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Joseph Canteloube

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Joseph Canteloube (1879 to 1957) was a French composer, musicologist and writer, best known for his arrangements of folk songs from the Auvergne for voice and orchestra, the Chants d'Auvergne. He was born in Annonay in the Ardèche, into a family with roots in the Auvergne. From the age of six he had piano lessons from Amélie Doetzer, a friend of Chopin. In 1901 he began taking lessons by letter from Vincent d'Indy, and in 1907 he went to the Schola Cantorum in Paris, where he remained until the First World War.

Music and breakthrough

He wrote, among other works, the suite Dans la montagne for piano and violin, Colloque sentimental for voice and string quartet, the orchestral piece Eglogue d'Automne and the song cycle L'Arada. His first opera, Le mas, won the Prix Heugel in 1925, but the management of the Opéra-Comique was far less enthusiastic than the jury, and the opera was not performed until 1929 and never again after that. His second opera, Vercingétorix, premièred at the Paris Opéra in 1933, but was criticised for containing too little theatre.

Influence

In 1925 he founded, with other natives of the Auvergne in Paris, the group La Bourrée, to make the folklore and beauty of their region known. Canteloube believed that peasant songs, in terms of feeling and expression, often reach the level of the purest art. He also published songs from other regions, such as Rouergue, Limousin and Quercy. His Chants d'Auvergne have been recorded many times, sometimes together with Villa-Lobos's Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, as on releases from the 1960s and 1980s.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to one of the Chants d'Auvergne, such as Baïlèro, and notice the singing melody that keeps rising above a soft, almost floating orchestra.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Categories: Artists