Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel ( French: Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel ; April 5, 1869 - August 23, 1937 ) - the famous French composer of the first third of the XX century .
| Albert Roussel Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel | |
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| basic information | |
| Birth name | |
| Date of Birth | |
| Place of Birth | Tourcoing (Department of Nord , France ) |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | Royan (Department of Charente Maritime , France) |
| Buried | |
| A country | France |
| Professions | composer , music teacher |
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| Genres | and |
Having started his life as a midshipman on warships, he very late (only by the age of forty) became a professional musician. In the history of art there are very few artists whose ethics of life and work would come close to such a harsh code of morality and honor , which Roussel has steadily followed throughout his life. Recognition went a long way towards him, but in his whole life he did not take a single step dropping his own dignity in order to accelerate this path.
The creative path of Albert Russell was distinguished by the constant search for his style in the intricate labyrinth of artistic trends in musical France of the early XX century . Having gone through successively through the influence of Wagner and Frank , then through his fascination with impressionism by Debussy , exotic Orientalism , and later - the rigid avant-garde of Stravinsky and the politeness of Millau , Albert Roussel, impressed by the example of late compositions by Eric Satie, ended his career as the most prominent neoclassicist in music.
In the thirties of the 20th century, Albert Roussel took the place of the universally recognized and respected leader among French composers.
Biography of a not yet composer
Albert Charles Charles Paul Marie Roussel was born on April 5, 1869 in the city of Turcouin (the Northern Department of France, bordering Flanders ) in a family of wealthy French manufacturers , textile dealers. The surname of Roussels was as long known as well-off: generation after generation of the Roussels were educated, cultural bourgeois who were actively involved in the social and political life of their province and even France as a whole. So, great-great-great-grandfather of Albert Russel was a deputy from the third estate in the General States of 1789 and voted for the execution of Louis XVI . Later, already under the Convention, he held the post of Minister of War, and after 18 Brumaire - he abandoned political activity and returned to his province, which may have saved his life [5] . The grandfather of Albert Roussel, a respected head and owner of a textile factory, for the past 30 years of his life, was the permanent mayor of his native city of Turkuen.
But, despite the wealth and the solid position of his family, a difficult childhood awaited little Albert Russel. He orphaned very early, having lost his father in infancy, and his mother at the age of seven. For four more years he lived in the family of his grandfather, who in those years held the post of mayor of his hometown of Turkuen. But when Alber was eleven years old, his grandfather also passed away [6] . Alber spent four more years in the family of his aunt , the sister of his late mother. Despite the caring and attentive attitude of relatives, the boy felt lonely and devoted all his free time to reading and fantasies. His favorite author is Jules Verne , who aroused his curiosity and desire to travel. In addition, almost every summer he spent at a beach resort in Belgium . Perhaps all this together gradually fostered a love of the sea in him and, in the end, aroused the desire to become a sailor. At the same time, Russell was fond of mathematics and other exact sciences. In addition to classes in college , Russell studied piano at home, invariably causing his musicality and sensitivity to the delight of an elderly teacher, organist of the local church of Notre Dame.
A lonely childhood overwhelmed by the loss of loved ones, however, did not cripple the psyche of Albert Russel, rather, on the contrary. He developed in himself and retained to the end of his life high and rigid moral principles , as well as extraordinary endurance, self-discipline and restraint, which distinguished him from most modern artists and evoked the continued respect of others.
At the age of fifteen, Roussel went to Paris to complete his secondary education at the Lyceum of Stanislav. Among his teachers is the renowned historian of French literature, Rene Dumik , and among classmates, Edmond Rostand , the future poet and playwright [5] .
In 1887 , after receiving a certificate of maturity, Russel holds an exam at the Higher Naval School. Among six hundred candidates, he was accepted by competition - sixteenth . However, the future naval officer is trying not to forget about the music. While practicing sailing in the Atlantic on the Melpomene sailing frigate (a rather symptomatic name) , Russell organizes a small orchestra and amateur choir from midshipmen , accompanying Sunday masses with his own, a little special music. It is curious that for the sake of some “diversity”, Russell inserts some of the melodies he remembered for his Paris life to accompany the mass, for example, the royal march from Offenbach 's “Beautiful Helen” [5] .
After being promoted to officer, Albert Roussel received an appointment first for the Pobeditel cruiser , and then for the Styx gunboat , on which he made a long voyage along the southern seas in the Far East. In 1889–90, Roussel was part of the crew of the frigate "Iphigenia" and participated in a round-the-world expedition. Just at this time belonged to the first works of Russell: " Fantasy " for violin and piano , and then " Andante " for violin, viola , cello and organ . Working on these plays, Roussel had the opportunity to verify the lack of knowledge of the most elementary rules of musical composition . Despite the independent study of Duran’s textbook of harmony, Russell felt himself to be a perfect amateur in music.
By a professional career he was prompted by an accident or a rally of one friend in the maritime service. Once, when in the wardroom, Russel was playing his plays on the piano , one of his colleagues, the brother of a famous opera singer, being in a good mood, volunteered to show his compositions to his brother and other professionals. Six months later, after returning from vacation, a colleague told Roussel that his plays made a great impression, and that the venerable brother advised Roussel to seriously devote himself to music ... Many years later, when Albert Roussel had already become a famous composer , this story unexpectedly revealed. An old friend confessed that while on vacation he had simply forgotten his promise, without showing his brother Russell’s plays. However, by then the matter had already been done. Russell became a well-known and respected professional musician , composer and professor of polyphony .
