Born four years after the American Civil War and dying shortly before World War II, Albert Roussel bridged the music of the 19th and 20th centuries. His harmonies were evocative of the post-Wagnerians, but he employed innovations such as the melodies and repetitions of Indian music, which gave his compositions a unique voice.
Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel was born on April 5, 1869, in Tourcoing, France. His father died in 1870, and until her own death in 1877, his mother taught him music theory and piano. Afterward he lived with his grandfather, who in turn died in 1880, when Roussel’s care fell to his aunt. In 1887, Roussel was accepted as a cadet in the French naval college. After graduating, he served as a midshipman on the battleship Devastation, which was equipped with a piano on which he was able to compose. His first piece, an Andante for string trio and organ, was played in a church in Cherbourg in 1892.
In 1894, Roussel resigned his commission and went to Paris to take lessons from Eugène Gigout. Four years later, he was accepted at the new Schola Cantorum into the class of Vincent d’Indy, a Wagnerite opposed to the Impressionist music being written by Claude DEBUSSY and others. Roussel continued there for nine years, and became professor of counterpoint in 1902. Among his students were Bohuslav MARTINU and Erik SATIE.
In 1908, Roussel married Blanche Preisach, and the couple honeymooned in India and Asia. Evocations for chorus, soloists, and orchestra was a tonal picture of that honeymoon. Among the melodies is the song of the fakirs (itinerant religious men who have renounced worldly goods) at Benares. The opera-ballet Padmdvatt is also based on a Hindu legend. Roussel’s first success was the ballet Le festin de l’araignée (1913). Its popularity led to his appointment as director of the Theatre National de l’Opéra in 1914, and was thus able to resign from the Schola Cantorum, where his drift away from the precepts of the post-Wagnerians had led to friction.
Military service in World War I interrupted Roussel’s musical career, but he finished his opera, Padmâvatî, and his second symphony in 1922. The latter was heard by the conductor Sergey KOUSSEVITZKY, who promoted Roussel’s music in America. In 1929, France acknowledged his position as one of the country’s leading composers by holding a Roussel Festival in Paris for his 60th birthday. The Suite in F (1927) was dedicated to Koussevitzky, and the composer visited America for Koussevitzky’s premiere of his Third Symphony, written for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 50th anniversary in 1930. In 1931, he also visited the U.K. for the London performance of his choral work, Psalm Ixxx.
During the 1930s, while living in Normandy, France, Roussel continued to compose at a rapid rate, despite illness. The ballet Bacchus et Ariane was performed at the Paris Opera in 1931, as well as the Psalm Ixxx. Although Roussel’s ballets are seldom performed now, the Bacchus et Ariane music is frequently programmed. His last orchestral work was the Rapsodie Flamande, which echoed the Belgian folk music he had heard as a child.
Toward the end of his life, Roussel continued to compose and travel, despite warnings from his doctor. He died on August 23, 1937. Although Roussel saw his own music as being outside the mainstream of French classical music at the time, he took an active part in the nation’s musical life by teaching and promoting the work of younger composers. A Roussel Festival, promoted by the Centre International Albert Roussel, was held in France in 1997.
Jane Prendergast
SEE ALSO:
BALLET AND MODERN DANCE MUSIC; CHAMBER MUSIC; OPERA; ORCHESTRAL MUSIC; VOCAL AND CHORAL MUSIC
Deane, Basil. Albert Roussel (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980);
Follet, Robert. Albert Roussel: A Bio-bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988).
Bacchus et Ariane-, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; Evocations; Padmâvatî; Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4.