Lucien Durosoir
Encyclopedia
Lucien Durosoir was a French composer
and violin
ist whose works were rediscovered thanks to manuscripts found by his son Luc.
Durosoir studied the violin with Joseph Joachim
and Hugo Heermann
in Germany before his first tour as a young virtuoso
in 1899. In addition to giving the first performances of French music in Austria-Hungary
and Germany (Saint-Saëns
, Fauré
, Lalo, Widor, Bruneau
), he also gave the French premieres of the Brahms and Strauss violin concertos in 1901.
His career as a violinist was cut short by World War I. Durosoir served in the Fifth Division, which took part in some of the bloodiest battles of the war (Douaumont
, the Chemin des Dames
, and Eparges). At the encouragement of General Mangin, Durosoir formed a string quartet
with his fellow soldiers Henri Lemoine
(second violin), André Caplet
(viola
), and Maurice Maréchal (cello
).
After his demobilization in February, 1919, he began to compose at his home in southwest France. For the next thirty years he composed a host of works, including three string quartets, (1920, 1922 and 1933–34) a large piano sonata
(Le Lys, 1921), a piano quintet
(1925), an orchestral suite (Funérailles, 1930), and about twenty-five works of chamber music
for various instrumental combinations. Isolated from Parisian musical trends, Durosoir forged a very personal style in the Romantic tradition, but with unusual features such as polyrhythms. In 1922 André Caplet
wrote, "I will talk with enthusiasm to all my friends about your quartet, which I find a thousand times more interesting than anything with which the noisy group of newcomers overwhelms us."
From 1950 onwards illness prevented him from continuing to compose and he died in December 1955.
Thanks to his son Luc Durosoir and Luc's wife Georgie, a renowned musicology
professor at the Sorbonne
, Durosoir's works have been published and the MEGEP chamber music competition was founded to encourage the revival of the genre. A book of Durosoir's letters has been published to much acclaim in France, and interest in the music is increasing amongst musicologists, performers and pedagogues.
. In 1898, Edouard Colonne
engaged him as first chair violinist for his Orchestra of the Concerts Colonne. He went to Germany, where he perfected his technique and interpretive skill under the violinists Joseph Joachim
and Hugo Heermann
. Starting in 1900, he undertook concert tours extending to central Europe, Russia, Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire
. There he played, for the first time, the violin repertory of contemporary French composers such as Saint-Saëns
, Lalo, Widor and Bruneau
, and in Vienna
in 1910, he premiered the Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano by Gabriel Fauré
. While on tour in France he premiered modern German and Danish masterpieces:
His performances were all met with favorable reviews:
[reference: Les Archives biographiques contemporaines (Paris, sd. [vers 1911]), p. 219-220. Posters and concert programs from the Durosoir family archives, Bélus, France]
When World War I broke out, Durosoir was 36. After a year fighting in the trenches, he became a stretcher-bearer and awaited nightfall before venturing out to collect the wounded. Durosoir came to the attention of General Mangin, a great music lover, who recruited him, along with the composer André Caplet
and the young cellist Maurice Maréchal, to form a chamber music ensemble. The trio played for funeral services, for guests (such as visiting English officers and, more rarely, civilians) in the general's quarters, and in the barracks for the soldiers’ entertainment. Their concerts featured all kinds of arrangements of orchestral works for piano and solo instruments. During this time the duties of Durosoir and Caplet also included caring for the carrier pigeons.
The three spent these terrible years together, and their friendship was sealed in the trenches as well as in their music-making. The inspiration to compose increasingly seized Durosoir's imagination. He acquired scores and studied the style of Brahms, Beethoven, Haydn, and others. In 1915 Emma Debussy sent him Claude Debussy
's Études
. Durosoir and Caplet were examining these when six bombs fell around their building. Thinking ahead to the end of the war, Durosoir wrote on 12 September 1916, "I begin to compose so as to become accustomed to managing the freer forms, and my efforts, I am convinced, will be fruitful." During the periods of repose from his duties in the trenches, he continued his study of counterpoint
and fugue
with exercises "corrected" by André Caplet.
