Émile Descombes was a French pianist and teacher.

Little is known about his life, except that he is variously described as an "associate", "disciple" and possibly even one of the last pupils, of Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

.

He taught at the Paris Conservatoire

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

, where his students included Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

, Erik Satie

Erik Satie

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...

 (Descombes called him "the laziest student in the Conservatoire"), Alfred Cortot

Alfred Cortot

Alfred Denis Cortot was a Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor. He is one of the most renowned 20th-century classical musicians, especially valued for his poetic insight in Romantic period piano works, particularly those of Chopin and Schumann.-Early life and education:Born in Nyon, Vaud, in the...

, Reynaldo Hahn

Reynaldo Hahn

Reynaldo Hahn was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic and diarist. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie....

, Édouard Risler

Édouard Risler

Joseph-Édouard Risler was a French pianist.- Biography :Risler was born in Baden-Baden of a German mother and an Alsatian father. He studied under Louis Diémer, Théodore Dubois and Émile Descombes at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1883 to 1890...

 and Joseph Morpain.