En compagnie d'Henri Dutilleux en participant au jury du Concours International de Composition Henri Dutilleux 2004 (cropped)

Henri Paul Julien Dutilleux (; 22 January 1916 – 22 May 2013) was a French composer active mainly in the second half of the 20th century. His small body of published work, which garnered international acclaim, followed in the tradition of

Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...

Claude Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most infl ...

, Albert Roussel and

Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonical ...

, but in an idiosyncratic, individual style. Some of his notable compositions include a

piano sonata A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movement (music), movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement (Domenico Scarlatti, Scarlatti, Liszt, Scr ...

, two symphonies, the cello concerto '' Tout un monde lointain…'' (''A whole distant world''), the violin concerto '' L'arbre des songes'' (''The tree of dreams''), the string quartet '' Ainsi la nuit'' (''Thus the night'') and a sonatine for flute and piano. Some of these are regarded as masterpieces of 20th-century classical music. Works were commissioned from him by such major artists as Charles Munch, George Szell,

Mstislav Rostropovich Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, (27 March 192727 April 2007) was a Russian cellist and conductor. He is considered by many to be the greatest cellist of the 20th century. In addition to his interpretations and technique, he was well ...

, the Juilliard String Quartet, Isaac Stern, Paul Sacher,

Anne-Sophie Mutter Anne-Sophie Mutter (born 29 June 1963) is a German violinist. She was supported early in her career by Herbert von Karajan. As an advocate of contemporary music, she has had several works composed especially for her, by Sebastian Currier, Hen ...

Simon Rattle Sir Simon Denis Rattle (born 19 January 1955) is a British-German conductor. He rose to international prominence during the 1980s and 1990s, while music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1980–1998). Rattle was principa ...

, Renée Fleming, and Seiji Ozawa. French organist Gaston Litaize also asked Dutilleux many times to compose for the organ, but nothing came from it; the two first met in 1938 at the Grand Prix de Rome, which Dutilleux won and at which Litaize finished second. In ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', Paul Griffiths wrote, "Mr. Dutilleux’s position in French music was proudly solitary. Between Olivier Messiaen and

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mon ...

in age, he was little affected by either, though he took an interest in their work. … But his voice, marked by sensuously handled harmony and color, was his own." Dutilleux received several major prizes throughout his career, notably the Grand Prix de Rome (1938), International Music Council's International Rostrum of Composers (1955), the Grand-Croix de la Légion d'honneur (2004), the

Ernst von Siemens Music Prize The Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (short: Siemens Music Prize, german: link=no, Ernst von Siemens Musikpreis) is an annual music prize given by the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste (Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts) on behalf of the Ernst vo ...

(2005), the Gold Medal of the

Royal Philharmonic Society The Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) is a British music society, formed in 1813. Its original purpose was to promote performances of instrumental music in London. Many composers and performers have taken part in its concerts. It is now a mem ...

(2008) and the

Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music The Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music at the New York Philharmonic is awarded to "a composer for extraordinary artistic endeavor in the field of new music." The prize money is US$200,000. The prize includes also a commission for the New Yor ...

(2011). In addition to composing, he worked as the Head of Music Production for

Radio France Radio France is the French national public radio broadcaster. Stations Radio France offers seven national networks: * France Inter — Radio France's " generalist" station, featuring entertaining and informative talk mixed with a wide variety o ...

for 18 years. He also taught at the

École Normale de Musique de Paris The École Normale de Musique de Paris "Alfred Cortot" (ENMP) is a leading conservatoire located in Paris, Île-de-France, France. At the time of the school's foundation in 1919 by Auguste Mangeot, Alfred Cortot. The term ''école normale'' (En ...

and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, and was twice composer in residence at the

Tanglewood Tanglewood is a music venue in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the ...

Music Center in

Lenox Lenox may refer to: Places in the United States * Lenox, Alabama * Lenox, Georgia * Lenox, Iowa ** Lenox College, former college in Hopkinton, Iowa * Lenox, Kentucky * Lenox, Massachusetts, a New England town ** Lenox (CDP), Massachusetts, the m ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

Life

Henri Dutilleux was born on 22 January 1916 in

Angers Angers (, , ) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Anjou until the French Revolution. The inhabitants of both the city and the pr ...

Maine-et-Loire Maine-et-Loire () is a department in the Loire Valley in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France. It is named after the two rivers, Maine and the Loire. It borders Mayenne and Sarthe to the north, Loire-Atlantique to the west, Indr ...

