Serge Nigg (6 June 1924 – 12 November 2008) was a French composer, born in Paris.

Biography

After initial studies with

Ginette Martenot Ginette Martenot (1902–1996) was a French pianist, and an expert and leading performer on the twentieth-century electronic instrument the ondes Martenot, which was invented by her brother Maurice. At the age of sixteen, she entered the Paris Con ...

, Nigg entered the

Paris Conservatory 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 1941 and studied harmony with Olivier Messiaen and counterpoint with Simone Plé-Caussade. In 1945, he met

René Leibowitz René Leibowitz (; 17 February 1913 – 29 August 1972) was a Polish, later naturalised French, composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher. He was historically significant in promoting the music of the Second Viennese School in Paris after ...

, who introduced him to the

twelve-tone technique The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...

. Together with other Leibowitz pupils, Antoine Duhamel, André Casanova and

Jean Prodromidès Jean Prodromidès (3 July 1927 – 17 March 2016) was a French composer. He was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1927 in a music-loving family. His father, of Greek origin, had a pianola by which he became familiar with works of Beethoven and Wagner. ...

, he gave the first performance of Leibowitz's ''Explications des Metaphors'', Op. 15, in Paris in 1948. After completing a Concerto 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 keybo ...

and

Wind Instruments A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitc ...

and a Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra (both 1943), and the symphonic poem ''Timour'' (1944), he became the first French composer to write a dodecaphonic work when his

Variations Variation or Variations may refer to: Science and mathematics * Variation (astronomy), any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon * Genetic variation, the difference in DNA among individua ...

for Piano and 10 Instruments appeared in 1946. This piece was premiered at the International Festival of Dodecaphonic Music, organized by Leibowitz in 1947. In 1956, Nigg was appointed a member of the Music Committee for French state broadcasting. From 1967 to 1982, he was a member of the music management for the

French Ministry of Culture The Ministry of Culture (french: Ministère de la Culture) is the ministry of the Government of France in charge of national museums and the . Its goal is to maintain the French identity through the promotion and protection of the arts (visua ...

, after which he taught classes in instrumentation and orchestration at the Paris Conservatory, and became President of the

Société Nationale de Musique Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA. Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the sec ...

. He was elected to the

Académie des Beaux-Arts An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

in 1989 and served as its President in 1995. Nigg died November 12, 2008, aged 84.

Works

*Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, 1943 *Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra, 1943 *

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

No. 1, 1943 *''Timour'', symphonic poem, 1944 *Variations for Piano and 10 Instruments, 1946 *Four

Mélodie A ''mélodie'' () is a form of French art song, arising in the mid-19th century. It is comparable to the German ''Lied''. A ''chanson'', by contrast, is a folk or popular French song. The literal meaning of the word in the French language is "melod ...

s on poems by

Paul Éluard Paul Éluard (), born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel (; 14 December 1895 – 18 November 1952), was a French poet and one of the founders of the Surrealist movement. In 1916, he chose the name Paul Éluard, a matronymic borrowed from his maternal ...

, 1950 *Billiard,

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

, 1950 *''Pour un poète captif'', symphonic poem, 1951 *Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1, 1954 *Concerto for

Violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

and Orchestra, 1960 *Concerto for Flute and String Orchestra, 1960 *''Jérôme Bosch'', symphony, 1960 *''Histoire d'œuf'', conte musical based on

Blaise Cendrars Frédéric-Louis Sauser (1 September 1887 – 21 January 1961), better known as Blaise Cendrars, was a Swiss-born novelist and poet who became a naturalized French citizen in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the European mo ...

, 1961 *''Pour un Tombeau d'Anatole'', 1961 *''Visages d'Axël'', 1965–67 *''Fulgur'', 1970 *Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra, 1971 *''Fastes de l'imaginaire'', 1974 *''Mirrors for

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

'', 1979 *''Million d'oiseaux d'or'', 1981 * String Quartet *''Du clair au sombre'', song cycle for soprano and chamber orchestra, based on poems by Paul Éluard *

Arioso In classical music, arioso (also aria parlante ) is a category of solo vocal piece, usually occurring in an opera or oratorio, falling somewhere between recitative and aria in style. Literally, arioso means ''airy''. The term arose in the 16th ...

for Cello und Piano, 1987 *Concerto No. 1 for

Viola ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...

and Orchestra, 1987–1988 *''Poème'' for orchestra, 1990 * Sonata for Piano and Violin, 1996 *''Tumultes'' for piano, 1998 *''Deux images de nuits'' for piano, 1999 *Concerto No. 2 for Viola and Orchestra, 2000

References

External links

*
Serge Nigg's biography
on Cdmc website {{DEFAULTSORT:Nigg, Serge 1924 births 2008 deaths French classical composers French male classical composers 20th-century classical composers Members of the Académie des beaux-arts Officers of the Ordre national du Mérite 20th-century French composers 20th-century French male musicians