In 1894 , returning to France from a long trip, Albert Roussel received a long vacation, which he spent with his relatives in Roubaix . He decided to devote his entire vacation to the study of the basics of musical theory . With a request to give him private lessons, he turned to the director of the conservatory in Roubaix , Julien Coszul , an experienced and famous organist of the Niedermeier school. Scrolling through the first creative experiments of the young officer, Kozul strongly recommended that he go to Paris and show compositions by Eugene Gigue , professor of polyphony and composition at the school of Niedermeier. Without thinking twice, Roussel followed Coszul's advice and received a very benevolent response from the Paris professor. Having believed the high ratings and recommendations of Coszul and Gigue to seriously study music, Russel finally decided to leave the service in the navy . In September 1894, Russel retired. Later, Eugene Gigou spoke about his one of the best students, Roussel, that "he is gifted with a real genius of fugue" [5] .
- Albert Roussel unusually late decided to choose a career as a professional musician. Until 25 years, his studies were very far from art . Like Rimsky-Korsakov , he spent his first youth as a midshipman in campaigns on distant seas. But later, even while teaching or composing music, Roussel, until the end of his days, retained and transferred to his work a penchant for the sea, travel and exotic of distant lands. And although not one of his musical works contains either marine images, or even the theme of the sea, nevertheless distant countries, hiking observations and exotic peoples left their deep imprint, visible to anyone who is in contact with the work of Russel.
Composer Biography
In October 1894, Albert Roussel settled in Paris and began to actively study harmony , counterpoint and fugue under the guidance of his new teacher, Eugene Gigou . The strict Niedermeier school, based on the counterpoint of strict writing and the high samples on which Roussel passed the theory of music ( Bach , Handel , Mozart and Beethoven ) from the very beginning contribute to the formation of his classically transparent and clear thinking. Until the end of his days, Albert Roussel retained gratitude and deepest respect for his teacher. In his Memoirs, he devotes more than one page to Eugene Gigue, among which one can find the following words:
... Broad views, free from any scholastic bias, accurate in his observations, putting purely musical considerations above all school rules, and aesthetic ones - above internecine quarrels, he lives in my memory as a perfect example of a teacher from whom a young musician could learn his art.
- [5]
Apparently, it was precisely after this model that Russell himself, several years later, built his own teaching work. The words of Roussel said about his teacher, Eugene Gigou, are superbly applicable to himself.
In total, the training period at Russel takes 15 years - in fact, not as long as it might seem at first glance. That is how long an ordinary higher musical education lasts (by modern standards). However, he begins to study not from five or seven years, as is usually accepted, but only from 25 , so that he finally ceases to be a student - only by forty years. Here's what you need to remember when observing Russell’s rather late musical career. In 1898 , excellently prepared with four years of training at Gigoux, Roussel entered the newly opened Cantorum School in the class of polyphony , orchestration and free composition by Vincent d'Andy , both a venerable composer of the Wagnerian direction, a prominent conductor and organizer of musical life in France. In his monograph on the life and work of Russell, Andre Oer exhaustively characterizes the years of his teachings and the origins of the formation of an individual style:
... in idle disputes about the definition of Russell's affiliation with debussy or d'endism , in contrast to the Schola education system and the Conservatory, they somehow forget about the decisive importance in its formation as a composer, the principles of the Niedermeier school, primarily thanks to Koszul and Gigue. The principles of the same school, from the walls of which Saint-Saens , Gabriel Foret and Message came out.
- Hoeree A. Albert Roussel. - P. , 1938. - P. 21 [5] .
Vincent d'Andy, soon becoming convinced of the exceptional knowledge of the new student in the field of polyphony, almost immediately appointed him as his assistant, and then, at the end of the course at Schola cantorum , invited him to lead the class of counterpoint and fugue . Thus, having graduated from the polyphonic school five years later, in 1902, Russell himself began to teach a polyphonic course in it, while continuing to study with Vincent d'Andy in other subjects until 1908 .
Schola cantorum , an almost religious educational musical institution, which was under the patronage of the Catholic Institute, was a special phenomenon on the musical map of France at the beginning of the 20th century . On the one hand, it had a reputation as a bulwark of conservatism . The training in it was almost entirely based on the study of ancient church music, Gregorian chorus , the technique of old polyphony (on the example of the work of Palestrina , Schutz , Bach , Handel , as well as some “specially approved” French masters, such as Lully , Rameau and Couperin . of course, one of the main pillars of the music system was Cantor School teacher and idol of her many years of unchallenged head of Vincent d'Indy, the venerable French organist and composer César Franck . it is clear that the professor of polyphony, what was Albert Ussel, was assigned an honorable role of a conductor of ideas of strict style and canons of the Church of the old letters. It would seem that may be more conservative and land described program? However, strict and almost ecclesiastical Schola cantorum in the early 1900s, suddenly becomes a counterbalance almost decaying bureaucratic Academy of Music and a necrotic, retrograde training system at the Paris Conservatoire . Out of the walls of the Cantor School, for the first ten years of its existence, they come out as brave experimental musicians who have received a strong professional the basics, as well as the daring avant-garde artists of the first row, blowing up the foundations of modern art, such as Eric Sati or Edgar Varez [7] . Incidentally, both of the just named musicians studied the course of counterpoint and polyphony in the class of Professor Albert Russell, preserving the kindest memory and excellent attitude for many years.
