Pierre Petit (21 April 1922 – 1 July 2000) was a French composer.

Life

Petit was born in

Poitiers Poitiers (, , , ; Poitevin: ''Poetàe'') 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 a professor of the khâgne. He studied literature and music in Paris (

Hattemer Course Cours Hattemer is a French private, secular school. It is independent of the state, and can follow its own teaching approach, which is structured and places great stress on repetition to drive home what has been learned. The school has many well-kn ...

Lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on rue Saint-Jacques in central Paris. It was founded in the ...

) and literature at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

. He studied at 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 ...

from 1942, his teachers included

Georges Dandelot Georges Édouard Dandelot (2 December 1895 – 17 August 1975) was a French composer and teacher. Biography Dandelot was born in Paris. His father was Alfred Dandelot, and his mother was the daughter of a piano maker. Dandelot studied at the Pari ...

for

music analysis Musical analysis is the study of musical structure in either compositions or performances. According to music theorist Ian Bent, music analysis "is the means of answering directly the question 'How does it work?'". The method employed to answe ...

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

for harmony,

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 ...

for

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 ...

, and

Henri Busser Henri is an Estonian, Finnish, French, German and Luxembourgish form of the masculine given name Henry. People with this given name ; French noblemen :'' See the 'List of rulers named Henry' for Kings of France named Henri.'' * Henri I de Montm ...

for composition. In 1946, he won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome with the lyrical scene ''Le jeu de l'amour et du hasard'', which was performed in the same year by the orchestra of the ''Cadets du Conservatoire'' under the direction of

Claude Delvincourt Claude Étienne Edmond Marie Pierre Delvincourt (12 January 1888 – 5 April 1954) was a French pianist and composer of classical music. Biography Delvincourt was born in Paris, the son of Pierre Delvincourt and Marguerite Fourès. He studied ...

. From 1951 Petit taught the history of civilization at the Conservatoire de Paris and the

École polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

. In 1960, he began working for the

Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française L'Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF; ) was the national agency charged, between 1964 and 1975, with providing public radio and television in France. All programming, and especially news broadcasts, were under strict control ...

. At first he was head of light music, and then from 1965 he was musical director. Among others, he produced music for ''accords parfaits'', ''contre-ut'', ''Presto'', ''Figaro ci figaro là''. In 1963, he was appointed director of 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'' (Engl ...

, succeeding

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 ...

and working alongside such musicians as

Alfred Desenclos Alfred Desenclos (7 February 1912 – 3 March 1971) was a French composer of (modern) classical music. Desenclos was a self-described "romantic" whose music is highly expressive and atmospheric and rooted in rigorous compositional technique. To s ...

Norbert Dufourcq Norbert Stéphane Jean-Marie Dufourcq (21 September 1904 – 19 December 1990) was a French organist, music educator, musicologist and musicographer. Biography Norbert Dufourcq was born in 1904 in Saint-Jean-de-Braye in the Loiret departmen ...

and Marguerite Roesgen-Champion. He held the position for 35 years, when he was succeeded by Henri Heugel. His students included

Roger Bellon Roger Bellon is a French film, television, theatre and opera composer, conductor, orchestrator and producer. Early life He was eight when he had his first piano and composition lessons. Roger Bellon earned his Bachelor Of Music Composition degree ...

. He was also on the jury of the

Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition The Long–Thibaud–Crespin Competition is an international classical music competition for pianists, violinists and singers that has been held in France since 1943. (A Jacques Thibaud Competition was held the year before in Bordeaux: Jacques ...

Output and awards

Petit composed operas, operettas and ballets, orchestral works, concertos, chamber music and songs. He was also noted as a music writer, writing books on

Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...

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

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

, and a study of the musical problems of

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

. He was also a music critic for ''

Le Figaro ''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of reco ...

''. For his musical work, in 1965 he was awarded the Grand Prix du Conseil Général de la Seine, and in 1985, the Grand Music Prize of SACEM.

Personal life

He married the singer Christiane Castelli, famous for her interpretation of

Tosca ''Tosca'' is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1 ...

at the

Opéra de Paris 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 ...

. They had three children, Claude (journalist and writer), Didier (singer, songwriter and performer under the name Romain Didier) and Marie-Laurène. Later he married the violinist Marie-Claude Theuveny in 1958, and had two children with her, Carolin Petit, composer and arranger of music for film and television, and Nicolas. Finally, in 1974 he married his third wife Liliane Fiaux.

Works

Compositions

* ''Mélodie'' for voice and piano, 1941 * ''6 Petites pièces à 4 mains'', piano pieces for children, 1942 * ''Concertino pour piano'', 1942 * ''Suite'' für vier Celli, 1942 * ''Bois de Boulogne'', five pieces for piano, 1946 * ''La Maréchale Sans-Gêne'', operetta, 1948 * ''Zadig'', ballet, 1948 * ''Deux mélodies sur des poèmes de Charles Oulmont'', 1949 * ''Romanza romana'', 1950 * ''Ciné-Bijou'', ballet after jazz themes, composed for

Roland Petit Roland Petit (13 January 192410 July 2011) was a French ballet company director, choreographer and dancer. He trained at the Paris Opera Ballet school, and became well known for his creative ballets. Life and work The son of shoe designer Ros ...

, 1952 * ''Feu rouge, feu vert'', ballet, 1953 * ''Saxopéra'', for saxophone, 1955 * ''Furia italiana'', opera, 1958 * ''Concertino'' for organ, strings and percussion, 1958 * ''Concerto pour tête-à-tête'', opera, 1959 * ''Migraine'', comic opera, 1959 * ''Toccata et Tarentelle'' for two guitars, 1959 * ''Andante und Fileuse'' for saxophone, 1959 * ''Concerto'' for two guitars, 1964 * ''Quatre poèmes de

Paul Gilson Paul Gilson (Brussels, 15 June 1865 – Brussels, 3 April 1942) was a Belgian musician and composer. Biography Paul Gilson was born in Brussels. In 1866, his family moved to Ruisbroek in the Belgian province of Brabant. There he studied the ...

'', 1965 * ''Le Diable à deux'' for two pianos, 1970 * ''Tarentelle'' for orchestra, 1971 * ''Suite'' for two cellos and orchestra, 1974 * ''Orphée'', ballet, 1975 * ''Oregon'', piano suite for children, 1979 * ''Mouvement perpétuel'' for guitar, 1984

Writings

* ''Autour de la chanson française'', 1952 * ''Verdi'', 1958 * ''Ravel'', 1970 * ''Mozart'', 1991

References

* "Pierre Petit", in '' Sax,

Mule The mule is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey and a horse. It is the offspring of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare). The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes; of the two pos ...

& Co'',

Jean-Pierre Thiollet Jean-Pierre Thiollet (; born 9 December 1956) is a French writer and journalist. Primarily living in Paris, he is the author of numerous books and one of the national leaders of the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CEDI), a ...

, H & D, Paris, 2004, s. 160-161
Pierre Petit
in the Encyclopédie Universalis

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Petit, Pierre 20th-century French composers French operetta composers People from Poitiers 1922 births 2000 deaths 20th-century classical composers Conservatoire de Paris alumni École Normale de Musique de Paris alumni Academics of the École Normale de Musique de Paris Composers for the classical guitar Prix de Rome for composition French music critics