[reference: Deux musiciens dans la Grande Guerre (Paris, Tallandier-Radio France, 2005; Mangin (Général), Lettres de guerre, 1914-1918 (Paris, Fayard, 1950)]
offered him the position of first chair violin. He accepted, and was on the point of leaving when an accident prevented his departure, and he had to give up his career as a violinist. From then until his death, he lived in retirement far from Paris and its artistic circles. On the basis of his academic work, reinforced by his personal study of scores and compositional exercises, he began composing, and crafted an individual and bold musical style independent from the mainstream. His works display neither perceptible influences nor overtly stated references. Nearly all of his works are headed by a quotation of contemporary poetry, or by a prose quotation of a philosophical nature.
André Caplet wrote to him in 1922: "I will speak with enthusiasm to all my associates of your quartet, which find many times more interesting than all the products with which the group of flashy newcomers overwhelm us." Lucien Durosoir composed around forty unpublished works, including pieces for varied ensembles, symphonic works and chamber music: string quartets, sonatas, trios, short piano works, numerous pieces for piano and solo instruments. After 1950, illness prevented him from composing, and he died in December 1955.
changes and tempo
alterations. Durosoir shows great imagination in the area of musical texture and the use of extended performance techniques (con sordino, sul ponticello, col legno
, ricochet, harmonics), and consequently expressive indications are encountered in each melodic line. In short, the music of Lucien Durosoir avoids categorization with many of the "ism" labels (i.e.: impressionism
, neoclassicism
) that are commonly applied to music of the early twentieth century.
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist whose works were rediscovered thanks to manuscripts found by his son Luc.
Durosoir studied the violin with Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...
and Hugo Heermann
Hugo Heermann
Hugo Heermann was a German violinist. He studied the violin with Lambert Joseph Meerts at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Brussels, and later with Joseph Joachim. From 1864 he lived in Frankfurt am Main where he taught violin from 1878 to 1904 at the Hoch Conservatory...
in Germany before his first tour as a young virtuoso
Virtuoso
A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...
in 1899. In addition to giving the first performances of French music in Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
and Germany (Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
, Fauré
Faure
Faure or Fauré is a French family name and may refer to:People:* Edgar Faure, French politician* Élie Faure, French art historian and essayist* Émile Alphonse Faure, lead battery pioneer* Cédric Fauré, French football striker...
, Lalo, Widor, Bruneau
Alfred Bruneau
Louis-Charles-Bonaventure-Alfred Bruneau was a French composer who played a key role in the introduction of realism in French opera....
), he also gave the French premieres of the Brahms and Strauss violin concertos in 1901.
His career as a violinist was cut short by World War I. Durosoir served in the Fifth Division, which took part in some of the bloodiest battles of the war (Douaumont
Douaumont
Douaumont is a commune in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.The village was destroyed during World War I. Today the Douaumont ossuary, which contains the remains of more than 100,000 unknown soldiers of both French and German nationalities found on the battlefield, stands...
, the Chemin des Dames
Chemin des Dames
In France, the Chemin des Dames is part of the D18 and runs east and west in the département of Aisne, between in the west, the Route Nationale 2, and in the east, the D1044 at Corbeny. It is some thirty kilometres long and runs along a ridge between the valleys of the rivers Aisne and Ailette...
, and Eparges). At the encouragement of General Mangin, Durosoir formed a string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
with his fellow soldiers Henri Lemoine
Henri Lemoine
Henri Lemoine was a French fraudster who claimed to be able to produce synthetic diamonds.In 1905 Lemoine contacted Sir Julius Wernher, British banker and one of the governors of De Beers Diamond Mines...
(second violin), André Caplet
André Caplet
André Caplet was a French composer and conductor now known primarily through his orchestrations of works by Claude Debussy.-Biography:...
(viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
), and Maurice Maréchal (cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
).
After his demobilization in February, 1919, he began to compose at his home in southwest France. For the next thirty years he composed a host of works, including three string quartets, (1920, 1922 and 1933–34) a large piano sonata
Piano sonata
A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...
(Le Lys, 1921), a piano quintet
Piano quintet
In European classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly piano, two violins, viola, and cello . Among the most frequently performed piano quintets are those by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, César Franck, Antonín Dvořák...
(1925), an orchestral suite (Funérailles, 1930), and about twenty-five works of chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
for various instrumental combinations. Isolated from Parisian musical trends, Durosoir forged a very personal style in the Romantic tradition, but with unusual features such as polyrhythms. In 1922 André Caplet
André Caplet
André Caplet was a French composer and conductor now known primarily through his orchestrations of works by Claude Debussy.-Biography:...
wrote, "I will talk with enthusiasm to all my friends about your quartet, which I find a thousand times more interesting than anything with which the noisy group of newcomers overwhelms us."
