► Heinrich Schütz, died in Dresden on November 6, 1672
Born in Köstritz (Thuringia) in 1585, Schütz is considered the greatest German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and even the most important musical figure of his time, comparable to Monteverdi alone. The talent of this innkeeper’s son was encouraged by Landgrave Maurice of Hesse-Cassel who introduced him to his court’s school. From 1609 to 1612, Schütz studied in Venice with Giovanni Gabrielli. He returned to the City of the Doges twenty years later and perhaps received advice from Monteverdi … A fervent Lutheran, organist, he held the post of choirmaster in Dresden for his long life, sometimes prevented by the horrors of war from Thirty Years which took him to Copenhagen. A moment very influenced by Italy and the richness of its polychorality, he returned to a more severe aesthetic marked by his deep faith.
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Of his abundant production – unfortunately nothing of his organ creations, which nevertheless marked all of Northern Germany – remains above all sacred vocal music: Sacred Candles, three passions (according to Matthew, Luke and John), a requiem (Musical exequies), des oratorios (Christmas history, The seven words of Jesus Christ on the cross).
► André Cardinal Destouches, born in Paris on April 6, 1672
Before being devoted to music, his life was one of the most adventurous. A student of the Jesuits, he followed a missionary expedition to Siam but, on his return, chose a military career! Seduced by warlike music, he then changed direction to receive the teaching of André Campra. His interpersonal skills enabled him to obtain rewarding functions as superintendent (1718) then master (1726) of music for the King’s Chamber. A major supplier of books for the Royal Academy of Music, he even administers it for a brief moment.
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In 1697, the success of his heroic pastoral Issé with Louis XIV and then with the Parisian public opened up a lyrical career to him, pursued with Omphale, The Carnival of Madness Where Callirohé which gathered among the most important audiences in the room of the Royal Palace. Resident of the Saint Roch Church district, he was buried there in February 1749. Long underestimated and considered an amateur, he is appreciated today for his use of surprising dissonances, expressive melodic lines animating his lyrical declamation.
► César Franck, born in Liège on December 10, 1822
Franck was in his time a major figure in French musical life: virtuoso pianist and organist (holder of the organ of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris in 1859), professor at the Conservatory (from 1871, master of Vincent d’Indy, Ernest Chausson or Augusta Holmes), president of the National Music Society in 1886…
The beginnings of his career in Paris had however been difficult, hampered by the harsh ambition of his father and his condition as a foreigner. But Franck could count on the support of Franz Liszt, of whom he always remained a fervent follower. Like this one, a prolific author in many fields, the oratorio in particular (Ruth, The Beatitudes) and the symphonic poem with program (The Djins, The Cursed Hunter), he is celebrated above all for his “pure music”. We see him as an heir to the Germanic tradition, through the absolute masterpieces that are his Sonata for violin and piano in A major (1886) and his Quintet for piano and strings in F minor (1879). He died in Paris on November 8, 1890.
► Alexander Nikolaevich Scriabin, born in Moscow on January 6, 1872 – according to the Gregorian calendar
After a rather erratic training, Scriabin entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1888 and there, like his fellow student Rachmaninov, trained as a pianist and composer. He embarked on a career as a virtuoso which took him everywhere in Europe but, injured his right hand, would only resume it to play his own works. In Paris, after considerable success in 1896, he met Mikhail Morozov and his wife Margarita who became his patrons and supported him in an eventful personal and artistic life, in Europe and, back in Russia in 1909.
As a composer, Scriabin was also a unique personality. Unlike his colleagues who asserted their national ties, he claimed an integral symbolism animated by a theosophical mysticism, centered on synesthesia or association of the senses of sight and hearing. He gradually abandoned the structure of classical forms: thus his last sonatas for the piano (he wrote 10) no longer had a single movement and sound. Poem of Ecstasy, a gigantic symphonic work composed between 1905 and 1908, advances several motifs irregularly to an ecstatic finale. This is because, according to the artist, musical development is above all a spiritual journey. He died in Moscow in April 1915.
► Ralph Vaughan-Williams, born October 12, 1872 in Down Ampney (Gloucester County)
His father, a clergyman, died very quickly and he was raised by his mother, a descendant of the Wedgwood family and related to Charles Darwin. At the Royal College of Music in London, Vaughan-Williams was a fellow student of the future conductor Leopold Stokowski who, later, will conduct several of his symphonies but also of the composer Gustav Holst. With the latter and Frederick Delius, he participated in the revival of English music that began at the end of the 19th century and was deliberately part of the British tradition, especially folklore. He thus published in 1906 The English Hymnal, combining original compositions with numerous arrangements of popular songs, and also participates in the edition of Purcell’s works. In 1910, he had his first public success with the Fantasy on a theme of Tallis which he conducts in Gloucester Cathedral and a true triumph with his first choral symphony A Sea Symphony.
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His long activity as a composer (he died in London in August 1958) was marked by eclecticism: symphonic, choral and religious pieces, stage and film music, ballets and operas … It always shows, in addition to the attention to the works of past, a very perceptible sensitivity to nature: it permeates in particular The Lark Ascending (1914) where a solo violin embodies the flight of a bird in the calm of the sky painted by the orchestra.
► Iannis Xenakis, born May 29, 1922 in Brãila, Romania
Born into the Greek community in Romania, the young Iannis was sent to Greece to pursue scientific studies. Bathed in a musical atmosphere from childhood, he was introduced to analysis, harmony and counterpoint and produced a geometric transcription of works by Bach! The Italian then German occupation, his fight in the resistance, then the civil war and his commitment to the Communists, thwarted these studies and caused the wound with which his face will remain marked.
In September 1947 he left his country for France where he worked as an architect and engineer, collaborating with Le Corbusier, in particular for the Philips Pavilion at the Universal Exhibition in Brussels in 1958. At the same time, with the support of Olivier Messiaen, he continues its quest for new mathematical keys and new technological spaces for musical writing. In 1954 is thus created Metastasis, figurehead of “stochastic” music (integrating the statistical elements of chance). Anxious to bring together visual and sound arts, Xenakis created in 1967 the first of his Polytopes, a show of sound and light designed for a specific place, which he will develop and vary in Montreal (for the French Pavilion of the 1967 World’s Fair), Persepolis or Cluny… This “polyculture”, which sometimes earned him the despised by supporters of serialism, it won him the admiration of a new audience, especially around 1968. He died in Paris in February 2001.
► A hint of “light” music to finish
Finally, 2022 will allow us to celebrate together two stars of so-called “light” music. Here, for the café-concert of the Belle Époque, Félix Mayol (1872-1941): his song Come on Poupoule! in 1905 had broken all the sales records of “small formats”, those inexpensive sheet music which preceded the disc in the dissemination of the hits of the song.
So much for the music hall review of the Roaring Twenties, Maurice Chevalier (1888-1972). First arguing for Mistinguett, he became his rival with the successes of In life, don’t worry (1921) and above all Valentine (1925). Upon his return from the war in 1916, he adopted his stage outfit and his iconic accessory, the boater. Archetypal Parisian banter, Maurice Chevalier enchanted Hollywood and made a career in cinema. Worried about his ambiguous attitude during the years of occupation, he owed his salvation to the support of Louis Aragon and Elsa Triolet.
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