. He was the great-grandson of the painter

Constant Dutilleux Constant Dutilleux (5 October 1807, Douai - 21 October 1865, Paris) was a 19th-century French painter, illustrator and engraver. He was the great-grandfather of the composer Henri Dutilleux. Dutilleux preferred landscape paintings. He was main ...

and grandson of the composer

Julien Koszul Julien Koszul (4 December 1844 – 15 January 1927) was a French composer and pipe organist from Alsace. Biography Born in Morschwiller-le-Bas, Alsace, Koszul studied at the École Niedermeyer de Paris with Camille Saint-Saëns, together with Gab ...

. He was also a cousin of the mathematician Jean-Louis Koszul. He studied

harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. Howev ...

, counterpoint, and piano with Victor Gallois at the

Douai Douai (, , ,; pcd, Doï; nl, Dowaai; formerly spelled Douay or Doway in English) is a city in the Nord département in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. Located on the river Scarpe some from Lille and from Arras, Do ...

Conservatory before leaving for the

Conservatoire de Paris The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...

. There, between 1933 and 1938, he attended the classes of Jean and

Noël Gallon Noël Jean-Charles André Gallon (11 September 1891 – 26 December 1966) was a French composer and music educator. His compositional output includes several choral works and vocal art songs, 10 preludes, a ''Toccata'' for piano, a ''Sonata ...

(harmony and counterpoint, in which he won joint first prize with the cellist Paul Tortelier), Henri Büsser (composition) and

Maurice Emmanuel Marie François Maurice Emmanuel (2 May 1862 – 14 December 1938) was a French composer of classical music and musicologist born in Bar-sur-Aube, a small town in the Champagne-Ardenne region of northeastern France. It was there where he first hea ...

(history of music). Dutilleux won the

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

in 1938 for his cantata ''L'anneau du roi'' but did not complete his entire residency in Rome due to the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. He worked for a year as a medical orderly in the army and returned to Paris in 1940, where he worked as a pianist, arranger and music teacher. In 1942, he conducted the choir of the

Paris Opera The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be k ...

. Dutilleux worked as Head of Music Production for

from 1945 to 1963. He served as Professor of Composition at the

from 1961 to 1970. He was appointed to the staff of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in 1970 and was composer-in-residence at

in 1995 and 1998. His students included Gérard Grisey,

Francis Bayer Francis Bayer (c. 11 July 1938 – 2 January 2004) was a French composer and musicologist. Life Born in Villerville (Calvados), it was only after having undertaken postgraduate studies in philosophy at the University of Paris, studies that led h ...

, Alain Gagnon,

Jacques Hétu Jacques Hétu (August 8, 1938 – February 9, 2010) was a Canadian composer and music educator. Biography Jacques Hétu was born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec; he began his professional training at the University of Ottawa where he was a pupil ...

, and Kenneth Hesketh. Invited by

Walter Fink Walter Fink (16 August 1930 – 13 April 2018) was a German entrepreneur and a patron of contemporary classical music. He is known for being a founding member, executive committee member and sponsor of the Rheingau Musik Festival, where he initi ...

, in 2006 he was the 16th composer featured in the Rheingau Musik Festival's annual '' Komponistenporträt''. For many years, Dutilleux had a studio on Île Saint-Louis. He died on 22 May 2013 in Paris, aged 97, and was buried in

Montparnasse Cemetery Montparnasse Cemetery (french: link=no, Cimetière du Montparnasse) is a cemetery in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, in the city's 14th arrondissement. The cemetery is roughly 47 acres and is the second largest cemetery in Paris. The cemetery ...

, in the same grave as

Geneviève Genevieve (french: link=no, Sainte Geneviève; la, Sancta Genovefa, Genoveva; 419/422 AD – 502/512 AD) is the patroness saint of Paris in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Her feast is on 3 January. Genevieve was born in Nanterre a ...

, his wife who died in 2009. His tombstone is made of grey granite and bears the epitaph "Compositeur".

Influences and style

Dutilleux's music extends the legacies of French composers such as

Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most infl ...

and

Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...

but is also clearly influenced by

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hun ...

and

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...

