Lucien Denis Gabriel Albéric Magnard (lysjɑ̃ dəni gabʁijɛl albeʁik maɲaːʁ) (9 June 1865 – 3 September 1914) was a French composer, sometimes referred to as the "French Bruckner

Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...

", though there are significant differences between the two composers. Magnard became a national hero in 1914 when he refused to surrender his property to German invaders and died defending it.

Biography

Albéric Magnard was born in Paris to François Magnard, a bestselling author and editor of Le Figaro

Le Figaro

Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...

, Albéric could have chosen to live the comfortable life his family's wealth afforded him. But he disliked being called "fils du Figaro," and decided to have a career in music based entirely on his talent and without any help from family connections. After military service and graduating from law school, he entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied counterpoint with Théodore Dubois

Théodore Dubois

François-Clément Théodore Dubois was a French composer, organist and music teacher.-Biography:Théodore Dubois was born in Rosnay in Marne. He studied first under Louis Fanart and later at the Paris Conservatoire under Ambroise Thomas. He won the Prix de Rome in 1861...

 and went to the classes of Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

. There he met Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy

Vincent d'Indy was a French composer and teacher.-Life:Paul Marie Théodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and...

, with whom he studied fugue and orchestration for four years, writing his first two Symphonies under d'Indy's tutelage. Magnard dedicated his Symphony No. 1 in C minor to d'Indy.

François Magnard did what he could to support Albéric's career while trying to respect his son's wish to make it on his own. This included publicity in Le Figaro. With the death of his father in 1894, Albéric Magnard's grief was complicated by his simultaneous gratitude to and annoyance with his father.

In 1896, Magnard married Julie Creton, became a counterpoint tutor at the Schola Cantorum

Schola Cantorum

The Schola Cantorum de Paris is a private music school in Paris. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Bordes, Alexandre Guilmant and Vincent d'Indy as a counterbalance to the Paris Conservatoire's emphasis on opera...

 (recently founded by d'Indy) and wrote his Symphony No. 3 in B-flat minor.

Magnard published many of his own compositions at his own expense, from Opus 8 to Opus 20. Similar to the oeuvres of Paul Dukas

Paul Dukas

Paul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions...

 and Henri Dutilleux

Henri Dutilleux

Henri Dutilleux is one of the most important French composers of the second half of the 20th century, producing work in the tradition of Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Albert Roussel, but in a style distinctly his own...

, Magnard's musical output numbered only 22 works with opus numbers.

In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, Magnard sent his wife and two daughters to a safe hiding place while he stayed behind to guard the estate of Manoir de Fontaines at Baron

Baron, Oise

Baron is a small village in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.-References:*...

, Oise

Oise

Oise is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise.-History:Oise is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...

. When German soldiers trespassed, he fired at them, killing one of them, and they fired back and set the house on fire. It is believed that Magnard died in the fire, but his body could not be identified in the remains. The fire destroyed Magnard's unpublished scores, such as the orchestral score of his early opera Yolande, the orchestral score of Guercoeur

Guercoeur

Guercoeur is an opera in three acts by the French composer Albéric Magnard to his own libretto. It was first performed posthumously at the Paris Opéra on 24 April 1931, though it had mostly been written between 1897 and 1901...

 (the piano reduction had been published, and the orchestral score of the second act was extant) and a more recent song cycle.

Guy Ropartz, who had led a concert performance in Nancy of the third act of Guercoeur in February, 1908, reconstructed from memory the orchestration of the acts that had been lost in the fire. The Paris Opéra gave the belated world premiere in 1931. (A complete recording of Guercœur was released by EMI Angel/Pathé Marconi in 1990. It features Hildegard Behrens

Hildegard Behrens

Hildegard Behrens was a German soprano with a wide repertory including Wagner, Weber, Mozart, Richard Strauss, and Alban Berg roles.-Biography:...

, Nadine Denize, José van Dam

José van Dam

Joseph, Baron van Damme , known as José van Dam, is a Belgian bass-baritone.At the age of 17, he entered the Brussels Royal Conservatory and studied with Frederic Anspach. A year later, he graduated with diplomas and first prizes in voice and opera performance...

, and Gary Lakes, with the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse conducted by Michel Plasson

Michel Plasson

Michel Plasson is a French conductor.Plasson was a student of Lazare Lévy at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1962, he was a prize-winner at the International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors. He studied briefly in the United States, including time with Charles Münch...

.)

Magnard's musical style is typical of French composers contemporaneous to him, but occasionally, as in the four completed symphonies, there are passages that foreshadow the music of Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

. His use of cyclic form

Cyclic form

Cyclic form is a technique of musical construction, involving multiple sections or movements, in which a theme, melody, or thematic material occurs in more than one movement as a unifying device. Sometimes a theme may occur at the beginning and end Cyclic form is a technique of musical...

 and occasional incorporation of chorale

Chorale

A chorale was originally a hymn sung by a Christian congregation. In certain modern usage, this term may also include classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....

 in his works earned him the nickname of "French Bruckner." Although Bruckner used cyclical forms long before d'Indy "trademarked" the concept to César Franck

César Franck

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....

's name, Magnard's handling of cyclical form is more Franckian than Brucknerian. In his operas, Magnard used Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's leitmotiv technique

Magnard did not write much chamber music, but his complete œuvre is not that large, the published pieces numbering slightly more than 20. The chamber works include a string quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

, a quintet for piano and winds, a piano trio

Piano trio

A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music...

, a violin sonata

Violin sonata

A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, which is nearly always accompanied by a piano or other keyboard instrument, or by figured bass in the Baroque period.-A:*Ella Adayevskaya**Sonata Greca for Violin or Clarinet and Piano...

 (in G, opus

Opus number

An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...

 13) and a cello sonata

Cello sonata

A cello sonata is usually a sonata written for cello and piano, though other instrumentations are used, such as solo cello. The most famous Romantic-era cellos sonatas are those written by Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven...

 (in A, opus 20). A few more works of his were published posthumously, such as the Quatre poèmes en musique, four songs for baritone and piano.

List of Compositions

• Trois pièces pour piano, Op. 1
• Suite dans le style ancien, Op. 2, for orchestra
• Six poèmes, Op. 3, for voice and piano

1. À Elle

2. Invocation

3. Le Rhin allemand

4. Nocturne

5. Ad fontem

6. Au poète

• Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 4
• Yolande, opera (1888-1891), Op. 5
• Symphony No. 2 In E, Op. 6
• Promenades, Op. 7, for piano
• Quintet for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet & bassoon in D minor, Op. 8
• Chant funèbre, Op. 9
• Overture, Op. 10
• Symphony No. 3 in B-flat minor, Op. 11
• Guercoeur
  Guercoeur
  Guercoeur is an opera in three acts by the French composer Albéric Magnard to his own libretto. It was first performed posthumously at the Paris Opéra on 24 April 1931, though it had mostly been written between 1897 and 1901...
  
  , opera (1897–1900), Op. 12
• Sonata for Violin and Piano in G, Op. 13
• Hymne à la Justice, Op. 14
• Quatre poèmes, Op. 15, for baritone and piano
• String Quartet in E minor, op. 16
• Hymne a Venus, Op. 17
• Trio for Piano and Strings in F minor, Op. 18
• Bérénice, opera (1905–1909), Op. 19
• Sonata for Cello in A, Op. 20
• Symphony No. 4 in C-sharp minor, Op. 21
• Douze poèmes, Op. 22
• En Dieu mon esperance
• À Henriette

External links

• Magnard String Quartet Op.16 Soundbites and discussion of work