Marcel François Paul Landowski (18 February 1915 – 23 December 1999) was a French
composer,
biographer
Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography.
Biographers
Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...
and arts administrator.
Biography
Born at
Pont-l'Abbé
Pont-l'Abbé (; , "Abbot's bridge") is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in north-western France.
The self-styled capital of Pays Bigouden (roughly the region between the river Odet and the Bay of Audierne), Pont-l'Abbé was fo ...
,
Finistère
Finistère (, ; br, Penn-ar-Bed ) is a department of France in the extreme west of Brittany. In 2019, it had a population of 915,090. ,
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...
, he was the son of French
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
Paul Landowski
Paul Maximilien Landowski (1 June 1875 – 31 March 1961) was a French monument sculptor of Polish descent. His best-known work is '' Christ the Redeemer'' in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Biography
Landowski was born in Paris, France, of a Polish re ...
and great-grandson of the composer
Henri Vieuxtemps
Henri François Joseph Vieuxtemps ( 17 February 18206 June 1881) was a Belgian composer and violinist. He occupies an important place in the history of the violin as a prominent exponent of the Franco-Belgian violin school during the mid-19th ce ...
. He was father of a son and two daughters. The younger,
Manon Landowski is singer-songwriter, performer, author and
composer of
musical show
Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, moveme ...
s.
As an infant he showed early musical promise, and studied
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
under
Marguerite Long
Marguerite Marie-Charlotte Long (13 November 1874 – 13 February 1966) was a French pianist, pedagogue, lecturer, and an ambassador of French music.
Life
Early life: 1874–1900
Marguerite Long was born to Pierre Long and Anne Marie Antoin ...
. He entered the
Paris Conservatoire
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 ...
in 1935; in addition one of his teachers was
Pierre Monteux.
Administrative career
In 1966, France's Cultural Affairs minister
André Malraux
Georges André Malraux ( , ; 3 November 1901 – 23 November 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist, and Minister of Culture (France), minister of cultural affairs. Malraux's novel ''La Condition Humaine'' (Man's Fate) (1933) won the Prix Go ...
appointed Landowski as the ministry's director of music, a controversial appointment made in the teeth of opposition from the then ascendant
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
s, led by
Pierre Boulez.
One of his first acts was the establishment, in 1967, of the
Orchestre de Paris
The Orchestre de Paris () is a French orchestra based in Paris. The orchestra currently performs most of its concerts at the Philharmonie de Paris.
History
In 1967, following the dissolution of the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du ...
, appointing
Charles Munch as its first director. He also championed the establishment of regional orchestras at a time when interest in them appeared to be waning.
Obituary
/ref> This was part of a so-called "ten-year plan for music", instituted with the intention of establishing an opera company and conservatoire in each of the Regions of France
France is divided into eighteen administrative regions (french: régions, singular ), of which thirteen are located in metropolitan France (in Europe), while the other five are overseas regions (not to be confused with the overseas colle ...
. The new Orchestre de Paris was also built on the model intended to be followed by planned regional orchestras. In this endeavour Landowski worked with local authorities, especially those in the regional centres such as Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...
, Lille
Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...
, Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...
, Strasbourg and Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...
, who signed agreements under which the French State would finance a third of each company or ensemble's operating budget. Landowski also oversaw modernisation of regional concert halls and theatres.
In 1975 Landowski was appointed Inspector General of Music, and was Director of Cultural Affairs of the City of Paris from 1977 to 1979. He succeeded Emmanuel Bondeville
Emmanuel Bondeville was a French composer and music administrator, born 29 October 1898 in Rouen, and died 26 November 1987 in Paris. He was a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
Biography
As a young man he was organist at the church of Sain ...
as President of the Maurice Ravel Foundation and was in turn succeeded by Manuel Rosenthal
Manuel Rosenthal (18 June 1904 – 5 June 2003) was a French composer and conductor who held leading positions with musical organizations in France and America. He was friends with many contemporary composers, and despite a considerable list of c ...
.
He died in hospital in Paris in 1999, aged 84.
Compositions
Landowski eschewed the avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
approaches to music of his contemporaries, preferring a more conservative style. His greatest musical influence was Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger (; 10 March 1892 – 27 November 1955) was a Swiss composer who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. A member of Les Six, his best known work is probably ''Antigone'', composed between 1924 and 1927 t ...
. His entire output includes five symphonies, several concertos (notably two for piano and one each for bassoon, for cello, for flute, for trumpet, for trombone, for violin), opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
s as well as a Mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...
and bears testimony to Honegger's impact. Landowski went on to write a biography
A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...
of his mentor.
Selected works
*1940 Piano Concerto No. 1
*1949 Symphony No. 1, "Jean de la Peur"
*1954 Concerto for ondes Martenot and string orchestra.
*1956 ''Le Fou'' (opera)
*1962 ''Les Notes du Nuit'' (symphonic poem)
*1963 Piano Concerto No. 2
*1963 Symphony No. 2
*1964 Symphony No. 3, "Des Espaces"
*1968 Flute Concerto
*1976 Trumpet Concerto, "Au bout du chagrin, une fenêtre ouverte"
*1977 ''Messe de l'Aurore'', oratorio on a poem by Pierre Emmanuel
Noël Mathieu (3 May 1916, Gan, Pyrénées-Atlantiques – 22 September 1984, Paris) better known under his pseudonym Pierre Emmanuel, was a French poet of Christian inspiration.
Biography
He was the third member elected to occupy seat 4 of the ...
*1979 ''Un enfant apelle'' (concerto composed for the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife, soprano Galina Vishnevskaya
Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaya (russian: links=no, Галина Павловна Вишневская, Ivanova, Иванова; 25 October 192611 December 2012) was a Russian soprano opera singer and recitalist who was named a People's Artist o ...
).
*1982 ''L'Horloge'', symphonic poem.
*1987 ''La Vieille Maison'', "musical tale" in 2 acts
*1988 Symphony No. 4
*1998 Symphony No. 5, "Les Lumières de la nuit"
Many of his works were recorded by Erato Records
Erato Records is a record label founded in 1953 as Disques Erato by Philippe Loury to promote French classical music. Loury was head of éditions musicales Costallat. His first releases in France were licensed from the Haydn Society of Boston, a ...
who issued a retrospective of his recordings in 2010.
Selected filmography
Between the 1940s and the 1960s, Landowski composed the scores for several dozen films, most notably '' Gigi'' (1949).
* '' Mandrin'' (1947)
* ''Dark Sunday
''Dark Sunday'' (French: ''Sombre dimanche'') is a 1948 French drama film directed by Jacqueline Audry and starring Michèle Alfa, Paul Bernard and Marcelle Derrien.Bessy & Chirat p.451 The film takes its name from the French title of the song " ...
'' (1948)
* '' The Woman I Murdered'' (1948)
* ''The Secret of Monte Cristo
''The Secret of Monte Cristo'' (French: ''Le secret de Monte-Cristo'') is a 1948 French historical drama film directed by Albert Valentin and starring Pierre Brasseur, Georges Vitray and Pierre Larquey.Bessy & Chirat p.449 The film is based on th ...
'' (1948)
* '' Street Without a King'' (1950)
* '' Mammy'' (1951)
* '' The Passerby'' (1951)
* '' Maria of the End of the World'' (1951)
References
External links
Catalogue of works (in French and English)(.pdf file)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Landowski, Marcel
1915 births
1999 deaths
French film score composers
French male film score composers
French people of Polish descent
People from Pont-l'Abbé
Conservatoire de Paris alumni
20th-century French composers
French opera composers
20th-century French male musicians