Alber Russel's smooth, restrained and invariably attentive character was the best suited precisely for teaching work with bright creative personalities. For twelve years he was a thoughtful and thorough Schola cantorum teacher on the history and theory of polyphonic art. Such unusual and significant composers as Eric Satie, Paul Le Flem , Edgar Varez, Alexis Rolan Manuel , Guy de Lioncourt , Marcel Orban , and many foreign musicians, including the famous Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu , the Romanian composer, came out of the counterpoint class of Albert Russell Stan Golestan , Uruguayan Alfonso Broca , Italian Cesare Brero and Czech Julia Reiserova [5] .
Even the eternally wicked Eric Satie (a forty-year-old student who was three years older than his teacher) found in his soul only kind words about his professor. From time to time, he liked to sentence, falsifying the tone of Roussel, his favorite phrase - while checking homework: "The composer, like the surgeon , must always have the Precise Harmony Instrument with him." [8] But even ten years after completing the course of counterpoint in his articles and notes, Eric Satie more than once found an occasion not without pleasure to note that “... for three years I worked (on myself) with Albert Roussel, whose friend, I dare to notice, I remain and still " [9] . Of course, in terms of his spiritual and strong-willed qualities, Roussel was strikingly different from the usual Parisian bohemia and artistic circles.
In the fall of 1909, Roussel fulfills his old dream - a trip to India . As a young officer, he met some port cities. Now he and his young wife are making a carefully thought-out and pre-compiled journey through ancient cities in the interior of the country. Upon returning to France, the impressions brought from India result in several compositions quite remarkable for all European music [10] . The first of them is the symphonic triptych “Calling Visions” ( French Evocations ) for soloists , choir and orchestra . First performed in Paris on May 18, 1912 , he impressed listeners and critics with his striking exotic unusualness combined with an impressionistic style. In this triptych, Roussel captured the underground temples of Ellora , the beauty of the sunlit white marble palaces in Jaipur and the song of salutation to the sky of a young fakir on the banks of the Ganges in Benares . The success of the premiere was overwhelming. Roussel immediately and irrevocably recognized as one of the leaders of modern French music.
The next noisy success was marked by his one-act pantomime ballet The Feast of the Spider ( French: Le festin de l'araignée ), staged at the Paris Theater of Arts on April 3, 1913 . Instead of the planned eight performances, the ballet was shown 22 times before the end of the season. In the wake of popularity, Roussel created a symphonic suite from his ballet, which gained wide popularity and still occupies an honorable place on the concert stages of the world along with Faun Debussy , Sorcerer's Apprentice Duke and Waltz Ravel [10] . Thanks to Spider Feast and Challenge of Visions, in the prewar years, Roussel finally became one of the most prominent impressionist composers. A major Parisian music publisher Jacques Durant , who specialized in working with the Impressionists , eagerly publishes his works along with the music of Ravel , d'Andy , Debussy and Schmitt [11] . At the end of 1913, Roussel received an order from Grand Opera for an opera for any libretto interesting to him. And Roussel again chooses the Indian theme as the plot - the 13th-century legend of Padmavati , the faithful wife of Ratan-sen . However, he managed only six months to work on his new opera .
The First World War put an end to both the composer's and the teaching work of Russel. He is forty-five years old. The draft committee does not accept him into the army due to his state of health. However, Roussel nevertheless enters the Red Cross as a volunteer and has been working as an ambulance driver in the front line for almost two years. Even in this case, far from music, he and Maurice Ravel again become close colleagues: already at the end of October 1914, Maurice Ravel, also rejected by doctors, volunteered to enter the automobile regiment and serve as a truck driver until 1918 [12] . After a year and a half of service in the Red Cross, Albert Russel, however, managed to transfer closer to the front and enter the transport service officer - in the existing artillery . With the rank of lieutenant, Roussel took part in hostilities in Champagne , on the Somme and near Verdun in 1916-1917. A little less than a year before the end of the war, in January 1918, Albert Roussel was finally finally commited from the army - just like Ravel, due to illness. After demobilization, he for a long time restores health disrupted by the war. Only in the summer of 1918 was Roussel able to return to normal life and again to tackle the interrupted composition of the opera Padmavati. Roussel did not return to teaching at the Schola cantorum, however, he continued to willingly provide assistance in the field of polyphony and composition to young musicians who contacted him.
Even at the front of Roussel, the fate of the composition of the opera Padmavati left by him was very worrying. After some hard years of the war, will anyone need this old tale of love and death? ..
... All this will surely become "something pre-war", that is, separated from our wall today, this wall ... After all, you will need to start living anew, with a new attitude to life, this does not mean that everything that happens before the war will be forgotten, but everything what will be done after the war will be different. <...> My Padmavati is still strong enough to endure the test of another two or three years of waiting (and what years!) Before she meets the public
- Albert Roussel . Letter to his wife dated April 9, 1916 [5]
Roussel was a little mistaken. The Padmavati had to wait for this meeting not for two or three, but for another seven years. But then the premiere of June 1, 1923 was the fundamental success of Russell. However, among the raptures, individual critical voices were heard. Very indicative in this sense was the recall of Paul Duke at the premiere of Russell's great opera. Paying tribute to the high merits of music and the extraordinary (truly oriental) luxury of staging, Duke nevertheless found it necessary to point out some abuse of external effects with insufficiently detailed elaboration of the characters of the main characters of the performance [13] . However, the powerful power and originality of the Padmavati imagery defeated all doubts. With the extreme complexity and high cost of her production, she appeared on the scene in 1925, 1927 and 1931 , winning for Russell an increasing number of admirers of his talent. In 1938, the already mentioned Arthur Oéré in his book on Russel quite rightly lamented this colorful score outside France for little fame.