. Among his favourite pieces, he mentioned

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

's late string quartets and Debussy's '' Pelléas et Mélisande''. His attitude toward

serialism In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also ...

was ambiguous. While he always paid attention to developments in contemporary music and incorporated some serialist techniques into his work, he also criticized the more radical and intolerant aspects of the movement: "What I reject is the dogma and the authoritarianism which manifested themselves in that period." Dutilleux refused to be associated with any school.
Dutilleux's music contains distant echoes of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

, as can be heard in the plucked

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

strings at the beginning of his First Symphony and his frequent use of syncopated rhythms. He often calls for Ray Robinson-style cup mutes in the brass section, which seems to indicate the influence of

big band music A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...

. Dutilleux was greatly enamoured of vocalists, especially the jazz singer Sarah Vaughan and the great French

chanson A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic ...

singers. Some of Dutilleux's trademarks include very refined orchestral textures; complex rhythms; a preference for

atonality Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a ...

and modality over

tonality Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is cal ...

; the use of pedal points that serve as atonal pitch centers; and "reverse variation", whereby a theme is revealed gradually, appearing in its complete form only after a few partial, tentative expositions. His music also displays a strong sense of structure and symmetry. This is particularly obvious from an "external" point of view, in the overall organisation of the different movements or the spatial distribution of the various instruments, but is also apparent in the music itself (themes, harmonies and rhythms mirroring, complementing or opposing each other). According to Stuart Jefferies, "A passage may be conceived as a symmetrical shape of notes on paper and only later given musical substance. He loves symmetrical musical figures such as palindromes or fan-shaped phrases". Dutilleux's music was influenced by art and literature, such as the works of

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited ...

and

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel '' In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous En ...

. It also shows a concern for the concepts of time and memory, both in its use of quotations (notably from Bartók,

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...

, and Jehan Alain), and in short interludes that recall material used in earlier movements and/or introduce ideas that will be fully developed later. A perfectionist with a strong sense of artistic integrity, he allowed only a small number of his works to be published; what he did publish he often repeatedly revised. In his own words:

Compositional history

Dutilleux numbered as Op. 1 his

Piano Sonata A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movement (music), movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement (Domenico Scarlatti, Scarlatti, Liszt, Scr ...

(1946–1948), written for the pianist Geneviève Joy, whom he married in 1946. He renounced most of the works he composed before it because he did not believe them to be representative of his mature standards, considering many of them to be too derivative to have merit. After the Piano Sonata, Dutilleux started working on his First Symphony (1951). It consists of four

monothematic In music, a subject is the material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based. In forms other than the fugue, this may be known as the theme. Characteristics A subject may be perceivable as a complete m ...

movements and has a perfectly symmetrical structure: music slowly emerges from silence (first movement—a passacaglia) and builds towards a fast climax (second—a

scherzo A scherzo (, , ; plural scherzos or scherzi), in western classical music, is a short composition – sometimes a movement from a larger work such as a symphony or a sonata. The precise definition has varied over the years, but scherzo often ...

and moto perpetuo), keeps its momentum (third—"a continuous melodic line that never goes back on itself"), and finally slowly fades out (fourth—a

theme and variations In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve melody, rhythm, harmony, counterpoint, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these. Variation techniques Mozart's Twelve Va ...

). In 1953, Dutilleux wrote the music for the ballet ''Le loup'' ("The Wolf"). In his Second Symphony, titled ''Le double'' (1959), the orchestra is divided into two groups: a small one at the front with instruments taken from the various sections (brass, woodwind, strings and percussion) and a bigger one at the back consisting of the rest of the orchestra. Although this brings to mind the Baroque

concerto grosso The concerto grosso (; Italian for ''big concert(o)'', plural ''concerti grossi'' ) is a form of baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists (the '' concertino'') and full orchestra (the '' ripieno'', '' ...

, the approach is different: in this piece, the smaller ensemble acts as a mirror or ghost of the bigger one, sometimes playing similar or complementary lines, sometimes contrasting ones. His next work, ''

Métaboles ''Métaboles'' is an orchestral work by Henri Dutilleux, commissioned by the conductor George Szell in 1959 to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Cleveland Orchestra. ''Métaboles'' was composed in 1963–64 and was first performed by Szell an ...

'' for orchestra (1965) explores the idea of metamorphosis, how a series of subtle and gradual changes can radically transform a structure. A different section of the orchestra dominates each of the first four movements before the fifth brings them all together. As a result, it can be considered as a concerto for orchestra. It quickly achieved celebrity and, following its première by George Szell and the

Cleveland Orchestra The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the " Big Five". Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Seve ...

