Charles Louis Eugène Koechlin [ʃaʀl lɯi øˈʒɛn kœˈklɛ̃] (November 27, 1867–December 31, 1950) was a French composer, teacher and writer on music. is the 331st day of the year (332nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1867 (MDCCCLXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 365th day of the year (366th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ...

Biography

Koechlin was born in Paris, the youngest child of a large family. His mother’s family came from Alsace and he identified with that region; his maternal grandfather had been the noted philanthropist and textile manufacturer Jean Dollfus, and Koechlin inherited his strongly developed social conscience. His father died when he was 14. Though he was early interested in music his family wanted him to become an engineer. He entered the École Polytechnique in 1887 but the following year was diagnosed with tuberculosis and had to spent six months recuperating in Algeria. He had to repeat his first year at the École and graduated with only mediocre grades. After a struggle with his family and private lessons with Charles Lefebvre he entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1890 studying first with Antoine Taudou for harmony. In 1892 he started studying with Massenet for composition, Andre Gedalge for fugue and counterpoint, and Louis Bougault-Ducoudray for musical history. His fellow-pupils included George Enescu, Ernest Le Grand, Reynaldo Hahn, Max d’Ollone, Henri Rabaud and Florent Schmitt. From 1896 he was a pupil of Gabriel Fauré, where his fellow-pupils now included Ravel and Jean Roger-Ducasse. Fauré had a major influence on Koechlin; in fact Koechlin wrote the first Fauré biography (1927), a work which is still of value. In 1898 a grateful Koechlin orchestrated the popular suite from Fauré's Pelléas et Melisande music and in 1900 assisted Fauré in the production of the huge open-air drama Promethée. This article is about the capital of France. ... (New région flag) (Region logo) Location Administration Capital Regional President Departments Bas-Rhin Haut-Rhin Arrondissements 13 Cantons 75 Communes 904 Statistics Land area1 8,280 km² Population (Ranked 14th)  - January 1, 2006 est. ... For other Écoles Polytechniques, see École Polytechnique de Montréal and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. ... Conservatoire de Paris, or Paris Conservatoire, has been central to the evolution of music in France and Western Europe. ... Jules Massenet Jules (Émile Frédéric) Massenet (May 12, 1842 – August 13, 1912) was a French composer. ... André Gedalge (December 27, 1856 - February 5, 1926), was an influential French composer and teacher. ... George Enescu (pronunciation in Romanian: ; known in France as Georges Enesco) (August 19, 1881, Liveni – May 4, 1955, Paris) was a Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher, proeminent Romanian musician of the 20th century, and one of the greatest performers of his time. ... Reynaldo Hahn Reynaldo Hahn (born August 9, 1875 in Caracas, Venezuela, died January 28, 1947 in Paris, France) was a naturalised French composer, conductor, music critic and diarist. ... Henri Rabaud Life Henri Rabaud (1873 - 1949), the son of a violincello professor and a singer, was a pupil of Gédalge and Massenet at the Paris Conservatoire, where he succeeded Fauré as director in 1920. ... Florent Schmitt (September 28, 1870, Blamont, Meurthe et Moselle – August 17, 1958 Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a French composer. ... Gabriel Urbain Fauré (May 12, 1845 – November 4, 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist, and teacher. ... Maurice Ravel. ... Jean Jules Amable Roger-Ducasse (Bordeaux, 18 April 1873—Taillan-Médoc (Gironde) 19 July 1954) was a French composer, the star pupil and close friend of Gabriel Fauré at the Paris Conservatoire,[1] where he succeeded Fauré as professor of composition; in 1935 he succeeded Paul Dukas as professor...