Not only because she, along with Onegger's Antigone and Christopher Columbus Millau, is one of the most significant creations of our theater after the war, but the main thing is also because it possesses to the highest degree those qualities that, by what they don’t recognize French music: it differs in strength and depth.
- Hoeree A. Albert Roussel. - P. , 1938. - P. 59 [5] .
After the war ended, in 1920 Albert Roussel bought a country house in Normandy , near the seashore, where he spent most of the seventeen years of his active life allotted to him. The last one and a half decades of Russell’s life are distinguished by a particular intensity of both creativity and social activity. Along with Ravel in the 1920s, Russell is the recognized leader of French music. With the beginning of Ravel’s long illness, when he gradually departs from participation in the cultural life of Paris, Roussel remains almost the sole leader . In the thirties, Russell heads the French section of the International Society of Contemporary Music and, together with Andre Caple, is a member of the jury of the annual festival . Until the end of his life, Roussel does not lose his liveliness of character and remains open to everything new. He supports the work of young French composers, many of the latest avant-garde trends penetrate into his works. But from the beginning of the 1920s, young composers are increasingly looking at his work. After the death of Eric Satie, almost the entire French Six is influenced by the personality and work of Russell, in particular Arthur Honegger .
Roussel made his last voyage not to the east , as happened before, but to America , with triumphant touring concerts. In 1930, commissioned by Sergei Kusevitsky, Russell wrote his Third Symphony to celebrate the anniversary of the Boston Orchestra . This is one of his strongest works, full of strength, energy, sharpness and drama.
The last year and a half of life, Russell feels worse, heart disease worsens, and in the spring of 1937, at the insistence of doctors, he leaves for the seaside resort of Royan , in southwestern France, to relax and heal. However, heart attacks become more frequent and stronger. On August 13, Roussel was forced to interrupt the composition of his wind Trio for oboe , clarinet and bassoon . Courageously and extremely calmly, like everything in his life, Roussel suffers suffering from heart attacks .
Albert Roussel, a 68-year-old French composer, died of another heart attack at about four in the afternoon of August 23, 1937, in the city of Royan in southwestern France. He died in the same 1937 as his closest colleagues and close comrades in his creative career: Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Pierne .
“The composer, like the surgeon, must always have the Accurate Harmony Instrumentation with him” - this is what should not be forgotten . [8]
Creative Essay
The complete list of works by Albert Russel includes 59 published opuses and about a dozen more manuscripts . A very wide stylistic range of the work of Russel may suggest the idea of some aesthetic omnivorous composer. Meanwhile, this is completely wrong. The artist sincerely reflecting , constantly experiencing increased responsibility to himself and art , Russell himself explained his constant searches with an unflagging desire to find the maximum expressiveness of the musical language. In this search, his undoubted romantic nature and love for comprehending the nature of things found manifestation. But there was another constant source, throughout his life pushing Russell to update the means of musical speech. This is the East , with the colorful and eclectic culture of which he met during several travels. In the works of various years, Roussel inserts characteristic frets from Indian , Cambodian and Indonesian folk music. However, this is not for him a method of introducing “local flavor ”, but only a means of enriching the musical language.
In his best works, which include the Third and Fourth Symphonies , the opera - the ballet Padmavati, the ballets Bacchus and Ariadne and The Feast of the Spider, as well as the Flemish Rhapsody for the orchestra , Russell clearly demonstrates his recognizable and original creative handwriting [13] . His melodic gift, however, is not great. Nevertheless, many topics have a "character", vivid intonation and expressiveness.
The greatest value in the work of Roussel is his theatrical works, as well as four symphonies and symphonies, the presence of which in French music at the beginning of the 20th century can be recognized as almost a unique phenomenon. According to many musicologists , the so-called symphonic thinking is alien to French composers. And in fact, “absolute music”, not related to the word, literary foundation, program , nature paintings or stage design, very rarely came out of the pen of French authors. The four symphonies of Albert Russell to a certain extent reversed this trend. Moreover, he did this, remaining a true French artist, without any shift to the field of "German discipline" , which Debussy and Ravel constantly opposed. But first of all, Russell's merit is that his personal experience gave impetus to a new trend among young French composers who turned to pure symphonic music with renewed vigor. In this regard, it suffices to name the names of Arthur Honegger , Darius Millau, Henri Dutiyo and Henri Sauguet [13] .
The years of study at Schola Cantorum certainly influenced the formation of Russel's style. Authorities such as Palestrina and Bach have left their mark on the mature style of Russell, rich in counterpoints and complex polyphonic ligature of voices. Compared to the subtle nuances of French composers close to him, such as Foret and Debussy , the Russell Orchestra is not an example more dense and heavy, even in those of his works, which are traditionally called impressionist . In all periods of his work, no matter how it looked externally, in terms of temperament and way of thinking, Russel was closest to classicism .
In several works, Roussel also paid tribute to such a new and growing phenomenon in his time as American jazz . One of his compositions for voice and piano is called “Night Jazz” ( 1929 ) and clearly echoes such works by his contemporaries as the violin sonata of Maurice Ravel or the ballet Creation of the World by Darius Millau.
