ".

Without a Juanneste, which has always been in the shadow, it is impossible to imagine the work of Broke. “Thanks to the Juanneste, Brelev’s songs gained drama and depth,” writes Le Monde.