André Souris (; 10 July 1899 – 12 February 1970) was a Belgian composer, conductor, musicologist, and writer associated with the
surrealist
Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
movement.
Biography
Souris was born in
Marchienne-au-Pont
Marchienne-au-Pont (; ) is a town of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Charleroi, located in the Hainaut Province, province of Hainaut, Belgium.
It was a commune in its own right before the merger of communes in 1977, when it had a p ...
, Belgium, and studied at the
Conservatory in Brussels from 1911 to 1918, winning first prizes in music history (1915), harmony (1916), counterpoint and fugue (1917), and the violin (1918). Following postgraduate studies in composition and orchestration with Gilson, he won the Rubens prize in 1927. This enabled him to move to Paris, where he sought out the leaders of the avant garde. He took conducting lessons with Scherchen in 1935, and was a conductor for the Belgian radio from 1937 to 1946 .
Up until 1923 Souris composed a great deal of music under the strong influence of
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 influe ...
, but after discovering other musical styles at the Pro Arte Concerts, he repudiated these early works and adopted
Erik Satie
Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (born 17 May 18661 July 1925), better known as Erik Satie, was a French composer and pianist. The son of a French father and a British mother, he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, Paris Conservatoire but was an undi ...
and
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...
as his models. Joining the Belgian surrealists of the group Correspondance around Paul Nougé, he wrote deliberately banal music, beginning with the ''Choral, marche et galop'' for four brass instruments (1925), which became his op. 1—a work clearly indebted to ''
L'Histoire du soldat
', or ''Tale of the Soldier'' (as it was first published), is an hour-long 1918 theatrical work to be "read, played and danced ''()''" by three actors, one or more dancers, and a septet of instruments. Its music is by Igor Stravinsky, its libret ...
'' (Vanhulst 2001). He lived in Italy, France, and
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
, and died in Paris .
References
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Further reading
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External links
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Koninklijk Conservatorium Brusselnow houses most works and manuscripts of Souris, after the bankruptcy of CeBeDeM in 2015.
1899 births
1970 deaths
Belgian classical composers
Belgian film score composers
Belgian musicologists
Belgian male film score composers
Belgian writers in French
Royal Conservatory of Brussels alumni
Academic staff of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels
Belgian surrealist writers
Musicians from Charleroi
20th-century Belgian composers
20th-century Belgian male musicians
Writers from Charleroi
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