From 1950 onwards illness prevented him from continuing to compose and he died in December 1955.
Thanks to his son Luc Durosoir and Luc's wife Georgie, a renowned musicology
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
professor at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
, Durosoir's works have been published and the MEGEP chamber music competition was founded to encourage the revival of the genre. A book of Durosoir's letters has been published to much acclaim in France, and interest in the music is increasing amongst musicologists, performers and pedagogues.
The Concert Violinist
At the age of 14, Lucien Durosoir enrolled in Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris, where he studied with Henri Berthelier; however, after several months he was expelled for insolence toward its director, Ambroise Thomas. Durosoir continued his violin studies privately with Berthelier while at the same time learning composition with Charles TournemireCharles Tournemire
Charles Tournemire was a French composer and organist, notable partly for his improvisations, which were often rooted in the music of Gregorian chant...
. In 1898, Edouard Colonne
Édouard Colonne
Édouard Juda Colonne was a French conductor and violinist, who was a champion of the music of Berlioz and other eminent 19th-century composers.-Life and career:...
engaged him as first chair violinist for his Orchestra of the Concerts Colonne. He went to Germany, where he perfected his technique and interpretive skill under the violinists Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...
and Hugo Heermann
Hugo Heermann
Hugo Heermann was a German violinist. He studied the violin with Lambert Joseph Meerts at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Brussels, and later with Joseph Joachim. From 1864 he lived in Frankfurt am Main where he taught violin from 1878 to 1904 at the Hoch Conservatory...
. Starting in 1900, he undertook concert tours extending to central Europe, Russia, Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
. There he played, for the first time, the violin repertory of contemporary French composers such as Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
, Lalo, Widor and Bruneau
Alfred Bruneau
Louis-Charles-Bonaventure-Alfred Bruneau was a French composer who played a key role in the introduction of realism in French opera....
, and in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
in 1910, he premiered the Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano by Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
. While on tour in France he premiered modern German and Danish masterpieces:
- Niels Gade's Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 56 at the Salle Pleyel in 1899
- Richard StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op.8 - Johannes BrahmsJohannes BrahmsJohannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
's Violin Concerto in D Op. 77, in 1901 (at the Salle des Agriculteurs) and 1903 (at the Salle Humbert de Romans)
His performances were all met with favorable reviews:
- "captivates the public by the loftiness and spirit of his playing" (Neue Freie Press, 11 January 1910)
- "all of these pieces were performed with the same nobility and beauty of execution"' (Wiener Mittags-Zeitung, 28 January 1910)
- "He displayed, in the concerto of Max Bruch, the rarest qualities of sonority and musicality, and in the Dvořák concerto an astonishing style and virtuosity... Monsieur Lucien Durosoir, in this lovely performance, ranks among the foremost virtuosos of his time." (Le Figaro, 19 May 1904)
[reference: Les Archives biographiques contemporaines (Paris, sd. [vers 1911]), p. 219-220. Posters and concert programs from the Durosoir family archives, Bélus, France]
The soldier
André Caplet
André Caplet was a French composer and conductor now known primarily through his orchestrations of works by Claude Debussy.-Biography:...
and the young cellist Maurice Maréchal, to form a chamber music ensemble. The trio played for funeral services, for guests (such as visiting English officers and, more rarely, civilians) in the general's quarters, and in the barracks for the soldiers’ entertainment. Their concerts featured all kinds of arrangements of orchestral works for piano and solo instruments. During this time the duties of Durosoir and Caplet also included caring for the carrier pigeons.
The three spent these terrible years together, and their friendship was sealed in the trenches as well as in their music-making. The inspiration to compose increasingly seized Durosoir's imagination. He acquired scores and studied the style of Brahms, Beethoven, Haydn, and others. In 1915 Emma Debussy sent him Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
's Études
Études (Debussy)
Claude Debussy's Études are a set of 12 piano etudes composed in 1915. The pieces are extremely difficult to play, as Debussy himself admitted, describing them as "a warning to pianists not to take up the musical profession unless they have remarkable hands"...
. Durosoir and Caplet were examining these when six bombs fell around their building. Thinking ahead to the end of the war, Durosoir wrote on 12 September 1916, "I begin to compose so as to become accustomed to managing the freer forms, and my efforts, I am convinced, will be fruitful." During the periods of repose from his duties in the trenches, he continued his study of counterpoint
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
and fugue
Fugue
In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....
with exercises "corrected" by André Caplet.