, was performed in several North American cities, then in France. ''Métaboles'' is one of his most often performed works. In the 1960s, Dutilleux met

, who commissioned a cello concerto from him. Rostropovich premièred the work,'' Tout un monde lointain…'' (''A whole distant world...''), in 1970. It is considered one of Dutilleux's major achievements. After the cello concerto, Dutilleux turned to

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small num ...

for the first time in more than 20 years and wrote the

string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinist ...

''Ainsi la nuit'' (1976). It consists of seven movements, some of which are linked by short "parentheses". The parentheses' function is to recall material that has already been heard and to introduce fragments that will be fully developed later.Simon Marin's liner notes (Erato CD 0630-14068-2) It is based on a hexachord (C–G–F–G–C–D) that highlights the intervals of fifth and

major second In Western music theory, a major second (sometimes also called whole tone or a whole step) is a second spanning two semitones (). A second is a musical interval encompassing two adjacent staff positions (see Interval number for more deta ...

. Each movement emphasizes various special effects (

pizzicato Pizzicato (, ; translated as "pinched", and sometimes roughly as "plucked") is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of instrument : * On bowe ...

, glissandi,

harmonics A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the '' fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', ...

, extreme registers, contrasting dynamics...), resulting in a difficult, elaborate work. Dutilleux also published various works for piano (''3 Préludes'', ''Figures de résonances'') and ''3 strophes sur le nom de Sacher'' (1976–1982) for solo cello. The latter was originally composed on the occasion of Paul Sacher's 70th birthday in 1976, on a request by Rostropovich to write compositions for cello solo using his name spelt out in musical notes as the theme eS-A-C-H-E-Re (''Es'' is E in German, ''H'' is B in German, and ''Re'' is D in French; see Sacher hexachord). He then returned to orchestral works in 1978 with '' Timbres, espace, mouvement ou la nuit etoilée'', inspired by Van Gogh's '' The Starry Night''. In this composition, Dutilleux attempted to translate into musical terms the opposition between emptiness and movement the painting conveys. It employs a string section of only lower-register instruments: cellos and basses, no violins or violas. In 1985, Isaac Stern premiered ''L'arbre des songes'' (''The Tree of Dreams''), a violin concerto he had commissioned from Dutilleux. According to the composer, it is based on a process of continual growth and renewal: "All in all the piece grows somewhat like a tree, for the constant multiplication and renewal of its branches is the lyrical essence of the tree. This symbolic image, as well as the notion of a seasonal cycle, inspired my choice of 'L'arbre des songes' as the title of the piece." Dutilleux's later works include ''Mystère de l'instant'' (for cymbalum, string orchestra and percussion, 1989), ''Les Citations'' (for oboe, harpsichord, double bass and percussion, 1991), ''The Shadows of Time'' (for orchestra and children voices, 1997), ''Slava's Fanfare'' (for Rostropovich's 70th birthday, 1997) and''

Sur le même accord ''Sur le même accord'' (''On only one chord'') is a piece by the French composer Henri Dutilleux for solo violin and orchestra. It was composed for the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, and was premiered by her on 28 April 2002 in London with the Lo ...

'' (for violin and orchestra, 2002, dedicated to

). In 2003, he completed '' Correspondances'', a song cycle for soprano and orchestra inspired by poems and letters by Van Gogh,

Prithwindra Mukherjee Prithwindra Mukherjee ( bn, পৃথ্বীন্দ্রনাথ মুখোপাধ্যায়; born 1936), who retired in 2003 from his career as a researcher in the Human and Social Sciences Department (Ethnomusicology) of the Fr ...

Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recog ...

, and

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repress ...

. This work received a very enthusiastic reception and has been programmed several times since its première. Dutilleux's last major work was the song cycle '' Le temps l'horloge'', written for American soprano Renée Fleming. It consists of four pieces and an instrumental interlude on two poems by

Jean Tardieu Jean Tardieu (born in Saint-Germain-de-Joux, Ain, 1 November 1903, died in Créteil, Val-de-Marne, 27 January 1995) was a French artist, musician, poet and dramatic author. Life and career He earned a degree in literature and worked for a publ ...