After his graduation Koechlin was a freelance composer and teacher. He married Suzanne Pierrard in 1903. In 1909 he began regular work as a critic for the Chronique des arts and in 1910 was one of the founders, with Ravel, of the Société Musicale Indépendante, with whose activities he was intensely associated. From its inception in the early 1930s to his death he was a passionate supporter of the International Society for Contemporary Music, eventually becoming President of its French section. From 1937 he was elected President of the Fédération Musicale Populaire. At first comfortably off, he divided his time between Paris and country homes in Villers-sur-Mer and the Cote d’Azur, but after the onset of World War I his circumstances were progressively reduced, he was forced to sell one of his houses and, from 1915, took work lecturing and teaching. Partly due to his vigorous championing of younger composers and new styles, he was never successful in his attempts to gain a permanent teaching position for himself, though he was an examiner for many institutions (eg the Conservatoires of Brussels, Rheims and Marseilles). He was rejected for the post of Professor of counterpoint and fugue at the Paris Conservatoire in 1926 by 20 votes to two (the two being Albert Roussel and Maurice Emmanuel), but from 1935 to 1939 he was allowed to teach fugue and modal polyphony at the Schola Cantorum. The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music. ... Villers sur Mer is a commune and a canton of the département of Calvados, in the Basse-Normandie région, in France. ... The Quai des États-Unis in Nice on the French Riviera at night. ... For other places with the same name, see Brussels (disambiguation). ... Reims (English traditionally Rheims) is a city of north-eastern France, 98 miles east-northeast of Paris. ... Marseilles redirects here. ... Albert Roussel was a French composer. ... Maurice Emmanuel (May 2, 1862–December 14, 1938) was a French composer of classical music. ... Schola Cantorum founded in 1894 in France by Vincent dIndy, was devoted to early music, and was an alternative to the Paris Conservatoire. ...

He visited the USA four times to lecture and teach in 1918-19, 1928, 1929 and 1937. On the second and third visits he taught at the University of California, Berkeley. On the 1929 visit his symphonic poem La joie paienne won the Hollywood Bowl Prize for Composition and was performed there under the baton of Eugene Goossens. Even so, Koechlin had to pay for the preparation of orchestral parts, and in the 1930s he sank most of his savings into organizing performances of some of his orchestral works. In the 1940s, however, the music department of Belgian Radio took up his cause and broadcast several premieres of important scores including the first complete performance of the Jungle Book cycle. He died at his country home at Le Canadel, Var, aged 83. Sather tower (the Campanile) looking out over the San Francisco Bay and Mount Tamalpais. ... Hollywood Bowl in 2005. ... Eugène Goossens has been the name of three notable musicians: Eugène Goossens (February 25, 1845, Bruges, Belgium - 30 December 1906, Liverpool, England) was a conductor. ... Var is a department of southeastern France. ...

Style and Compositions

Koechlin was enormously prolific, as the worklist below (by no means exhaustive) may suggest. He was highly eclectic in inspiration (nature, the mysterious orient, French folksong, Bachian chorale, Hellenistic culture, astronomy, Hollywood movies etc) and musical technique, but the expressive core of his language remained distinct from his contemporaries. At the start of his career he concentrated on songs with orchestral accompaniment, few of which were performed as intended during his lifetime. A recent (2006) recording of a selection (Hänssler Classic CD93.159) shows he was already master of an individual impressionism deriving less from Debussy than from Berlioz and Fauré. Thereafter he concentrated on symphonic poems, chamber and instrumental works. The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... For other uses, see Astronomy (disambiguation). ... ... Claude Debussy, photo by Félix Nadar, 1908. ... Painting of Berlioz by Gustave Courbet, 1850. ... A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, in one movement, in which some extra-musical programme provides a narrative or illustrative element. ...

After World War I his continuing devotion to the symphonic poem and the large orchestra at a period when neoclassicism and small ensembles were more fashionable may have retarded performance and acceptance of his works. His compositions include the four symphonic poems and three orchestral songs making up Livre de la jungle after Rudyard Kipling; many other symphonic poems including Le Buisson Ardent after Romain Rolland (this is a diptych of two orchestral poems, performable separately) and Le Docteur Fabricius after a novel by his uncle Charles Dolfus; three string quartets; five symphonies including a Seven Stars Symphony inspired by Hollywood; sonatas for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola and cello, and much other chamber music; many songs, over two hundred opus numbers in all; and a vast number of monodies, fugal studies, chorale harmonizations and other educational pieces. Many works remain unpublished, however. Late Baroque classicizing: G. P. Pannini assembles the canon of Roman ruins and Roman sculpture into one vast imaginary gallery (1756) Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that... This article is about the British author. ... Romain Rolland. ... The resident string quartet of the Library of Congress in 1963 A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string instruments—usually two violins, a viola and cello—or a piece written to be performed by such a group. ... ... Sonata (From Latin and Italian sonare, to sound), in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to cantata (Latin cantare, to sing), a piece sung. ... Opus, from the Latin word opus meaning work, is usually used in the sense of a work of art. In this sense the plural of opus, opera, is used to refer to the genre of music drama. ...

