Louis Durey
Louis Edmond Durey(French:[dyʁɛ];27 May 1888 – 3 July 1979)[1]was a French composer. He was among theLes Sixgroup of composers.
Life
[edit]Louis Durey was born in Paris, the son of a local businessman. It was not until he was nineteen years old that he chose to pursue a musical career after hearing a performance of aClaude Debussywork. As a composer, he was primarily self-taught. From the beginning, choral music was of great importance in Durey's productivity. HisL'Offrande Lyrique(1914) has been called the first piece of Frenchtwelve-tone music.[2]The first of his works to gain recognition in the music world was for a piano duet titledCarillons.At a 1918 concert, this work attracted the interest ofMaurice Ravel,who recommended him to his publisher.
Durey communicated with his colleague,Darius Milhaud,and asked him to contribute a piano piece that would bring together the six composers who, in 1920 were dubbedLes Six.This joint project wasL'Album des Six.Despite the acclaim they received, Durey did not participate in the group's 1921 collaborative workLes mariés de la tour Eiffel,[3]a decision which was a source of great irritation toJean Cocteau.
After theLes Sixperiod, Durey continued with his career. Never feeling the need to belong to the musical establishment, he voiced his growing left-wing ideals that put him in an artistic isolation that lasted for the rest of his life.
Following the break with Cocteau, Durey withdrew to his home inSaint-Tropezin the south of France. In addition to chamber music, at Saint-Tropez he wrote his only opera,L'Occasion.In 1929, he married Anne Grangeon and moved back to Paris the following year. In the mid-thirties he joined theCommunist Partyand became active in the newly formedFédération Musicale Populaire.During the years of theNazioccupation ofWorld War II,he worked with theFrench Resistanceas a prominent member of theFront National des Musicienswho worked to hide Jews and preserve French music under Nazi rule.[4]He also wroteanti-fascistsongs. As others, he stopped composing under Nazi rule and instead arranged and collected older French music and folk songs.[4]
After the war, he embraced hard-linecommunismand his uncompromising political attitudes hindered his career. Needing to earn a living, in 1950 he accepted the post of music critic for a communist newspaper in Paris.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he continued to compose but these works did not reach widespread popularity. His work onVietnamesethemes in the 1960s, based on his disgust with the turmoil France had left in Vietnam (formerlyFrench Indochina) and the ensuingVietnam War,seemed at that time in Paris to be a voice in the wilderness. He set poems byHo Chi MinhandMao Zedong.Other works include a string quartet, a flute sonatina, andImages à Crusoe.[2]
Louis Durey died at Saint-Tropez in 1979.[1]
Piano works
[edit]| Year | Opus | Work |
|---|---|---|
| 1916-8 | Op.7 | Deux Pièces pour piano a quatre mains, "Carillons" (1916) and "Neige" (1918) |
| 1917 | Op.9 | Scènes de Cirque |
| 1919 | Op.21 | Romance sans paroles (forL'Album des Six) |
| 1920 | Op.26 | Trois Préludes |
| 1920 | Op.28 | Prélude et Élégie |
| 1921 | Op.29 | Deux Études |
| 1921(?) | Op.30 | Le Blé en herbe |
| 1926 | Op.36 | Trois Sonatines |
| 1928 | Op.40 | Nocturne en re bémol |
| 1924-8 | Op.41 | Dix Inventions |
| 1951 | Op.68 | Dix Basquaises |
| 1953 | Op.75 | Six Pièces: "L'Automne 53" |
| 1956-7 | Op.83 | Concertino pour piano, seize instruments à vent, contrebasse et timbales |
Notes
[edit]References
[edit]- Kennedy, Michael,The Oxford Dictionary of Music(2006),ISBN0-19-861459-4
- Frédéric Robert,Louis Durey: L'aîne des Six(Les Éditeurs Français Réunis, 1968)
