Ernest Chausson

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Ernest Chausson (January 20, 1855 – June 10, 1899) was a late-blooming French romantic composer who died in an accident just as his career was beginning to flourish.

1 Life
2 Music
3 Sources
4 External links
5 See also

[edit] Life

Chausson was born in Paris into a well-to-do bourgeois family. His father made a fortune in the 1850s while assisting Baron Haussmann in the redevelopment of Paris.

To please his father, Chausson studied law and became a lawyer at the court of appeals but, in truth, he had little or no interest in the law. He frequented the Paris salons, where he met such celebrities as Fantin-Latour, Odilon Redon, and Vincent d'Indy. He dabbled in writing and drawing before definitely deciding on his career.

In October of 1879 at age 25, he began attending the composition classes of the opera composer Jules Massenet at the Paris Conservatoire. Chausson had already composed some piano pieces and songs but his first manuscripts that have been preserved are those corrected by Massenet.

At the Conservatoire, Chausson also studied composition with César Franck, who had eschewed the fashionable avenue to opera and taken the lonelier path of composing orchestral and chamber music. It was Franck who became Chausson's main mentor and he, in turn, became an ardent disciple of César Franck.

Chausson enjoyed travel and in 1882 and 1883, he made the pilgrimage to Bayreuth to attends the operas of Richard Wagner. Chausson went the first time with d'Indy to see the premier of Parsifal, and the second with his new bride Jeanne Escudier.

From 1886 until his death in 1899, Chausson was secretary of the Société Nationale de Musique. He received many of the Paris artistic elite in his salon, including the composers Henri Duparc, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Isaac Albéniz, the poet Mallarmé, the Russian novelist and playwright Ivan Turgenev, and the impressionist painter Claude Monet. Chausson also assembled an important collection of impressionist art.

Chausson died in Limary, Seine-et-Oise, at the age of 44 as a result of a bicycle accident. He was buried in the celebrated Cimetière du Père Lachaise in Paris.

[edit] Music

The composer Chausson's work is commonly divided into three periods. The first period was dominated by Massenet and exhibits fluid and elegant melodies. The second period dating from 1886 is marked by a more dramatic character, benefitting by his contacts with the artistic milieux in which he moved. The third period dates from his father's death in 1894 and was influenced by his reading of the symbolist poets and Russian literature, particularly Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy.

Chausson's work is uniquely Chausson but it reflects the influence of both Franck and Wagner. Other less pronounced influences included Massenet and Johannes Brahms. Chausson's compositional style bridges the gap between the Romanticism of Massenet and Franck and the Impressionism of Debussy.

Chausson is noted for his many songs. He wrote one opera Le Roi Arthus (King Arthur).

His orchestral output was comparatively small. Surviving works include the Symphony in B Flat (his sole symphony); Poème for violin and orchestra (an important piece in the violin repertoire); and Poème de l'amour et de la mer (for voice and orchestra).

Chausson's œuvre is relatively modest in quantity. There are only 39 opus numbers.

Chausson is also noted in music circles as a man who suffered a freakish and untimely death. He road his bicycle straight into a brick wall and died instantly at the age of 44. It is not clear if he intended to die or was showing off for his friends.

[edit] Sources

Entry to Ernest Chausson in the French Wikipedia, translated by Frederick Hecht
Liner notes by Edward Blakeman to the recording of Chausson's Symphony in B flat, Viviane, Soir de fete, and La tempete. Performed by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier, Chandos-9650 (CD), released 1999.