André Mathieu for kids: his life, his music, and what to play first

André Mathieu was a Canadian pianist and composer who lived from 1929 to 1968. He was a child prodigy. He wrote his first piano pieces at four and gave his first recital at six. Newspapers in Paris compared him to the young Mozart. The best first piece for a child is the Concerto de Québec, a grand, sweeping work for piano and orchestra.

Quick facts

• Born: 1929, in Montreal, Quebec
• Died: 1968, in Montreal
• Era: Modern, in a Romantic style
• Played: piano
• Known for: composing as a small child, and the Concerto de Québec

The life in short

Mathieu’s father, Rodolphe, was a composer and a music teacher. He gave André his first lessons.

At four, André wrote three short studies for the piano. At six, he gave a recital of his own music in a Montreal hotel. The audience was astonished.

The government of Quebec gave the family a grant so that André could study in Paris. He was seven when he played there for the first time. A leading critic called him a genius. People began to call him “the Canadian Mozart.”

In the summer of 1939, the family came home for a holiday. The Second World War began, and they could not go back to France. They moved to New York, where André kept studying.

In 1941, the New York Philharmonic held a contest for young composers. André won first prize with a short piano concerto. He played it at Carnegie Hall the next year. He was 12 when he won and had just turned 13 when he played.

After the war, he returned to Paris for a year to study with the composer Arthur Honegger.

His adult life was harder. His career faded after the 1940s, and he died at 39, with little money and little fame.

A second life for the music

Mathieu’s music came back after his death. Music arranged from his works welcomed the athletes at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.

Years later, the Quebec pianist Alain Lefèvre began to search out his scores and play them around the world. A lost concerto was rebuilt from old recordings, and Lefèvre recorded it in 2008. A film about his life came out in 2010.

What the music sounds like

Mathieu wrote in a warm, late Romantic style. The piano plays big chords and long, singing tunes, and the orchestra swells behind it. Listeners often think of Rachmaninoff.

His childhood pieces are short and playful.

Pieces to play first

Concerto de Québec. Music for piano and orchestra, drawn from a concerto he wrote at 18. A film made in Quebec used it, and it became his best-known work.

Concertino No. 2. The piece that won the New York contest.

Trois Études. The three studies he wrote at four. They are among the first things he composed.

Piano Concerto No. 4. The concerto that was lost and rebuilt. It is long and grand, for older listeners.

Things to do together

How old was he? Play the Trois Études. Tell your child that the composer was four. Ask what they were doing at four.

Compare two prodigies. Play a piece that Mozart wrote as a child, and then one by Mathieu. Ask how they differ. Mathieu lived 170 years later and had heard far bigger, louder music.

Find the piano. In the Concerto de Québec, raise a hand when the piano plays alone and lower it when the orchestra joins.

Write a piece. Mathieu gave his childhood pieces titles. Let your child make up a short tune at a keyboard and give it a name.

What parents may want to say

Mathieu’s story has a sad second half. A child who is praised as a genius can find adult life hard. It is fair to tell an older child that talent alone did not make his life easy, and that his music is being heard again now.

Print and play

Fill in a composer study notebook page for André Mathieu. Read about more young composers in child prodigy composers, and more Canadians in Canadian composers for kids. For the composer he is often compared to, read Rachmaninoff for kids.

For more composers by era, see classical composers for kids.

Sources

Checked in November 2026.

• The Canadian Encyclopedia. André Mathieu.
• All Classical Radio. André Mathieu.