He wrote in several styles, sometimes severe Baroque counterpoint, as in the fugue that opens his Second Symphony (unrecorded as of 2005), sometimes "impressionistically" as in the tone poem Au Loin, or, as in the Symphony No.2's scherzo, yet more astringently. He could go from extreme simplicity to extreme complexity of texture and harmony from work to work, or within the same work. Some of his most characteristic effects come from a very static treatment of harmony, savouring the effect of, for instance, a stacked-up series of fifths through the whole gamut of the instruments. His melodies are often long, asymmetrical and wide-ranging in tessitura. He was closely interested in the works of Schoenberg, some of which he quoted from memory in his treatise on Orchestration. The twelve tone technique is one of the several modern music styles parodied in the 'Jungle Book' symphonic poem Les Bandar-Log, but Koechlin also wrote a few pieces in what he described as the 'style atonal-seriel'. He was fascinated by the movies and wrote many 'imaginary' film scores and works dedicated to the Hollywood actress Lilian Harvey, on whom he had a crush. His Seven Stars Symphony features movements inspired by Douglas Fairbanks, Lilian Harvey, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings and Charlie Chaplin in some of their most famous film roles. He also composed an Epitaph for Jean Harlow and a suite of dances for Ginger Rogers. He was interested in using unusual instruments, notably the saxophone and the early electronic instrument the Ondes Martenot. One movement of the Second Symphony requires four of them (and has not usually been included in the few performances of the work, for that reason). He also wrote several pieces for the hunting-horn, an instrument he himself played. Koechlin orchestrated several pieces by other composers. In addition to the Fauré Pelléas et Mélisande suite mentioned above he orchestrated the bulk of Claude Debussy's 'legende dansée' Khamma under the composer's direction, from the piano score [1], and orchestrated Cole Porter's ballet Within the Quota; other works he transcribed include Schubert's Wanderer Fantasie and Chabrier's Bourrée Fantasque. Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... In music, tessitura (Italian: texture) is a range of pitches compared to the instrument for which it was intended to be used. ... Arnold Schoenberg, Los Angeles, 1948 Arnold Schoenberg (the anglicized form of Schönberg — Schoenberg changed the spelling officially when he left Germany and re-converted to Judaism in 1933; September 13, 1874 – July 13, 1951) was an Austrian and later American composer. ... Twelve-tone technique is a system of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg. ... Lilian Harvey (Lilian Helen Muriel Pape) was a British born, German actress. ... Douglas Fairbanks (May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer, who became noted for his swashbuckling roles in silent movies such as The Mark of Zorro (1920), The Three Musketeers (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and The Black Pirate (1926). ... Greta redirects here. ... Clara Gordon Bow (July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress and sex symbol who rose to fame in the silent film era of the 1920s. ... Marlene Dietrich IPA: ; (December 27, 1901 – May 6, 1992) was a German-born American actress, singer, and entertainer. ... Emil Jannings (July 23, 1884 - January 3, 1950) was an actor and the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor. ... Charles Chaplin redirects here. ... Jean Harlow (March 3, 1911 – June 7, 1937) was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. ... Ginger Rogers (Virginia Katherine McMath, July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an Academy Award-winning American film and stage actress and singer. ... Ondes martenot demonstrated by inventor Maurice Martenot The Ondes Martenot (or Ondes-Martenot or Ondes martenot or Ondium Martenot or Martenot or ondes musicale) is an early electronic musical instrument with a keyboard and slide invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot, and originally very similar in sound to the Theremin. ... Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter from Peru, Indiana. ... Schubert redirects here. ... Emmanuel Alexis Chabrier (January 18, 1841 - September 13, 1894) was a French composer. ...

As Educator and Author

Koechlin began assisting Fauré in teaching fugue and counterpoint while he was still a student in the 1890s, but though he taught privately and was an external examiner for the Paris Conservatoire throughout his career, he never occupied a permanent salaried teaching position. Composers who studied with him included Germaine Tailleferre, Roger Désormière, Francis Poulenc and Henri Sauguet. Cole Porter studied orchestration with him in 1923-24. Darius Milhaud, though never a pupil, became a close friend and considered he learned more from Koechlin than any other pedagogue. Koechlin wrote three compendious textbooks: one on Harmony (3 vols, 1923-6), one on Music Theory (1932-4) and a huge treatise on the subject of orchestration (4 vols, 1935-43) which is a classic treatment of the subject. He also wrote a number of smaller didactic works, as well as the life of Fauré mentioned above. Germaine Tailleferre (April 19, 1892 - November 7, 1983) was a French composer and the only female member of the famous Group Les Six. ... Roger Désormière (September 13, 1898 - October 25, 1963) was a French conductor. ... Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (IPA: ) (January 7, 1899 - January 30, 1963) was a French composer and a member of the French group Les Six. ... Henri Sauguet (1901 - 1989) was a French composer. ... Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter from Peru, Indiana. ... Darius Milhaud Darius Milhaud (IPA: ) (September 4, 1892 – June 22, 1974) was a French composer and teacher. ... Harmony is the use and study of pitch simultaneity, and therefore chords, actual or implied, in music. ... Music theory is a field of study that investigates the nature or mechanics of music. ... Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for orchestra (or, more loosely, for any musical ensemble) or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium. ...