[reference: Deux musiciens dans la Grande Guerre (Paris, Tallandier-Radio France, 2005; Mangin (Général), Lettres de guerre, 1914-1918 (Paris, Fayard, 1950)]
The composer
Durosoir returned to civilian life in February 1919. In 1921, the Boston Symphony OrchestraBoston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
offered him the position of first chair violin. He accepted, and was on the point of leaving when an accident prevented his departure, and he had to give up his career as a violinist. From then until his death, he lived in retirement far from Paris and its artistic circles. On the basis of his academic work, reinforced by his personal study of scores and compositional exercises, he began composing, and crafted an individual and bold musical style independent from the mainstream. His works display neither perceptible influences nor overtly stated references. Nearly all of his works are headed by a quotation of contemporary poetry, or by a prose quotation of a philosophical nature.
The music
As a result of his intentional isolation from the Parisian musical trends of the time, Durosoir's compositions have a unique character. While not outwardly programmatic, they are often preceded by some verses of poetry which serve as a threshold into this highly personal world of expression. His style is a lean and spare one that is marked by solid construction, sudden contrasts and avoidance of gratuitous ornament. Tonal with a harmonic palette enriched by non-chord tones and altered scales, the music shows a strong need for resolution that occasionally veers off toward regions of atonality. Similarly, the constraints imposed by regular meter are cast off by means of frequent metricMetre (music)
Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...
changes and tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
alterations. Durosoir shows great imagination in the area of musical texture and the use of extended performance techniques (con sordino, sul ponticello, col legno
Col legno
In music for bowed string instruments, col legno, or more precisely col legno battuto , is an instruction to strike the string with the stick of the bow, rather than by drawing the hair of the bow across the strings. This results in a quiet but eerie percussive sound.Col legno is used in the final...
, ricochet, harmonics), and consequently expressive indications are encountered in each melodic line. In short, the music of Lucien Durosoir avoids categorization with many of the "ism" labels (i.e.: impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
, neoclassicism
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
) that are commonly applied to music of the early twentieth century.
Orchestral works
- Poème for violin and viola with orchestra, 1920
- Déjanira, symphonic étude based on a fragment from Trakhiniennes by Sophocles, 1923
- Le balcon, poème symphonique for bass solo, chorus, and strings, 1924
- Funérailles, suite for orchestra, 1930
- Suite for flute and chamber orchestra, 1931
Chamber works
- Cinq aquarelles for violin and piano (Bretagne, Vision, Ronde *, Berceuse *, Intermède), 1920; these two movements are also transcribed for violoncello and piano
- Poème transcribed for violin solo, viola solo, and piano
- String Quartet No. 1 in F Minor, 1920
- Caprice for violoncello and harp, 1921
- Jouvence, fantasy for principal violin and string octet, 1921 ; this work is also transcribed for violin and piano
- Le Lys, sonata in A Minor for violin and piano, 1921
- String Quartet No. 2 in D Minor, 1922
- Rêve for violin and piano, 1925
- Quintet in F Major for piano and string quartet, 1925
- Idylle for wind quartet : flute, clarinet, horn in F, bassoon, 1925
- Oisillon bleu, brief poème for violin and piano, 1927
- Trio en Si mineur for violin, violoncello, and piano, 1927
- Divertissement, Maiade et Improvisation, 3 pieces for violoncello and piano, 1931
- String Quartet No. 3 in B Minor [1933-1934]
- Vitrail, piece for viola and piano, 1934
- Berceuse for flute and piano, 1934
- Au vent des Landes for flute and piano, 1935
- Fantaisie for horn, harp and piano, 1937
- Incantation bouddhique for English horn and piano, 1946
- Prière à Marie for violin and piano, 1949
- Chant élégiaque in memory of Ginette Neveu, for violin and piano, 1950
- Improvisation sur la gamme d’ut for melodic instrument and piano, 1950
Vocal
- Sonnet à un enfant for voice and piano, 1930
- A ma mère, for voice and piano (unfinished), 1950
External links
- Full record in French
- http://personal.utulsa.edu/~john-powell/Lucien_Durosoir_Musique_pour_violon_et_piano/Track_1.mp3, Audio clip - Le Lys, sonata in A Minor for violin and piano.
- http://personal.utulsa.edu/~john-powell/Lucien_Durosoir_Musique_pour_violon_et_piano/Mvt1.htm - Music score.