In his book “ Memoirs, ” Albert Roussel saved later scholars from the need to make their own conclusions. He himself, as the venerable teacher Schola cantorum, quite convincingly analyzed his own work and identified three clearly defined stylistic periods from it:
The first period, from 1898 to 1913 , which can conditionally be called impressionist . It mainly includes years of study. Speaking in the book "Memoirs" of his work, the author in some places softens the wording. So, according to Russell, his music of these years was " slightly, very slightly influenced by Debussy, referring, first of all, to the tendency to the harsh form that my teacher, Vincent d'Andy , instilled in me." Evaluating Russell’s words and music from the side, it can be said that although this period of creativity is rightly called the “ impressionistic ” period, nevertheless, his music of this time contains no less than the number of oriental influences. This is exactly what Albert Roussel was strikingly different from his colleagues in musical impressionism.
Russell’s first orchestral experience was the resurrection symphonic prelude based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy ( 1903 ). It was performed on May 17, 1904 in a concert of the National Musical Society under the direction of Alfred Corto , who always showed interest in the work of Russell. The unusual density of the musical language, the overall gloomy color (the prelude culminated in a choir on a common Gregorian theme), as well as the noticeable overload of the lower register in the orchestra, caused a harsh rebuke to the aspiring composer, who was still clearly influenced by Frank 's symphonic style [14] . Roussel silently and calmly accepted the criticism, left the score in the manuscript - and never returned to it again.
The following orchestral compositions, marked by the ever-increasing influence of Claude Debussy, are quite different in spirit. The soft and poetic Summer Evening ( 1904 ) and the very colorful Grape Harvest ( 1905 ), based on the poem by Leconte de Lille, were also first performed by Corto. Despite the rather benevolent press reviews, Roussel destroyed the “Grapes Harvesting” score immediately after its execution, as it considered both the form and the orchestration of his composition to be unsuccessful [14] . Then Roussel with renewed vigor takes on the four-part symphony, which he calls The Poem of the Forest (1904-1906), which had already begun a year earlier. The classical forms of the symphonic cycle are combined in it with pictures of nature, divided into four seasons. Parts have subtitles: “Forest in winter”, “Spring renewal”, “Summer evening” (previously written as a separate orchestral play) and “ Faun and dryads ”. Several times the parts of the symphony were performed separately in concerts, and only on February 7, 1909, in the concert of the Lamurieu Orchestra , the full premiere of the symphony was conducted by Vincent d'Andy . Authoritative critics Jean Marnol and Gaston Carro praised the "Poem of the Forest", seeing in its author a promising symphonist.
... in the generation of composers immediately following Paul Duke and Albertique Manyar , it may be he, Russell, who gives the greatest hopes. The more he creates, the more noticeable is remarkable personality in Monsieur Albert Roussel: in what he talks about and in the way he expresses his thoughts. The individuality of his soul determines the individual identity of his style.
- Karrot G. "Liberte", 9 fev. 1909 [14] .
Almost simultaneously with the symphony, Roussel completes the chamber “ Divertissement ” for piano and five wind instruments. This cheerful and humorous music is distinguished by virtuoso mastery of each instrument and a beautiful ensemble as a whole. The musical themes in it are embossed and convex, and the lines and edges of the form are clear. All these features, which are clearly opposed to the general aesthetics of impressionism, anticipate the neoclassical trends of post-war creativity. Some critics noted in the music of “Divertissement” the features that bring together Russel’s work and then gaining strength - Fauvism in painting.
Summing up the above, the most famous works of the first period include: “Divertissement” op.6 for a quintet of woodwinds and pianos (1906), Symphony No. 1 “Poem of the forest” op.7 (1904-1906), “Seller of sand” music to a play for children (1908), “Calling Visions”, op.15 triptych for choir, orchestra and baritone (1910-1911) and the pantomime ballet “Feast of the Spider”, op.17 (1912). The last two works were mentioned earlier.
Russell himself counts the second period of creativity from 1918 , when he returned from the war and ends in 1925 , when his transition to neoclassicism was finally taking shape. In essence, this period can be called transitional or mixed, during which Russel experimented , gradually forming the features of his mature style. The link between past and new music for Russel was the score of the opera Padmavati, work on which continued with a break for the war - almost eight years. But in other works of this time, impressionistic vagueness everywhere gives way to clear lines, music acquires certainty, a tougher rhythm , in addition, the number of dissonances increases significantly. Of course, the Second Symphony, written in 1919-1921, after which Russell began to move towards simpler and more accurate forms of the musical language, was the most complex and overloaded composition of this period. Returning from the front, Roussel has changed a lot. He could no longer write as before, balancing on the brink of impressionistic beauty and the eastern splendor of the language. Major changes in his style and attitude to creativity, Russell himself explained as follows:
... Four years of war for me as a musician were not in vain. I used them to reflect on my art. From this forced revision of the path I have traveled, I have gained a lot of benefit. Like many, I was passionate about new methods of musical thinking. At first, impressionism captivated me; my music, perhaps, gravitated too much towards the external side of phenomena, to the pictorial principle, which, as I began to think a little later, deprived music of some part of its inherent truth . Since then, I decided to expand the harmonious beginning of my writing, I tried to get closer to the idea of creating music, in which the idea and its implementation would flow from it itself and also consist in it itself.
- Roussel A. Memoirs [15] .