, one by

Robert Desnos Robert Desnos (; 4 July 1900 – 8 June 1945) was a French poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement of his day. Biography Robert Desnos was born in Paris on 4 July 1900, the son of a licensed dealer in game and poultry at the '' H ...

and one by

. The first three songs were premièred at the

Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto The , formerly known as the , is an annual classical music festival held in August and September in Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan, founded in 1992 by conductor Seiji Ozawa. The festival's resident orchestra is the renowned Saito Kinen Orchestra The S ...

, Japan in September 2007. The American première of this partial version took place in November 2007 with the

Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1 ...

. The complete work was unveiled on 7 May 2009 at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. In 2010, Dutilleux added a third movement to his chamber work ''Les citations''. The expanded version was premiered at the Festival d’Auvers-sur-Oise. In 2011, with Dutilleux's approval, Pascal Gallois transcribed three of his early vocal works for bassoon and piano: ''Regards sur l'Infini'' (from the early cycle for voice and piano ''Quatre mélodies'') and ''

Deux sonnets de Jean Cassou ''Deux sonnets de Jean Cassou'' is a song cycle for baritone and piano written by the French composer Henri Dutilleux in 1954. He later transcribed or allowed transcriptions of the work for various ensembles. It is based on poems written by Jean ...

'' (originally for baritone and piano). He played them in a concert at the Hôtel de Lauzun in Dutilleux's presence. Dutilleux allowed only a small fraction of his work to be published. He often expressed a wish to write more chamber music, notably a second string quartet, a piece for clarinet and ensemble, one for solo double bass, and more piano préludes. He long considered composing an opera but abandoned that project because he could not find a libretto that appealed to him. Those who commissioned works from Dutilleux include Szell (''Métaboles''), Rostropovich (''Tout un monde lointain…'' and ''Timbres, espace, mouvement''), Stern (''L'arbre des songes''), Mutter (''Sur le même accord''), Charles Munch (Symphony No. 2 ''Le double''), and Seiji Ozawa (''The Shadows of Time'' and ''Le temps l'horloge'').

Works

Dutilleux disowned many of the compositions he wrote before his Piano Sonata (1948). They are listed separately under Early works.

Orchestral

* Symphony No. 1 (1951) * ''Sérénades'' (1956; his contribution to '' Variations sur le nom de Marguerite Long'') * Symphony No. 2 ''Le double'' (1959) *''

'' (1964) *'' Timbres, espace, mouvement'' (1978) *''Mystère de l'instant'' (1989) *''The Shadows of Time'', for three children's voices and orchestra (1997) *''Slava's Fanfare'' for spatial ensemble (1997)

Concertante

*Cello Concerto – '' Tout un monde lointain…'' whole distant world(1970) *Violin Concerto – '' L'arbre des songes''

he Tree of Dreams He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

(1985) *Nocturne for violin and orchestra ''

'' n just one chord(2002)

Chamber/instrumental

*String Quartet – '' Ainsi la nuit''

hus the night Hus or HUS may refer to: Medicine * Hemolytic-uremic syndrome, a disease characterized by haemolytic anemia, kidney problems and a low platelet count People * Hus (surname) * Hus family, an 18th-century French dynasty of ballet dancers and acto ...

(1976) *''Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher'' hree stanzas on the name Sacherfor solo cello (1976–1982) *''Les citations'' for oboe, harpsichord, double bass and percussion (1985/1991/2010) *''Regards sur l'Infini'' and ''Deux sonnets de Jean Cassou'' for bassoon and piano (1943/2011 and 1954/2011 – transcription of the vocal works)

Piano

* ''Tous les chemins mènent... à Rome''

ll roads lead to Rome Ll/ll is a digraph that occurs in several languages English In English, often represents the same sound as single : . The doubling is used to indicate that the preceding vowel is (historically) short, or that the "l" sound is to be extended ...

(1947) * ''Bergerie'' (1947) *

(1947–48): : * ''Blackbird'' (1950) * ''Résonances'' (1965) * ''Figures de résonances'' (1970) for two pianos * Trois Préludes (1973–1988): ** ''D'ombre et de silence'' n shadow and silence(1973) ** ''Sur un même accord''

n one chord N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...

(1977) ** ''Le jeu des contraires''

he game of opposites He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

(1988) * ''Petit air à dormir debout'' ittle nonsensical air(1981)

Vocal

*''Chansons de bord'', for three children's voices (1952) *''

'', for baritone and piano or baritone and orchestra (1954) *''Éloignez-vous'' for baritone and orchestra (1956) *''San Francisco Night'', for voice and piano (1963) *''Hommage à Nadia Boulanger'', for soprano, 3 violas, clarinet, percussion and

zither Zithers (; , from the Greek word ''cithara'') are a class of stringed instruments. Historically, the name has been applied to any instrument of the psaltery family, or to an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat ...

