Cécile Ousset is a French pianist known for her powerful interpretations of large-scale Romantic works, from Liszt to Rachmaninoff, as well as her cultivated playing of French music from Debussy to Satie. She was born in 1936 in Tarbes, Southwest France, and studied at the Paris Conservatoire from the age of 10 with Marcel Ciampi. International recognition was slow in coming, not helped by the fact that her early recordings (1971-76), for a small company licensed to the French arm of Decca, failed to get widespread release at the time. These include outstanding accounts of Beethoven’s complete variations for piano, Schumann’s Carnaval, Brahms’ Paganini Variations, and two dazzling Saint-Saëns Études. It was only when Ousset signed to EMI in 1982 that she became well known, recording concertos by Liszt, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, and Rachmaninoff in Birmingham with Simon Rattle, as well as solo recordings—including of Liszt, Chopin, Mussorgsky, and Ravel—that confirm a formidable pianistic resource and robust clarity allied to a temperament perhaps best suited to music of exuberance and athleticism.