It was the Second Symphony, written in the second year after the Return , that became the final feature of the turning point that Russel publicly separated himself from impressionism. Roussel’s “new style” premiered on March 4, 1922 in Padelu’s concerts (“The Step of the Wolf”) . The Second Symphony made an unexpected and unfavorable impression on the rigidity and ugliness of its musical language on everyone: both traditionalists , lovers of consonance , and supporters of impressionism, who were already accustomed to seeing Russel in the ranks of Orthodox “debussy”.
“... Alas, Albert Roussel leaves us. He leaves us without saying goodbye, silently, modestly, restrained, as always ... You see, he will leave, he will leave, he will leave ... But where? ” [15]
- (Vuillermoz Emile, Excelsior, 6 marts 1922.)
A wide and unusually sincere tirade to Russell's Second Symphony was answered by his former student, Eric Sati , at that moment equally distant from impressionism, the ancestor of which he himself was thirty years ago, and from the purely musical searches of Albert Russell. The second symphony was not only a landmark event in the post-war musical life of France , but Satie personally found in it an extra reason to once again oppose academics and professionals from music - a real living art.
Performing at one of the concerts of the “walking wolf” of the beautiful symphony by Albert Russel was an excellent and noble event that excited our murky musical waters. Oh horror, oh fear! - another portion of real sound anarchy poured into them - a ghost, better known by the name of cacophony . <...> Among the many reproaches constantly addressed to Albert Russell, there is one that is best stuck in my memory (perhaps because it was directly related to the Roman Prize ). What is he being blamed? - yes that he is an amateur ..., an amateur.
- The question naturally arises: but how is this “amateur” recognized? .. Can you not waste your brain in vain, the answer is very simple. An amateur is one who has not received the Grand Roman Prize, of course. Let me very politely and kindly ask the following question: what is the Prize mentioned above? The stigma of a certain higher being, extraordinary, highest quality, non-serial, sold out and rare. Undoubtedly, looking at Albert Russel it is immediately clear that he is not excellent, out of the ordinary, not of the highest quality, not sold out, completely serial and not at all rare - that’s what you should think. I am very sorry about this, but I love him no less, and he knows it well, I hope.
- Eric Satie . The Origin of Enlightenment. - Feuilles Libres, iuni 1922. [8]
After the Second Symphony and the end of work on the opera Padmavati, neoclassical trends continue to grow in the work of Roussel. Only four years after the premiere of Sokrat Sati, which became the discovery of a new style, in 1922-24, Roussel wrote his lyric tale The Birth of Lyra by Sophocles , trying to get as close to the ancient theater as possible. Delivered to Grand Opera on July 1, 1925 , this score by Rusel was two years ahead of the appearance of Oedipus Stravinsky and Antigone Onegger .
The following works can be attributed to the most famous works of the second, transitional period of Roussel's work: the opera ballet Padmavati, op. 18 (1914–1922), On the Spring Festival, symphonic play op. 22 (1920), Symphony No. 2, op. 23 (1919-1921), The Birth of Lyra, a lyric tale of op.24 (1923-1924), Flute Games for flute and piano op.27 (1924) and Serenade for flute, string trio and harp op.30 ( 1925).
Russell began the third period of his work in 1926 , and it was not he himself who set the limit in the book of Memoirs, but his death in the summer of 1937 . In these last 11 years of life, Russell found his “final style” - neoclassicism . In general, he remains an avant-garde composer, although the sound of his works is gradually becoming more transparent and becoming clearer. Of course, Russell’s neoclassicism has its own special features that distinguish it from other authors who at the same time (or almost simultaneously) started working in this style with it. First of all, it is the former polyphonicity of writing, a penchant for polytonality and polymodality, a traditional classical form and a clear functional orchestration . In addition, Roussel (in contrast, for example, from Sati and Stravinsky) in his neoclassicism never avoided expressing vivid and strong emotions . In this sense, his neoclassicism could be called partly Beethoven .
The main features of the new style of Roussel were fully embodied in his 1926 Suite in tone, with which, in fact, he begins the countdown of his third period. The suite consists of three dances : Preludes , Sarabands and Gigi . The first performance took place in the concerts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra on January 21, 1927 under the direction of Sergey Kusevitsky . Soon after the premiere, “Suite in Fa” became one of the most performed concert works by Albert Russel. The author himself, realizing the importance of this small work for his own creative search, a year and a half after the Boston premiere gave his detailed analysis before the first performance in Paris :
... from the point of view of the external form, the composer chose as a model the classical construction of an old suite, however, he rejuvenated it significantly. <...> The thematic material consists of short sections, various sound combinations of which form a development. And these developing episodes themselves cling to each other without the slightest stop, making up a single continuous musical fabric. Bach and some of his successors willingly used such tricks.
- Roussel A. "Guide de Concert". - 23 nov. 1928 [15] .
Thus, Russell himself named the main feature of his neoclassicism: it was not an archaic or a return to "beautiful antiquity", but a rejuvenation of style . Classical forms and methods of development were applied by him to the modern musical language. After “Suite in Fa”, a kind of manifesto of Rousselian neoclassicism, the composer continues to follow the line of polishing and development of musical forms found and accepted by him for the rest of his active creative life.