(1967) *'' Correspondances'', for soprano and orchestra (2003) *'' Le temps l'horloge'', for soprano and orchestra (2007–2009)

Ballet

*''Le loup'' (1953)

Film scores

* ', by Henri Decoin (1946) * ''

Six Hours to Lose ''Six Hours to Lose'' (french: Six heures à perdre) is a 1947 French romance film directed by Alex Joffé and Jean Lévitte and starring André Luguet, Denise Grey and Pierre Larquey. The film has no relation to the eponymous novel of Robert Br ...

'', by Alex Joffé and Jean Lévitte (1947) * ', by Jean Gehret (1947) * ', by Jean Gehret (1950) * ', by

Jean Grémillon Jean Grémillon (; 3 October 1901 – 25 November 1959)Note that, despite attempts at correction, thIMDb entry on the directorlists his date of birth erroneously as 4 March 1898. The correct date is given in his standard biography, by Geneviève S ...

(1953) * ''

Under the Sun of Satan ''Under the Sun of Satan'' () is Georges Bernanos's first published novel, appearing in 1926 in Paris. According to Michel Estève, the novel draws on three primary inspirations: the life of the curate Jean-Marie Vianney, which informs the chara ...

'', by Maurice Pialat (1987)

Arrangements

*''Choral, cadence et fugato'' for trombone and symphonic band (1995 – same as the chamber work, orchestrated by Claude Pichaureau) * ''Au gré des ondes'', 6 petites pièces pour orchestre (2014 – orchestrated by Kenneth Hesketh, published by Leduc) *''San Francisco Night'', for voice and orchestra (2014 – orchestrated by Kenneth Hesketh, published by Leduc) * ''Blackbird'' (1950) scored for ''Les Citations'' (instrumentation: oboe, harpsichord, percussion, double bass) by Kenneth Hesketh (2014, published by Billaudot) * ''Mini-prélude en éventail'' (1987) scored for ''Les Citations'' (instrumentation: oboe, harpsichord, percussion, double bass) by Kenneth Hesketh (2016, unpublished) * ''Sonate pour hautbois'' for oboe and orchestra (2019 – orchestrated by Kenneth Hesketh, published by Leduc) * ''Sonatine pour flúte'' for flute and orchestra (2019 – orchestrated by Kenneth Hesketh, published by Leduc) * ''Sarabande et cortège pour basson'' for bassoon and orchestra (2019 – orchestrated by Kenneth Hesketh, published by Leduc)

Early works

Dutilleux disowned most of the music he wrote before his Piano Sonata of 1948. Some of them are nonetheless played and recorded regularly, in particular the Sonatine for Flute and Piano.

Chamber/instrumental

*Four Exam Pieces for the Paris Conservatoire (1942–1950) **''Sarabande et cortège'' for bassoon and piano (1942) ** Sonatine for Flute and Piano (1943) ** Oboe Sonata (1947) **''Choral, cadence et fugato'' for trombone and piano (1950)

Vocal

*''Barque d'or''

he Golden Boat He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

for soprano and piano (1937) *Cantata ''L'anneau du roi'' he King's Ring(1938) *''Quatre mélodies'' our Melodiesfor voice and piano (1943) *''La geôle'' he Prisonfor voice and orchestra (1944)

Piano

* ''Au gré des ondes'', 6 petites pièces pour piano (1946) long the waves :

Stature and tributes

After Dutilleux's death, the composer and conductor Laurent Petitgirard paid tribute to him as "one of the very rare contemporary composers" whose music became part of the repertoire in his lifetime, predicting that " s work will remain intensely present after his death". Several major musicians and conductors championed Dutilleux's works, notably Stern, Sacher, Mutter, Fleming, Ozawa, Munch, Szell, Rostropovich, Simon Rattle, and the Juilliard String Quartet. The conductor and composer

Esa-Pekka Salonen Esa-Pekka Salonen (; born 30 June 1958) is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and music dir ...

said of Dutilleux, "His production is rather small but every note has been weighed with golden scales... It's just perfect – very haunting, very beautiful. There’s some kind of sadness in his music which I find very touching and arresting." The critic

