Charles Koechlin

Biography

Charles Koechlin belonged to an old alsacienne family;: his/her grandfather, Jean Dollfus, had founded a spinning mill with Mulhouse and his/her father was draftsman for textile industry, his cousin was the woman of Gabriel Bouffet.

See also: Koechlin

He was received with the Polytechnic school in 1887 in a good row. At the institution of the street Monge where it made its secondary studies, it, already, was very impassioned by the music. It will be him which will be given the responsability to make “arrangements” of the small Polytechnique orchestra and will instrument the first ballade of Chopin. A typhoid fever contracted during the second year will oblige it to stop its studies. He will resign and enter to the Academy by having Antoine Taudou as professor of harmony, and Jules Massenet and André Gedalge as professors of harmony and composition. With died of César Franck, he will become the pupil of Gabriel Fauré. Endowed with a beautiful voice of baritone, he will sing in the choruses and it is by vocal works that he will begin his career of type-setter: poems of Theodore de Banville, Leconte de Lisle. He will at sea write , the night according to Heinrich Heine that the Concerts Column will give in 1904, the Fall , continuation symphonic, of the melodies on poems of Verlaine and Samain.

He will marry Suzanne Pierrard on April 24th, 1903 and from their union will be born five children. Confronted very quickly with pecuniary difficulties, it will be devoted to the writing of works of teaching, " my best pupil it is me-même" , without neglecting the composition. citer can;: Study on the passing notes (1922), Precise of the rules of counterpoint (1927), Treated of harmony in 3 volumes (1928), Study on the writing of the running away of school (1933), Study on the wind instruments (1948).

One could not overlook his Traité orchestration in 4 volumes (1935-1943) which treats mixture of the colors and nuances which makes say to Heinz Holliger (type-setter but also leader of Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuggart of SWR) which it is a " alchemist of the sons". This treaty of orchestration in four volume is extremely complete. Constantly republished, it remains, today still, a reference book in France and is in the library of all the type-setters or arrangers.

With Maurice Ravel and Florent Schmitt, it will found in 1909 the independent musical Société with an aim of promoting the modern music.

Between 1910 and 1920, he began architectonic research which he materialized in about fifteen works of chamber music (sonatas for various instruments, quartets and quintets), like in some orchestrales compositions;: the pagan Forest (1908), Three Chorals for organ and orchestra and Five Chorals for orchestra (1912-1920).

It will compose three collections of Rondels of Banville ; three others of Melodies on poems various (with piano or orchestra) ; choruses without paroles : the Forest (1907), a Ballade for piano and orchestra , Twenty childish parts for piano alone , Ving-quatre Drafts , Twelve Pastoral , the Hours Persians (piano or orchestra), five sonatines , twelve Landscapes and Marines .

Among works of Chamber music : four String quartets , a Continuation in quartet , a Sonata for two flutes , a Quintet for piano and cords , a Septuor for wind instruments , the quintet Primavera (for flute, violin, viola, violoncello and toothing-stone), of the Sonatas for various instruments.

Among works symphoniques : Towards the Remote Beach , Sun and dances in the forest , the Seasons (1912), a Symphony of Anthems (With the Sun, At the Day, At the Night, With Youth, the Life) which obtained the Cressent price in 1936, Five Chorals in the style of the modes of the Middle Ages (modal polyphony), the Book of the Jungle according to Kipling, the Symphonie n°1 (Halfan price in 1937). He wrote, also, pastoral biblical in an act, Jacob at Laban assembled to the Beriza Theater and in 1908, the Comic Opera presented a ballet, the Happy Heart .

With its 225 numbers of opus, it will build one of the most imposing works of its time. It will approach also the Symphonic poem with the Grape harvest (1896-1906), the traditional Night of Walpurgis (1901-1907), Funeral chant with the memory of the late young women (1902-1907), Towards the starry vault (1923) and especially Doctor Fabricius (1946) according to the news of his maternal uncle Charles Dollfus.

The spirit open to all the manifestations of the life, it will write for the cinema. In 1933, it will compose a Seven Stars Symphony whose final one, dedicated to Charlie Chaplin, will evoke " the chimerical heart, resignation and the espoir" of the famous artist. For the festivals of the Exposure of 1937, it will celebrate the Waters Running and in 1945, it will finish the Burning bush drawn from the novel Jean-Christophe of sound very near friendly Romain Roland. One can hear a strange instrument there - the Ondes Martenot (electric waves) of the name of his inventor, engineer Maurice Martenot (1898-1980). It is after 1930, qu ' it introduces into the orchestra the saxophones.

The figure of this octogenarian was légendaire : a beard of river, framing its face giving him a pace of patriarch. Its influence was exerted not only by the music and to his theoretical works but, also, to his conferences (important cities in the USA in 1918 then at the university of Berkeley in California in 1928) and one counts among his pupils or his disciples Francis Poulenc, Maxime Jacob, Roger Désormière, Germaine Tailleferre, Fred Barlow, Henri Sauguet and Lopes-Graça.

Its curiosity always in awakening, its eagerness to defend the young generations of musicians, his heat in the discussion, its great courtesy, its very great scholarship made of him a being of an exceptional richness. It was those which honoured best the French School but it also and unfortunately one of will be played because, undoubtedly, of its expensive " liberté" , of its savage independence which kept it away of all the coteries. It could write in 1947 : “ … at the evening of my life, I realize that the realization of my dreams of artist, for incomplete that it is, gave me intimate satisfaction not to have wasted my time on the terre. ”

Catalog

List of works of Charles Koechlin

Source

History of the Music - volume IV - of Jules Combarieu and Rene Dumesnil (ED. With Hake)

External bonds

Charles Koechlin ancestor of reputation
Biography on musicologie.org

Simple: Charles Koechlin

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