TEMPO Henri Dutilleux and Maurice Ohana
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TEMPO http://journals.cambridge.org/TEM Additional services for TEMPO: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Henri Dutilleux and Maurice Ohana: Victims of an Exclusion Zone?. Caroline Rae TEMPO / Volume 212 / Issue 212 / April 2000, pp 22 - 30 DOI: 10.1017/S0040298200007580, Published online: 23 November 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0040298200007580 How to cite this article: Caroline Rae (2000). Henri Dutilleux and Maurice Ohana: Victims of an Exclusion Zone?. TEMPO, 212, pp 22-30 doi:10.1017/S0040298200007580 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/TEM, IP address: 131.251.254.238 on 31 Jul 2014 Caroline Rae Henri Dutilleux and Maurice Ohana: Victims of an Exclusion Zone? Until recently, the music of Henri Dutilleux and known more as a concert pianist than as a com- Maurice Ohana was largely overlooked in poser and by 1939 had given recitals at the Salles Britain, despite both composers having achieved Gaveau and Chopin, performed concertos with widespread recognition beyond our shores. In the orchestras of the Concerts Lamoureux and France they have ranked among the leading Pasdeloup, and completed several European composers of their generation since at least the tours. (In 1947 he gave recitals in London at the 1960s and have received many of the highest Wigmore Hall as well as for the BBC Home official accolades. In Britain, the view of French Service.) Indicating the path of his subsequent music since 1945 has often been synonymous compositional development, his recital program- with the music of Olivier Messiaen and Pierre mes reflected a cultural alignment independent Boulez, to the virtual exclusion of others whose of the Austro-German tradition and typically work has long been honoured not only in comprised works by Scarlatti, Chopin, Debussy, France and elsewhere in Europe but in the Ravel and the Spaniards, Falla, Albeniz and wider international arena. These 'others' include Granados. During the same period he was Dutilleux and Ohana. Developing an innovative drawn increasingly to composition and in 1937 and forward-looking approach, independent enrolled at the Schola Cantorum where he stud- from the preoccupations of their contemporaries ied with Daniel-Lesur. Ohana's first orchestral who congregated at Darmstadt, both Dutilleux work, Les fetes nocturnes, was performed in Paris and Ohana were excluded from representation the following year.' at the concerts of the Domaine musical. As a At the outbreak of war Dutilleux was mobi- result, their music was neglected in Britain lized. Although he expected his unit to be sent throughout the years when the programming to North Africa, the French defeat resulted in policies of Boulez and Sir William Glock were his demobilization by the autumn of 1940.4 at their most influential. Undoubtedly, Boulez is Consequently Dutilleux spent most of the war one of the most phenomenal figures in music of years in Paris where, even despite the austerities the last 50 or so years and the position of his of the Occupation, he was able to continue to erstwhile teacher Messiaen is secure as one of work, compose and receive a few concert per- the giants of the 20th century. Yet, however formances, including some broadcasts. Ohana's significant their respective contribution, Boulez war years were very different and necessitated and Messiaen represent only one facet of French his absence from Paris. When he returned to music since 1945. Paris after demobilization in 1946 he was forced Dutilleux and Ohana established their com- to carve out his position anew. Technically a positional presence during the years immediately British citizen (his father's family originated following the end of the Second World War. from Gibraltar), Ohana served with the British Both had achieved a measure of success even Army and saw active service in North Africa, prior to the outbreak of hostilities, albeit in Madagascar, Greece and Italy. Finding himself slightly different musical fields. As the crowning in liberated Rome in the summer of 1944, he glory of his years at the Paris Conservatoire, took advantage of periods of military inactivity Dutilleux was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1938, to enrol in Alfredo Casella's piano class at the at his third attempt, for his cantata L 'anne.au du Accademia Santa Cecilia. Beginning to compose roi. He departed for Rome in February 1939, again, his first important works Enterrar y collar, planning to remain in Italy for four years, but returned after only four months due to the tense Henri Dutilleux: Mystere et memoire des sons — entretiens avec political climate. During the 1930s Ohana was Claude Glaymann (Paris, 1997) p. 42. The score is no longer extant. Ohana destroyed nearly all works composed before 1944. ' Both composers settled in Hans in the early 1930s, Ohana in 1932 and Dutilleux in 1933. 