Maurice Delage

Maurice Delage 1912

Maurice Delage (13 November 1879 21 September 1961) was a French composer and pianist.

Biography

Delage was born and died in Paris. He first worked as a clerk for a maritime agency in Paris and later as a fishmonger in Boulogne. He also had a stint in the French army before embarking on a music career in his twenties.[1] A student of Ravel, who proclaimed him one of the supreme French composers of his day,[2] and member of Les Apaches, he was influenced by travels to India and Japan in 1912, when he accompanied his father on a business trip.[3] Ravel's "La vallée des cloches" from Miroirs was dedicated to Delage.

Delage's best known piece is Quatre poèmes hindous (1912–1913).[4] His Ragamalika (1912–1922), based on the classical music of India, is also significant in that it calls for prepared piano; the score specifies that a piece of cardboard be placed under the strings of the B-flat in the second line of the bass clef to dampen the sound, imitating the sound of an Indian drum.

Selected works

Poèmes symphoniques
Chamber music
Mélodies (voice and piano)
Mélodies (voice with instrumental ensemble)
  1. Préface du Kokinshū (tanka by Ki no Tsurayuki), dedicated to Mrs. Louis Laloy ;
  2. Les herbes de l’oubli…, dedicated to Andrée Vaurabourg (future spouse of Arthur Honegger) ;
  3. Le coq…, dedicated to Jane Bathori (première performer of the work) ;
  4. La petite tortue…, dedicated to Mrs. Fernand Dreyfus (the mother of Roland-Manuel) ;
  5. La lune d’automne…, dedicated to Suzanne Roland-Manuel (the spouse of Roland-Manuel) ;
  6. Alors…, dedicated to Denise Jobert (the daughter of the editor) ;
  7. L’été…, dedicated to Georgette Garban.
Music for solo piano

References

  1. M D Calvocoressi (1933) Musicians gallery; music and ballet in Paris and London, Faber and Faber Ltd, London OCLC 2535873
  2. "Program notes", Contemporary Directions Ensemble, Concert, University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance Miscellaneous Publications (1980)
  3. Jann Pasler (1986) Confronting Stravinsky: Man, Musician, and Modernist, p.278, University of California Press ISBN 978-0-52005-403-5
  4. Georges Jean-Aubry (1917) An Introduction to French Music, p.67, Cecil Palmer & Hayward, London

Sources

External links


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