The Third Symphony g-moll (1929-1930) and the Fourth Symphony A-dur ( 1934 ) represent new heights in the interpretation of the traditional four-part symphonic cycle. At the same time, Russell is actively working on further “enlightenment” and purification of his style from “cacophony”, in which Eric Sati once gently rebuked him, while trying not to lose the modernity of the musical language. Numerous chamber and concert symphonic works that appeared in the late 1920s are among a kind of proving ground for this. Among them are the Concert for Small Orchestra (1926-27), the Concert for Piano and Orchestra ( 1927 ) and the Little Suite for Orchestra ( 1929 )
The third symphony, written on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra , is dedicated to its conductor Sergei Kusevitsky and was first performed by him in Boston , on October 17, 1930 . Criticism was almost unanimous: Russell offered a truly innovative and at the same time classically harmonious work. The third symphony is literally striking in its dynamism, strong-willed strength and convex relief of thematic material. At the same time, it is truly classically compressed and balanced in all its parts.
The creation of the Fourth Symphony was immediately preceded by the Symphonietta for a string orchestra in three parts, written by Roussel in one breath, in just three weeks (July 12 - August 6, 1934 ). This witty and vivid concert composition was intended for the sensational then female string orchestra conducted by Jeanne Evrar and was performed with great success on October 19, 1934 in the Gavo Hall. What is also very significant, in all the compositions mentioned, even the slightest hint of some kind of programmatic or theatricality is completely absent; more specifically, these are examples of the very “pure symphony” that was usually considered completely uncharacteristic of French music.
In 1930 (from June to December) Roussel created one of his most famous theatrical works - the ballet Bacchus and Ariadne . Despite the completely “ Ravelian ” name, in which there is a roll call with “ Daphnis and Chloe ”, the ballet is completely classical both in form and in musical language. The score of “Bacchus and Ariadne” is quite in line with the Third and Fourth Symphonies, but it is not clean and separate from the performance. Russell considered his main task in theatrical music to be the subordination of the score to the main dramatic and subject development. The ballet premiered on May 22, 1931 in the choreography of Serge Lifar and was a great success.
Roussel’s last appeal to antiquity and theater (in the spring of 1935 ) was his ballet with choirs “ Aeneas ” (based on Virgil ’s “ Aeneids ”). Trying to reproduce in his ballet the main synthetic features of the ancient tragedy , Roussel actually creates a new form of performance , which combines the features of the pantomime ballet with individual elements of the oratorio and cantata . The Aeneas was first performed in 1935 in Brussels on the stage of the Palace of Arts. The great success of the premiere caused an international outcry, and in the same year the production of Aeneas took place in the La Scala theater in Milan . Paris, a little hesitantly, saw "Aeneas" in the Grand Opera after the death of Roussel, in 1938 .
Roussel's last major work was Flemish Rhapsody (written in April-June 1936 ), in which he returned and paid tribute to the folk music of his small homeland. Tourcoing , where Roussel’s childhood passed and where his ancestors lived for many centuries, is located in the French region of Flanders , most of which became part of the territory of Belgium . Roussel often liked to emphasize his Flemish origin and, not without pleasure, noted many national features in his own character. Flemish Rhapsody is written on the basis of five genuine Flemish melodies that Russell gathered from the collection of Belgian folklorist Ernest Klasson - Folk Songs of the Belgian Provinces. Russell has known most of these songs since childhood. The rhapsody begins with a solemn recitation of the song “Siege of Burg op-soma”, then the “Battle of the Gueuze ” is included in the development, a separate episode forms the lyrical “ Lullaby ” and followed by the dance song “Kareltier”. Compared to other symphonic compositions by Roussel, the musical construction of Flemish Rhapsody is very simple, but the timbre and polyphonic ingenuity turns it into a contagiously fun and witty concert piece in which the great composer brings his music closer to the widest audience. Apparently, this was Russel's direct response to the difficult pre-war political situation of the mid -1930s . Suffice it to say that immediately before the creation of his rhapsody, Albert Roussel was elected president of the People's Music Federation of France, whose main task was to bring academic art closer to the mass audience. Performed for the first time in Brussels on December 12, 1936 and in Paris on January 21, 1937 (under the direction of Charles Munsch , Flemish Rhapsody very quickly became one of the most popular and often performed works of Russel.
In conclusion, it remains to list only the most significant works of the third period of Albert Russell's work: these are, first of all, “Suite in Fa”, Op. 33 for orchestra (1926), Concert for a small orchestra, op. 34 (1926-1927), Symphony No. 3 sol minor Op. 42 (1929-1930), “Bacchus and Ariadne” ballet, Op. 43 (1930), Symphonietta for string orchestra, Op. 52 (1934), Symphony No. 4 in A major, op. 53 (1934), “Aeneas” ballet with choirs op. 54 (1934), Flemish Rhapsody for orchestra op. 56 (1936), Concertino for cello and orchestra op. 57 (1936) and string trio op. 58 (1937).