Character

Despite his lack of worldly success Koechlin was apparently a loved and venerated figure in French music, his long flowing beard contributing to his patriarchal image. Following his 1888 illness the need to build up his strength led him to become an enthusiastic mountaineer, swimmer and tennis player. He was also an amateur astronomer and an accomplished photographer. He was one of the great nature-mystics among French composers, whose personal creed was pantheistic rather than Christian. Though never a member of the Communist Party he subscribed to its ideals, and in the later 1930s especially was much concerned with the idea of 'Music for the People'. Pantheism (Greek: πάν ( pan ) = all and θεός ( theos ) = God) literally means God is All and All is God. It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. ... In modern usage, the term communist party is generally used to identify any political party which has adopted communist ideology. ...

Selected List of Works (see also the complete list in French [2])

Symphonies

• Symphony in A major (1893-1900)
• Symphony No.1 op.57bis (orchestral version, 1926, of String Quartet No.2)
• The Seven Stars Symphony op.132 (1933)
• Symphonie d’Hymnes (1936) [cycle of previously-composed independent movements]
• Symphony No.2 op.196 (1943-44)

Symphonic Poems

• La Forêt, op.25 (1897-1906) & op.29 (1896-1907)
• Nuit de Walpurgis Classique op.38 (1901-1916)
• Soleil et danses dans la forêt op.43 no.1 (1908-11)
• Vers la plage lointaine, nocturne op.43 no.2 (1908-1916)
• Le printemps op.47 no.1 (1908-11)
• L'hiver op.47 no.2 (1908-10 orch 1916)
• Nuit de Juin op.48 no.1 (1908-11 orch 1916)
• Midi en Aout op.48 no.2 (1908-11 orch 1916)
• La course de Printemps op.95 (1908-25) (Jungle Book Cycle)
• Vers la Voûte étoilée op.129 (1923-33)
• La Méditation de Purun Bhaghat op.159 (1936) (Jungle Book Cycle)
• La cité nouvelle, rêve d’avenir op.170 (1938; after H.G. Wells)
• La loi de la jungle op.175 (1939-40) (Jungle Book Cycle)
• Les Bandar-Log op.176 (1939-40) (Jungle Book Cycle)
• Le buisson ardent opp.171 (1938) & 203 (1945)
• Le Docteur Fabricius op.202 (1941-44, orch 1946)

Other Orchestral Works

• En rêve op.20 no.1 (1896-1900)
• Au loin op.20 no.2 (1896-1900)
• L’automne, symphonic suite op.30 (1896-1906)
• Études Antiques op.46 (1908-10)
• Suite légendaire op.54 (1901-15)
• 5 Chorales dans les modes du moyen-age op.117bis (1931 orch 1932)
• Fugue Symphonique ‘Saint-Georges’ op.121 (1932)
• L’andalouse dans Barcelone op.134 (1933)
• Les eaux vives – music for 1937 Paris Exposition Universelle, op.160 (1936)
• Victoire de la vie op.167 (1938 – score for film by Henri Cartier)
• Offrande musicale sur le nom BACH op.187 (1942-46)
• Partita for chamber orchestra p.205
• Introduction et 4 Interludes de style atonal-seriel op.214 (1947-48)

Solo Instrument and Orchestra

• 3 Chorals for organ and orchestra op.49 (1909-16)
• Ballade for piano and orchestra op.50 (1911-19) (also for solo piano)
• Poème for horn and orchestra op.70bis (1927 orch of Horn Sonata)
• 2 Sonatas for clarinet and chamber orchestra, opp.85bis & 86bis (1946 arrs of sonatas for clarinet and piano)
• Silhouettes de Comédie for bassoon and orchestra op.193
• 2 Sonatines for oboe d’amore and chamber orchestra op.194 (1942-43)

Wind Band

• Quelques chorals pour des fêtes populaires op.153 (1935-36)

