Michel Paul Philippot was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 composer

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...

, mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

, acoustician, musicologist

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...

, aesthetician

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

, broadcaster, and educator.

Life

Philippot’s studies of mathematics were interrupted by World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, after which he decided instead to study music, first at the Conservatory of Reims

Reims

Reims , a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, lies east-northeast of Paris. Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire....

, and then at the Paris Conservatoire (1945–48), where he studied harmony with Georges Dandelot

Georges Dandelot

Georges Édouard Dandelot was a French composer.-Biography:Dandelot's father was Alfred Dandelot, and his mother was the daughter of a piano maker...

. He also took private composition lessons from 1946 to 1950 with René Leibowitz

René Leibowitz

René Leibowitz was a French composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher born in Warsaw, Poland.-Career:...

, who introduced him to the music of the Second Viennese School

Second Viennese School

The Second Viennese School is the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught, sporadically, between 1903 and 1925...

. In 1949 he began a career at ORTF in a position as a music producer. In 1959 he became assistant to Pierre Schaeffer

Pierre Schaeffer

Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician of the 20th century. His innovative work in both the sciences —particularly communications and acoustics— and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end...

 in the Groupe de Recherches Musicales, and later worked under Henri Barraud at France-Culture. From 1964 to 1972 he was in charge of music programs, then became a technical adviser to the Director General of Radio France

Radio France

Radio France is a French public service radio broadcaster.-Mission:Radio France's two principal missions are:* To create and expand the programming on all of their stations; and...

 and to the President of the Institut National de l'Audiovisual. From 1969 to 1976 he also taught musicology and aesthetics at the Universities of Paris I and IV, and from 1970 was Professor of Composition at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. In 1976 he moved to Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 in order to create the department of music at the University of the State of São Paulo, as well as to take up a position as Professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro is one of the largest federal universities of Brazil, where public universities comprise the majority of the best and most qualified institutions...

. Upon returning to France in 1983, he resumed his occupation as technical advisor to INA (until 1989) and his professorship at the Paris Conservatory (until 1990).

Philippot’s compositions are almost exclusively instrumental, in a style indebted in part to 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...

, while his essentially contrapuntal textures adhere to the Schoenbergian principle of continuous variation.

His honors include the Grand Prix national de la musique (1987), and the presidency of the Académie Charles Cros.

Compositions (selective list)

Orchestra

• Overture for chamber orchestra (1949)
• Composition No. 1 for string orchestra (1959)
• Composition No. 2 for strings, piano and harp (1974)
• Composition No. 4 (1980)
• Carrés magiques (1983)
• Concerto for violin and/or viola and orchestra (1984)

Chamber and solo instrumental

• Variations for 10 instruments (1957)
• Transformations triangulaires for flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, horn, trumpet, trombone, two percussionists, violin and cello (1963)
• Composition No. 1 for violin (1965)
• Sonata for organ (1971)
• Passacaille for 12 instruments (1973)
• Composition No. 2 for violin (1975)
• Octet for clarinet, bassoon, horn, string quartet and double bass (1975)
• Composition No. 3 for violin (1976)
• String Quartet No. 1 (1976)
• Septet (1977)
• String Quartet No. 2 (1982)
• Quintet for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano (1984)
• String Quartet No. 3 (1985)
• Quintet for piano, two violins, viola and cello (1986)
• Composition for bassoon and piano (1986)
• Composition No. 4 for violin (1988)
• String Quartet No. 4 (1988)
• Ludus sonoritatis for 8 instruments (1989)
• Contrapunctus X for 10 instruments (1994)
• Méditation for 12 instruments (1994)

Tape

• Etude No. 1 (1951)
• Etude No. 2 (1957)
• Etude No. 3 (1962)

Piano

• Piano Sonata No. 1 (1947)
• Piano Sonata No. 2 (1973)
• Composition No. 4 for piano (1975)
• Composition No. 5 for piano (1976)
• Composition No. 6 for piano (1977)

Vocal

• Quatre mélodies for soprano and piano (1948); words by Guillaume Apollinaire
  Guillaume Apollinaire
  Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
  
  

Film scores

• Cyrus le grand (1960); directed by Feri Farzaneh
• Concerto pour violoncelle (1962); written and directed by Monique Lepeuve

Writings (selective list)

A complete list and full French texts of many items: Michel Philippot: Écrits

• 1952. "L'école de Vienne. " Revue du C.D.M.I. [pp.?]
• 1953. "Musique et Acoustique—ou a propos de l'art de combiner les sons. " Cahiers M. Renaud Barrault [pp.?]
• 1962. "Métamorphoses Phénoménologiques." Critique. Revue Générale des Publications Françaises et Etrangères, no. 186 (November 1962). English as "Ansermet’s Phenomenological Metamorphoses," translated by Edward Messinger. Perspectives of New Music 2, no. 2 (Spring-Summer 1964): 129–40.
• 1965. Igor Stravinsky. Musiciens de tous les temps n°18. Paris: Seghers.
• 1975. "Arnold Schoenberg and the Language of Music." Perspectives of New Music 13, no. 2 (Spring-Summer): 17–29.
• 1976. "Ear, Heart, and Brain. " Perspectives of New Music 14, no. 2 and 15, no. 1 (Spring-Summer and Fall-Winter): 45–60.
• 1978. "Musique du temps, musique d'un temps. " La Revue Musicale, no. 316–3:39ff.
• 1983. "Rameau, la lumière de la raison et la raison du coeur." À Coeur Joie (27 December).
• 1987. "Heitor Villa-Lobos et la France. " Les Cahiers de la Guitare et de la Musique, no. 23:17.
• 2001. Diabolus in Musica: Les Variations de Beethoven sur un Thème de Diabelli. Paris: L’Harmattan. ISBN 2747513289

Sources

• Clopet, Sylvie. 1989. "Sept années de créations françaises en dix quatuors (1983-1989)." Revue internationale de musique française, no. 30 (November): 57–62.
• Lyon, R. 1980. "Entretien avec Michel Philippot. " Le Courrier Musical de France no. 69:2–4.