Works by Albert Russel
Operas
Padmavati, opera ballet in 2 acts, Op. 18 (1913-18), post. Paris Opera, June 1, 1923
Birth of a lyre, opera (lyric tale) in 1 act, Op. 24 (1923-24), post. Paris Opera, July 1, 1925
Testament of Aunt Carolina, comic opera in 3 acts (1932-1933), fast. November 14, 1936
Ballets
Spider feast, ballet in one act, Op. 17 (1912), post. Paris, April 3, 1913
Sarabanda, number for the collective children's ballet “Fan of Jeanne” (1927), post. Paris, June 16, 1927
Bacchus and Ariadne, ballet in two acts, Op. 43 (1930), post. Paris Opera, May 22, 1931
Aeneas, ballet for choir and orchestra, Op. 54 (1935), post. Brussels, July 31, 1935
Music for the theater
Sand seller, music for the play based on the tale of Georges Jean-Aubrey, Op. 13 (1908), post. Le Havre, December 16, 1908
Introduction to Act 2 of Romain Rolland’s play “The Fourteenth of July” (1936), fast. Paris, July 14, 1936
Elpenor, Radiophonic Poem for Flute and String Quartet, Op. 59 (1937), post. Brussels, 1947
Works for orchestra
Resurrection, Prelude for orchestra op. 4 (1903)
Symphony No. 1 in D Minor “The Poem of the Forest”, Op. 7 (1904-1906)
Spells for Soloists, Choir and Orchestra, Op. 15 (1910-11)
Padmavati, Suites from Opera No. 1 & 2, Op. 18 (1918)
For the Spring Festival, Symphonic Poem, Op. 22 (1920)
Symphony No. 2 in B Flat Major, Op. 23 (1919-1921)
Suite for Orchestra in F Major, Op. 33 (1926)
Concert for a small orchestra (1926-1927)
Little Suite, Op. 39 (1929)
Symphony No. 3 in G Minor, Op. 42 (1929-30)
Symphonietta for String Orchestra, Op. 52 (1934)
Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 53 (1934)
Flemish Rhapsody, Op. 56 (1936)
Concerts
Concert for Piano and Orchestra in G Major, Op. 36 (1926-27)
Concertino for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 57 (1936)
Vocal and orchestra compositions
Franks war song for male choir, winds and percussion ad libitum (1926)
80th Psalm for Tenor, Choir and Orchestra, Op. 37 (1928)
For brass band
Great Day, Op. 48 (1932)
Chamber music
Piano Trio in E Flat Major, Op.2 (1902)
Divertissement for Piano and Wind Quintet, Op.6 (1906)
Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano, Op.11 (1907-08)
Impromptu for Harp Solo, Op.21 (1919)
Flute Players for Flute and Piano, Op.27 (1924)
Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano, Op.28 (1924)
Segovia for Guitar (or Piano), Op.29 (1925)
Serenade for Flute, String Trio and Harp, Op.30 (1925)
Duet for bassoon and double bass (1925)
Aria for Oboe and Piano (1927-28)
Trio for Flute, Viola and Cello, Op.40 (1929)
String Quartet, Op.45 (1931-32)
Andante and Scherzo, for flute and piano, Op.51 (1934)
Flute, for piccolo flute and piano (1934)
Trio for Strings, Op.58 (1937)
Andante from the unfinished trio for oboe, clarinet and bassoon (1937)
Piano music
Past hours, op. 1 (1898)
The story of the doll (1904)
Country Dance, op.5 (1906)
Suite in F Sharp, op.14 (1910)
Little Canon Perpetuum (1913)
Sonatina, op.16 (1914)
Doubts (1919)
At a reception at the Muses (Dedication to Debussy) (1920)
Prelude and Fugue (Dedication to Bach), op. 46 (1932)
Three Pieces, op. 49 (1933)
Organ Pieces
Prelude and Fughetta, Op. 41 (1929)
Vocal works
Four poems by Henri de Rainier, op.3 (1903)
Four Poems by Henri de Rainier, Op.8 (1907)
Threat, Op. 9 (1907-1908)
Flame Op. 10 (1908)
Two Chinese poems op.12 (1908)
Two Romances Op.19 (1918, orchestra. 1928)
Two Romances Op.20 (1919)
Two Ronsard's Poems for Flute and Soprano, Op.26 (1924)
Anacreontic odes op.31 (1926)
Anacreontic odes op.32 (1926)
Two Chinese Poems Op. 35 (1927)
Vocalization (1927)
Night Jazz Op.38 (1928)
Vocalization (1928)
A flower for my daughter, a romance at art. D.Joyce (1931)
Two Idylls Op.44 (1932)
Two Chinese poems op.47 (1932)
Two Romances Op.50 (1934)
Two Romances Op.55 (1935)
For choir a cappella
Two madrigals for 4 votes (1897)
Madrigal for muses for 3 female voices (1923)
Sources
- ↑ 1 2 BNF identifier : Open Data Platform 2011.
- ↑ 1 2 Encyclopædia Britannica
- ↑ SNAC - 2010.
- ↑ Roussel Albert // Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 30 vol.] / Ed. A. M. Prokhorov - 3rd ed. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia , 1969.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Filenko G. French music of the first half of the 20th century. - L .: Music, 1983 .-- S. 16-19.
- ↑ Schneerson G. French music of the XX century. - M .: Music, 1964 .-- S. 150.
- ↑ Schneerson G. French music of the XX century. - M .: Music, 1964. - S. 50-51.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Sati E., Hanon Y. “Memoirs retroactively”. - SPb. : Center for Middle Music, 2009. - 682 p.
- ↑ Erik Satie . Ecrits. - P .: Editions Gerard Lebovici, 1990 .-- S. 55.
- ↑ 1 2 Filenko G. French music of the first half of the 20th century. - L .: Music, 1983. - S. 25-31.
- ↑ Ravel in the mirror of his letters / Compiled by M. Gerard and R. Challe. - L .: Music, 1988 .-- S. 188.
- ↑ Ravel in the mirror of his letters / Compiled by M. Gerard and R. Challe. - L .: Music, 1988 .-- S. 106.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Schneerson G. French music of the 20th century. - M .: Music, 1964. - S. 151-155.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Filenko G. French music of the first half of the 20th century. - L .: Music, 1983. - S. 23-24.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Filenko G. French music of the first half of the 20th century. - L .: Music, 1983 .-- S. 33-37.