Antoine Mariotte, born in Avignon

Avignon

Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...

 (Vaucluse

Vaucluse

The Vaucluse is a department in the southeast of France, named after the famous spring, the Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.- History :Vaucluse was created on 12 August 1793 out of parts of the departments of Bouches-du-Rhône, Drôme, and Basses-Alpes...

) on 22 December 1875 and died in Izieux, (Loire

Loire

Loire is an administrative department in the east-central part of France occupying the River Loire's upper reaches.-History:Loire was created in 1793 when after just 3½ years the young Rhône-et-Loire department was split into two. This was a response to counter-Revolutionary activities in Lyon...

) on 30 November 1944 was a French composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

 and music administrator.

Biography

After studies at the School of Saint-Michel in Saint-Étienne

Saint-Étienne

Saint-Étienne is a city in eastern central France. It is located in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon in the Rhône-Alpes region, along the trunk road that connects Toulouse with Lyon...

, he entered naval school aged 15.

In 1894, while serving on the frigate Iphigénie, he wrote to a friend that he missed music and if he had the means he would go to the Conservatoire. While still split between the life of a sailor and musician, he worked away on harmony. He took part in campaigns on board the Forfait in the China Seas, then on the Vinh-Long, where he witnessed the closing stages of the sino-japonese war

First Sino-Japanese War

The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea...

. He brought back sketches which became a suite Kakimonos, initially written for the piano, but later orchestrated and performed at the Concerts Poulet on 29 January 1923 (Panorama, Geishas, Temple au Crépuscule, Fête).

In the Far East he read the Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

 play Salome

Salome (play)

Salome is a tragedy by Oscar Wilde.The original 1891 version of the play was in French. Three years later an English translation was published...

, and decided to set it to music. On return to Europe, he sailed on the Marceau then the Magenta where finally, thanks to the Admiral Gervais, he had a piano. On six months leave he followed a course at the Conservatoire by Charles-Marie Widor

Charles-Marie Widor

Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor was a French organist, composer and teacher.-Life:Widor was born in Lyon, to a family of organ builders, and initially studied music there with his father, François-Charles Widor, titular organist of Saint-François-de-Sales from 1838 to 1889...

. After prolonging his absence, he resigned from the navy in 1897. He entered the Schola Cantorum where he was taught by 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...

 who found him work as a pianist at the home of the comte de Chambrun, to whom he played each day for preceisely 60 minutes, in particular the 32 sonatas

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 , two movements , five or even more movements...

 of Beethoven in chronological order.

Due to his mother's health, he went back to Saint-Etienne and taught piano, and became an organist, also directing the symphonic society; he also wrote an operette Armande. Appointed professor of piano at the Lyon Conservatoire he completed the score of Salomé, believing himself to have the permission from Wilde's estate and the publisher Methuen. In fact, having obtained the agreement to use the play, Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

 had in turn asked his publisher Fürstner to acquire the rights. Wilde's particularly complicated estate led to a court case which favoured the rights of Fürstner. Mariotte learnt that Fürstner would oppose the production of a "Salomé française" and after going to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, he obtained permission to have his piece staged, on condition that 40% royalties went to Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

 and 10% to Fürstner, with all scores to be sent after the run to Fürstner to be destroyed. Romain Rolland

Romain Rolland

Romain Rolland was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.-Biography:...

, having read an article by Mariotte in the Revue internationale de musique, helped him to obtain a more generous settlement from Strauss. On 30 October 1908, Mariotte's opera was produced at the Grand-Théâtre de Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

 with success (de Wailly in the title role), and staged in 1910 at the Gaîté-Lyrique in Paris, while Salomé

Salome (opera)

Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....

by Strauss was on at the Opéra. After having been performed at Nancy, Havre

Le Havre

Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...

, Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

, Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

, and Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, Salomé by Mariotte was seen at the Opéra on 1 July 1919 with Lucienne Bréval

Lucienne Bréval

Lucienne Bréval was a Swiss dramatic soprano who had a major international opera career from 1892-1918...

. In November 2005 the Opera National de Montpellier juxtaposed the Strauss and Mariotte operas.

During the war Mariotte was sent to Salonica where he contracted malaria

Malaria

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

. After the end of the war, in 1920 he became director of the Conservatoire d'Orléans where he taught René Berthelot, who succeeded him. He led the direction of the Opéra-Comique

Opéra-Comique

The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...

 from 1936 to 1939.

Compositions

Mariotte's works use a wide range of operatic effects with particularly striking choral writing. He displayed a robust temperament in both tragedy and lighter music.

On 28 February 1913 he presented in Lyon a tragédie lyrique, Le Vieux Roi on a libretto by Rémy de Gourmont, which, despite a successful launch, failed after its third performance.

His three-act comédie musicale Léontine soeurs premiered at the Théâtre Trianon Lyrique on 25 May 1924 and was published later that year.
Esther, princesse d'Israêl, a three-act tragédie lyrique after André Dumas and Sébastien-Charles Leconte was created at the Opéra on 28 April 1925, Gargantua ('scenes rabelaisiennes

François Rabelais

François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...

' in 4 acts) was seen at the Opéra-Comique on 15 February 1935 and revived in 1938, and Nele Dooryn a three-act 'conte lyrique' (libretto by Camille Mauclair

Camille Mauclair

Séverin Faust , better known by his pseudonym Camille Mauclair, was a French poet, novelist, biographer, travel writer, and art critic....

) was given five performances at the Opéra-Comique in 1940.

In 1930 he wrote a Cantate pour le centenaire de la Conquête de l'Algérie, played with enthusiasm in Algiers

Algiers

' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...

.

In 1934 came the symphonic version of Impressions Urbaines, five pieces for piano (Usines, Faubourgs, Guingettes, Decombres, Gares) premiered by Édouard Risler

Édouard Risler

Joseph-Édouard Risler was a French pianist.- Biography :Risler was born in Baden-Baden of a German mother and an Alsatian father. He studied under Louis Diémer, Théodore Dubois and Émile Descombes at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1883 to 1890...

in 1921, which depict the hard human and physical nature of Paris in expressive and sometimes violent means. There was also a Paysage Maritime — a "sketch for harp and orchestra", part of an unfinished sea symphony, a sonata for piano and some songs.