1 Dutilleux, op.cit., p.43. http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 31 Jul 2014 IP address: 131.251.254.238 Henri Dutilleux and Maurice Ohana: Victims of an Exclusion Zone? 23 Henri Dutilleux (photo: Centre Acantlies, courtesy of U.M.P.) based on the eighteenth of Goya's etchings some primitive serial devices, perhaps as a means 'Disasters of War', and the Sonatine monodique, of confirming his compositional interests to lie both for solo piano, date from this period. It was elsewhere. That Dutilleux attended some of the also at this time that Ohana became aquainted lectures of Rene Leibowitz during the immediate with Andre Gide who recorded their first meet- post-war years may not be insignificant in this ing in his Journal on 17 December 1945. Ohana respect, although he has since emphasized that collaborated with Gide on the Notes sur Chopin his interest was the result of natural curiosity, his (Paris, 1948). position being quite different from that of By the end of the war, Dutilleux not Messiaen's students.' (Dutilleux acknowledges onlyheld an appointment at French Radio (first just as much the importance of Milhaud and Chef de Chant, then controller of Productions Jean Wiener in introducing Schoenberg to 7 d'Illustrations Musicales) but had received several Parisian audiences. ) In the third song of Trois commissions, including from the Conservatoire sonnets de Jean Cassou ('Jai reve que je vous for the well-known series of test pieces for wind portais entre mes bras') which he composed during instruments. He had completed works for the the late 1940s, the vocal line presents all 12 Orchestre Pasdeloup and the Societe des notes of the chromatic scale underlaid by the Concerts du Conservatoire, in addition to a Alexandrine verse structure of the text." The number of incidental music scores for radio, film melodic line barely disguises its tonal implica- and stage, as well as various songs. Although tions and the song as a whole is not serial. Dutilleux has frequently indicated his music of (Dutilleux employed a similar, although less this period to be uncharacteristic of his later primitive, device in the central movement of work, discouraging performances of any work his orchestral work Metaboles and there are pre-dating the Piano Sonata, his compositional suggested quasi-serial sections in the Second preoccupations of the time reveal an instinctive Symphony.) Dutilleux has indicated that he attraction for modal colour, jazz-like harmonies, might have been attracted by the compositional the use of recurrent pivot-notes and variation discipline of serialist technique as he always techniques. (Dutilleux has nevertheless allowed a enjoyed the rigours of fugue and counterpoint, number of his works predating the Piano Sonata but could never accept the basic principle of to remain in public circulation.) As Dutilleux abolishing all hierarchy between the different himself has said: 'Fundamentally, I am not an degrees of the chromatic scale." atonal composer'.' Clearly, he was not naturally drawn to the new serialism of the post-war years, Dutilleux: op.cit., p.67-68. considering it too dogmatic and authoritarian, yet ibid. it is possible that he may have experimented with * Caroline Potter: Henri Dutilleux his Life and Works (London, 1997) p.42. Roger Nichols: 'Dutilleux at 75', BBC Radio 3, 1991. Dutilleux: op.cit., p.47-48. http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 31 Jul 2014 IP address: 131.251.254.238 24 Henri Dulilkux and Maurice Ohana: Victims of an Exclusion Zone? When Ohana resettled in Paris after the war These systems destroy more in music than they his reputation rested chiefly on his pianistic create — they remove all the art of risk.'13 The achievements; his compositional portfolio com- iconoclastic rejection not only of serialism but of prised less than a dozen pieces (many of which all aesthetic dogma was primarily a rejection of he later withdrew or destroyed). As a result of Germanic musical thinking (not for the first the opportunity for personal reassessment that time in France); while the political structure of his war service provided, Ohana decided to the Third Reich had been defeated militarily, devote himself to composition and gradually Ohana in particular feared that Austro-Germanic wind-down his pianistic activities. With a musical traditions were conquering culturally. Such a language based on a combination of his Spanish vigorous opposition to contemporary trends and African roots and a reassessment of techniques may also have been in part associated with the drawn from the Medieval and Renaissance vocal cultural origins of the Group Zodiaque members, repertoire, Ohana, like Dutilleux, was not natu- their aversion to serialism being one of geo- rally drawn to the new serialism of his younger graphy as well as of musical taste. While contemporaries; music stemming from the Skrowaczewski is Polish and thus has a tradition Austro-German tradition had long felt remote of kinship with France (not to mention a certain both culturally and aesthetically.