![Paul Rougnon 1895 BNF](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Paul_Rougnon_1895_BNF.jpg)
Paul-Louis Rougnon (24 August 1846 – 11 December 1934) was a French composer, pianist and music educator.
Biography
Paul Rougnon was born in
Poitiers
Poitiers (, , , ; Poitevin: ''Poetà e'') is a city on the River Clain in west-central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and the historical centre of Poitou. In 2017 it had a population of 88,291. Its agglomerat ...
the son of Louis Rougnon and Claire Clotilde Robin. A student at the Lycée Bonaparte (now the
Lycée Condorcet
The Lycée Condorcet () is a school founded in 1803 in Paris, France, located at 8, rue du Havre, in the city's 9th arrondissement. It is one of the four oldest high schools in Paris and also one of the most prestigious. Since its inception, var ...
), he entered 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 ...
in 1861 as an auditor, then a full-time student in 1862.
[Paul Rougnon Biography](_blank)
Retrieved 21 August 2012. He studied piano, music theory and composition with such masters as
Édouard Batiste
Édouard Batiste (28 March 1820 – 9 November 1876) was a French composer and organist.
Career
Batiste was born in Paris and studied at the Conservatory as a teenager, winning prizes in solfège, harmony
In music, harmony is the process ...
,
François Bazin,
Ambroise Thomas
Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas (; 5 August 1811 – 12 February 1896) was a French composer and teacher, best known for his operas ''Mignon'' (1866) and ''Hamlet'' (1868).
Born into a musical family, Thomas was a student at the Conservatoire de ...
,
Antoine François Marmontel
Antoine François Marmontel () (18 July 1816 – 16 January 1898) was a French pianist, composer, teacher and musicographer. He is mainly known today as an influential teacher at the Paris Conservatory, where he taught many musicians who became ...
and
César Franck
César-Auguste Jean-Guillaume Hubert Franck (; 10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a French Romantic composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher born in modern-day Belgium.
He was born in Liège (which at the time of his birth was p ...
.
[Rougnon: Amis et contemporains](_blank)
Retrieved 21 August 2012. He received degrees in music theory in 1865, harmony in 1868 and counterpoint in 1870.
In 1873, at age 27, Rougnon became a professor at the Conservatoire, then under the directorship of Ambroise Thomas. He taught
music theory
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...
,
counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...
and
fugue
In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the c ...
until his retirement in 1921.
His students include
Alfred Cortot
Alfred Denis Cortot (; 26 September 187715 June 1962) was a French pianist, conductor, and teacher who was one of the most renowned classical musicians of the 20th century. A pianist of massive repertory, he was especially valued for his poeti ...
,
Yves Nat
Yves Philippe Avit Nat (29 December 1890 – 31 August 1956) was a French pianist and composer.
Biography
Nat was born in Béziers and showed an early aptitude for both piano and composition. By the age of seven he was allowed to improvise eac ...
,
Fernand Oubradous
Fernand Oubradous (12 February 1903 – 6 January 1986) was a French bassoonist, conductor and composer. Born in Paris, he studied in his native city with André Bloch André Bloch may refer to:
*André Bloch (composer) (1873–1960), French comp ...
,
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 ...
, and
Henri Mulet
Henri Gabriel Mulet (17 October 1878 – 20 September 1967) was a French composer, pipe and reed organist, and cellist.
Biography
Mulet was born on 17 October 1878 in Paris. His father Gabriel Léon Mulet was choirmaster of the Basilica of Sacr ...
.
In addition to teaching, he was an administrator for the choral societies
Orphéon and Sociétés musicales mutuelles. He composed choral works especially for these ensembles. After the turn of the century, he began to work with various magazines including ''Piano-Soleil'', ''Le Monde Musical'', ''Le Ménestrel'', ''Le Monde Orphéonique'' and ''L'Harmonie''.
As a prolific composer and writer, he composed more than 300 musical works in addition to literary and pedagogical volumes. He composed hundreds of piano pieces, two operas, some chamber music, and also vocal and choral works. In 1896, under the tenure of
Théodore Dubois
Clément François Théodore Dubois (24 August 1837 – 11 June 1924) was a French Romantic composer, organist, and music teacher.