Tom Service Tom Service (born 8 March 1976) is a British writer, music journalist and television and radio presenter, who has written regularly for ''The Guardian'' since 1999 and presented on BBC Radio 3 since 2001. He is a regular presenter of The Proms f ...

wrote for the BBC, "Dutilleux's exquisite catalogue of pieces is becoming, rightly, ever more popular with performers and listeners all over the world". An obituary in '' Gramophone'' commented, "Dutilleux represented a generation of musicians with roots almost back into the 19th century; certainly his music can be seen in a direct line from that of his great predecessors Debussy and Ravel." In an obituary in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'', Roger Nichols described him as "the outstanding French composer between Messiaen and Boulez", adding that he "achieved a wholly individual synthesis of ear-catching colours and harmonies with formal rigour." ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' said, "Because Dutilleux was a perfectionist and self-critical to a fault, his output was small. He wrote barely a dozen major works in his career, destroyed much of his early music and often revised what he had written. His early work was clearly derivative of Ravel, Debussy and Roussel; but his later music, though influenced by Bartok and Stravinsky, was entirely original and often seemed—in its scale—more German than French." ''The Daily Telegraphs critic Philip Hensher called Dutilleux "the Laura Ashley of music; tasteful, unfaultable, but hardly ever daring ... Personally, I can’t stick him." Rob Cowan, the

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also featuring. The st ...

presenter and critic, recalled in June 2013 an interview with Dutilleux in which he told Cowan that his personal favourite among his own works was ''Tout un monde lointain''....

Awards and prizes

* Grand Prix de Rome (for his cantata ''L'Anneau du Roi'') – 1938 *UNESCO's International Rostrum of Composers (for ''Symphony No. 1'') – 1955 *Grand Prix National de Musique (for his entire oeuvre) – 1967 * Praemium Imperiale (Japan – for his entire oeuvre) – 1994 *Prix MIDEM Classique de Cannes (for ''The Shadows of Time'') – 1999 * Grand-Croix de la Légion d'honneur – 2004 *

(for his entire oeuvre) – 2005 *Prix MIDEM Classique de Cannes (for his entire oeuvre) – 2007 *

Cardiff University , latin_name = , image_name = Shield of the University of Cardiff.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms of Cardiff University , motto = cy, Gwirionedd, Undod a Chytgord , mottoeng = Truth, Unity and Concord , established = 1 ...

Honorary Fellowship (for his entire oeuvre) – 2008 *Gold Medal of the

– 2008 *

– 2011

Honours

* Monaco : Commander of the Order of Saint-Charles (13 May 1998) * France : Grand'Croix of the

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon B ...

(31 December 2003)

Notes

References

* * * . Originally published as * * * * Potter, Caroline. 1997. ''Henri Dutilleux: His Life and Works''. Aldershot (UK) and Brookfield (Vermont, USA): Ashgate Publishing Company. . * Quoted at * *

External links

*
Henri Dutilleux's page at Theodore Presser Company

on The Living Composers Project
Henri Dutilleux's page
on the Schott Music website
Dutilleux Centenary
Website of the "Dutilleux Centenary", 2016 *
"Barque d'or"—an early Dutilleux song rediscovered
Janet Obi-Keller, 2005
Henri Dutilleux
classicalsource, articles on Dutilleux and CD and concert reviews

Schott news, 2008
Sidelined, But Not Forgotten
LISTEN Magazine Spring 2010

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dutilleux, Henri 1916 births 2013 deaths People from Angers French classical composers French male classical composers 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers French ballet composers Prix de Rome for composition Recipients of the Praemium Imperiale Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music Conservatoire de Paris alumni Conservatoire de Paris faculty Academics of the École Normale de Musique de Paris Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists Commanders of the Order of Saint-Charles French military personnel of World War II Pupils of Maurice Emmanuel International Rostrum of Composers prize-winners Ernst von Siemens Music Prize winners Grand Croix of the Légion d'honneur Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery 20th-century French composers 21st-century French composers 20th-century French male musicians 21st-century French male musicians

Life

Influences and style

Compositional history

Works

Orchestral

Concertante

Chamber/instrumental

Piano

Vocal

Ballet

Film scores

Arrangements

Early works

Chamber/instrumental

Vocal

Piano

Stature and tributes

Awards and prizes

Honours

Notes

References

Further reading

External links