Rodolphe Berger was born on April 4, 1864, in Vienna, Austria, and grew up in a musical environment that led him to composition and artistic life at a very young age. However, it was in France, where he settled around 1890, that he spent most of his career, embodying the musical and social spirit of the Parisian Belle Époque.

In addition to his piano dances (waltzes, polkas, mazurkas, marches), Berger became known above all as a composer of piano waltzes and melodies, which were very popular with audiences in café-theaters and salons. Among his most famous works is the waltz Amoureuse, premiered in 1900 by the famous café-concert singer Paulette Darty, which became a model of the slow sentimental waltz genre, earning him the nickname “king of the slow waltz.”

In parallel with his work for piano and voice, Rodolphe Berger wrote several operettas and musical comedies that were performed on Parisian stages, notably Claudine (premiered at the Moulin Rouge in 1910), Le Chevalier d'Éon, La Femme de César, and Messalinette. Although these works enjoyed varying degrees of success, they demonstrate his taste for light opera and light music.

Berger's career was profoundly marked by World War I. Never taking French nationality despite living in Paris, he was forced to leave the city when mobilization began in 1914 and go into exile in Spain, where he found himself isolated and unable to compose. In despair, he took his own life in Barcelona in July 1916. He is buried in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

A musician who was both worldly and popular, Berger left behind a prolific body of work—more than 850 titles—that reflects the musical world of Paris during the Belle Époque, ranging from sentimental melodies to elegant waltzes and light theater.

Along his university studies (DEA in musicology, University of Paris IV-Sorbonne), Frédéric Cellier was awarded three first prizes and a development prize at the CNR of Nice and won first prize at the International Competition of Musical Execution - soloist category – of Stresa (Italy).

He is the laureate of the Fondation de France and the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation and accredited teacher at the CNR of Nice, the CNR of Marseille, and at the CRR Olivier Messiaen of Avignon (France).

Frédéric Cellier is the interpreter of Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for clarinet Bb and piano with Jean-Michel Damase, Jean Françaix or Gabriel Tacchino, as well as his own arrangements for clarinet and harp of Erik Satie's Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes with the great French harpist Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche, and for clarinet, piano, and string orchestra of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in blue for Wynton Marsalis or under the baton of Adrian Gershwin, grandson of the composer.

Founder and artistic director of STRADIVARIUS Editions, he is the author of light music pieces played around the world and a considerable number of arrangements of all styles and for all instruments, acclaimed by many personalities in the music world, including Michèle Auric, Jean Françaix, Adrian Gershwin, Wynton Marsalis, Yehudi Menuhin, Madeleine Milhaud, Manuel Rosenthal, Gabriel Tacchino, and Ornella Volta.

"Frédéric Cellier has produced a number of adaptations of Georges Auric's works with such talent and precision that I consider them a natural addition to his chamber music catalogue."
Michèle AURIC - Georges Auric's widow

"To Frédéric Cellier, excellent musician and tireless arranger."
Jean FRANÇAIX - Composer and pianist

"Arranging a musical work is always a delicate and risky exercise, because it requires both modifying it so that it can be played by the desired instruments and preserving its very essence. But that is exactly what Frédéric Cellier has done, preserving the nuances, subtleties and soul of the original works while breathing new life into them.
His arrangements give all the musicians the chance to perform these compositions specially revisited for their instrument, and make music lovers rediscover them in a new light."
Adrian GERSHWIN - George Gershwin’s grandson

"Congratulations for your beautiful new orchestration and rendition of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in blue."
Wynton MARSALIS - Trumpet player, composer, bandleader, general and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York

"It is outstanding that Frédéric Cellier has managed to transpose Saxophone Marmalade from the saxophone to the clarinet. I thank him for it and wish its great and deserved success. "
Manuel ROSENTHAL - Conductor, composer and Maurice Ravel’s pupil

"I am very happy to tell you how much I appreciated your transcription of the Capriccio, based on Francis Poulenc's Le Bal Masqué. It perfectly reflects the spirit and verve of the score for two pianos that I had the opportunity to play and record with Jacques Février, and it was a great pleasure for me to premiere it in Montpellier."
Gabriel TACCHINO - Pianist, Francis Poulenc’s specialist

"I must tell you that I really like your transcriptions and that I think the tone of the instruments you have chosen suits perfectly our beloved composer."
Ornella VOLTA - Musicologist, president of the Erik Satie’s Foundation