After study at the Paris Conservatoire, Dubois won France's premier musical prize, the Prix de Rome in 1861. He bec ...
, the Conservatoire began the practice of charging composers to write contest pieces. Rougnon began composing works for this purpose, particularly for
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 keyboa ...
,
viola
The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...
,
flute
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...
, and
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
.
His treatises on music theory and piano pedagogy are still in use today.
Rougnon received a gold medal for his collective works of music education at the
1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. In 1911, he was made a
Chevalier 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 ...
.
Rougnon married Marie-Louise de Beurmann in 1887 and had five children. He died on 11 December 1934 at his home in
Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Saint-Germain-en-Laye () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the ÃŽle-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris, from the centre of Paris.
Inhabitants are called ''Saint-Germanois'' or ''Saint-Ge ...
.
Selected works
Compositions
This is a list of compositions sorted by genre,
opus number
In musicology, the opus number is the "work number" that is assigned to a musical composition, or to a set of compositions, to indicate the chronological order of the composer's production. Opus numbers are used to distinguish among compositio ...
, date of composition (or publication), and title.
Literary works
* ''Devoirs élémentaires de musique théorique et pratique en deux livres'' (Éditions Gallet)
* ''Dictées harmoniques à 2 parties'' (
Heugel and Cie., 1914)
* ''Dictionnaire général de l'art musical'' (Éditions Delagrave, 1935)
* ''Dictionnaire musical des locutions étrangères (italiennes, allemandes, etc.)'' (c.1880, Éditions Delagrave, 1918, 1935)
* ''La Musique et son histoire'' (Librairie Garnier Frères, 1920)
* ''Le Mouvement et les nuances d'expression dans la musique'' (P. Dupont, 1893)
* ''Le Rythme et la mesure: Traité complet théorique, analytique & practique'' (Éditions Enoch et Cie.)
* ''Manuel de transposition musicale: étude de toutes les clés; appliquée aux instruments de musique et principalment au piano, à l'orgue, à la harpe'' (Heugel, 1912)
* ''Origines de la notation musicale moderne: Étude historique'' (1925)
* ''Petit dictionnaire de musique: termes musicaux usuels'' (Heugel, 1922)
* ''Petit dictionnaire liturgique de musique religieuse: théorique, pratique, historique'' (P. Lethielleux, 1921)
* ''Petite biographie des grands compositeurs'' (in 3 volumes) 1. École française 2. École italienne 3. École allemande (Éditions Margueritat, 1924)
* ''Souvenirs de 60 années de vie musicale et de 50 années de professorat au Conservatoire de Paris'' (Éditions Margueritat, 1925)
;Pedagogical publications
* ''Cours de chant choral'' (Andrieu et Cie., 1924)
* ''Cours de piano élémentaire et progressif formant un cours complet de mécanisme'' (E. Gallet, 1899; Éditions M. Combre)
* ''Grandes études journalières de solfège à changement de clef'' (Éditions du Ménestrel, 1907)
* ''Mon piano: Hygiène du piano, Petit dictionnaire explicatif et historique des éléments constitutifs du piano'' (Éditions Fischbacher, 1921)
* ''Principes de la musique. Étude développée'' (Édition Delagrave, 1936)
* ''Solfège élémentaire: théorique, analytique et pratique à la portée des jeunes élèves'' (Éditions Combre)
* ''Solfège en 16 volumes'' (Éditions Combre)
* ''Traité pratique de prosodie dans la composition musicale et la déclamation lyrique'' (Éditions Enoch et Cie.)
* ''Traité pratique d'harmonie'' (Éditions Gallet)
References
External links
*
Paul Rougnon: Biography, photographs, works, etc.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rougnon, Paul
1846 births
1934 deaths
People from Poitiers
French classical composers
French male classical composers
Composers for piano
French opera composers
Male opera composers
Academic staff of the Conservatoire de Paris
Conservatoire de Paris alumni
Knights of the Legion of Honour