Chamber Music

• String Quartet No.1 op.51 (1911-13)
• Sonata, flute and piano op.52 (1913)
• Sonata, viola and piano op.53
• String Quartet No.2 op.57 (1911-15) [see also Symphony No.1]
• Sonata, oboe and piano op.58 (1911-16)
• Sonata, violin and piano op.64 (1915-16)
• Sonata, cello and piano op.66 (1917)
• Sonata, horn and piano op.70 (1918-25)
• Sonata, bassoon and piano op 71
• String Quartet No.3 op.72 (1917-21)
• Sonata, 2 flutes op.75 (1920)
• Sonata No.1, clarinet and piano op.85 (1923)
• Sonata No.2, clarinet and piano op.86 (1923)
• Trio pour flute, clarinet and bassoon (or violin, viola and violoncello) (1927)
• Piano Quintet op.80
• 29 Chansons Bretonnes for cello and piano p.115 (1931-32) [20 arr. for cello and orchestra]
• L’Album de Lilian (Book I) for flute, clarinet, piano op.139 (1934)
• L’Album de Lilian (Book II) for piccolo, flute, piano, harpsichord, ondes martenot op.149 (1935)
• Quintet No.1 for flute, harp and string trio Primavera op.156 (1936)
• 14 Pieces for flute and piano op.157b (1936)
• Epitaphe de Jean Harlow for flute, alto saxophone and piano op.164 (1937)
• Septet for wind instruments op.165 (1937)
• 14 Pieces for clarinet and piano op.178 (1942)
• 14 Pieces for oboe and piano op.179 (1942)
• 15 Pieces for horn (or saxophone) and piano op.180 (1942)
• 15 Études for saxophone and piano op.188 (1942-44)
• Sonate à sept for flute, oboe, harp and string quartet op.221
• Quintet No.2 for flute, harp and string trio Primavera II op.223 (1949)
• Stèle funéraire for flute, piccolo and alto flute op.224 (1950)

Instrumental Music

• 5 Sonatines for piano op.59 (1915-16)
• 4 Sonatines Françaises for piano duet, op.60 (1919) [also version for orchestra]
• Paysages et Marines for piano op.63 (1915-16) [also arr. chamber ensemble]
• Les Heures Persanes, 16 pieces for piano op.65 (1913-19) [also orchestral version]
• 12 Pastorales for piano op.77 (1916-20)
• 4 Nouvelles Sonatines Françaises for piano op.87 (1923-24)
• L’ancienne Maison de Campagne for piano op.124 (1923-33)
• Danses pour Ginger Rogers for piano op.163 (1937)
• Vers le soleil – 7 monodies for ondes martenot op.174 (1939)
• Suite for cor anglais op.185 (1942)
• Les Chants de Nectaire, 96 pieces for flute solo in 3 series, opp.198, 199 & 200 (1944)
• 15 Préludes for piano op.209 (1946)
• Le Repos du Tityre for oboe d’amore solo op.216

Choral Works

• L’Abbaye, Suite religieuse for soli, chorus and orchestra opp.16 & 42 (1908)
• 3 Poèmes for soli, chorus and orchestra op.18 (Jungle Book Cycle)
• Chant funèbre à la mémoire des jeunes femmes défuntes for chorus and orchestra op.37 (1902-08)
• Chant pour Thaelmann for choir and piano or wind band op.138 (1934)
• Requiem des pauvres bougres for chorus, orchestra, piano, organ and ondes martenot op.161 (1936-37)

Songs

(many with orchestra)

• Rondels, Set I op.1 (1890-95)
• 4 Poèmes d’Edmond Haraucourt op.7 (1890-97)
• Rondels, Set II op.8 (1891-96)
• Poèmes d’Automne op.13 (1894-99)
• Rondels, Set III op.14 (1896-1901)
• 3 Mélodies op.17 (1895-1900)
• 2 Poèmes d’André Chénier op.23 (1900-02)
• 6 Mélodies sur des poèsies d’Albert Samain op.31 (1902-6)
• 5 Chansons de Bilitis op.39 (1898-1908)
• 5 Mélodies sur des poèmes de ‘Shéhérazade’ de Tristan Klingsor Series I op.56 (1914-16)
• 8 Mélodies sur des poèmes de ‘Shéhérazade’ de Tristan Klingsor Series II op.84 (1922-3)
• 7 Chansons pour Gladys op.151 (1935)

Sources

Robert Orledge, Charles Koechlin (1867-1950) His Life and Works (London, 1989)

External links

• Charles Koechlin was listed in the International Music Score Library Project
• Classpedia entry on Koechlin
• Koechlin: Les Heures Persanes
• Koechlin, compositeur de renom
• Biography and brief worklist in French