Charles Koechlin

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Life and career

Charles Koechlin was born in Paris and baptized Charles-Louis-Eugène Koechlin. He was 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. Despite an early interest 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 spend six months recuperating in Algeria. He ended up having to do his first year at the École over again and graduated with only mediocre grades. After a struggle with his family and private lessons with Charles-Édouard Lefebvre he entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1890, studying first with Antoine Taudou for harmony. In 1892 he started studying composition with Jules Massenet, fugue and counterpoint with André Gedalge, and music history with Louis Bourgault-Ducoudray. His fellow students included George Enescu, Ernest Le Grand, Reynaldo Hahn, Max d'Ollone, Henri Rabaud and Florent Schmitt. From 1896 he was a student of Gabriel Fauré, along with Maurice Ravel and Jean Roger-Ducasse. Fauré had a great influence on Koechlin, who wrote the first Fauré biography (1927), which is still referred to. In 1898 a grateful Koechlin orchestrated the popular suite from Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande and in 1900 assisted Fauré in producing the huge open-air drama Promethée.

After his graduation Koechlin became a freelance composer and teacher. He married Suzanne Pierrard in 1903. They had five children. Their son Yves later married Paul Langevin's granddaughter Noémie. Beginning in 1921 he regularly corresponded with Catherine Murphy Urner, a former student of his who lived in California. 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 Côte d'Azur, but after the onset of World War I his circumstances were gradually reduced; he had to sell one of his houses even after inheriting his mother's finances, making him work as a lecturer and teacher in 1915. Partly because of his constant advocacy 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 (e.g. the Conservatoires of Brussels, Reims and Marseille). His application to be professor of counterpoint and fugue at the Paris Conservatoire in 1926 was rejected 20 votes to 2 (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 de Paris.

He visited the US 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, through arrangements made by Catherine Murphy Urner, who afterward lived with him until 1933. On the 1929 visit his symphonic poem La Joie païenne 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 aged 83 at his country home at Le Canadel, Var, and his body is buried there. Some of his papers are housed at the University of California at Berkeley Library, donated by Catherine Urmer's husband Charles Rollins Shatto. In 1940, the French government offered him the award of Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, but he refused it.

Music

Koechlin was enormously prolific, as the worklist below (by no means exhaustive) suggests. 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 those of 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 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.

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 discouraged 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 Dollfus; 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.

He wrote in several styles, sometimes strict Baroque counterpoint, as in the fugue that opens his Second Symphony, and sometimes "impressionistically", as in the tone poem Au Loin, or (though in more astringent fashion) in the scherzo of his Symphony No. 2. 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 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-sériel'. He was fascinated by the movies and wrote many 'imaginary' film scores and works dedicated to the Anglo-German actress Lilian Harvey, with whom he was infatuated. 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, and orchestrated Cole Porter's ballet Within the Quota; other works he transcribed include Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy and Chabrier's Bourrée fantasque.

Chamber music

Deux Nocturnes for flute, horn and piano, Op. 32bis (1897–1907)

1. Venise (Andante con moto)

2. Dans la forét (Adagio)

Trois Pièces for bassoon and piano, Op. 34

String Quartet No. 1, Op. 51 (1911–13)

Sonata, flute and piano, Op. 52 (1913)

Sonata, viola and piano, Op. 53

Suite en quatuor pour flûte, violon, alto et piano, Op. 55 (1911–1916)

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)

Paysages et Marines for chamber ensemble, Op. 63 (1915–16) [also arr. for piano solo]

Sonata, cello and piano, Op. 66 (1917)

Sonata, horn and piano, Op. 70 (1918–25)

Sonata, bassoon and piano, Op. 71 (1918–1919)

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 for flute, clarinet and bassoon (or violin, viola and violoncello) (1927)

Piano Quintet, Op. 80

20 Chansons bretonnes for cello and piano, Op. 115 (1931–32)

L’Album de Lilian (Book I) for soprano, flute, clarinet, piano, Op. 139 (1934)

L’Album de Lilian (Book II) for flute, piano, harpsichord, Ondes Martenot, Op. 149 (1935)

Sonatine modale for clarinet and flute, Op. 155 (1935–36)

Quintet No. 1 for flute, harp and string trio Primavera, Op. 156 (1936)

14 Pièces for flute and piano, Op. 157b (1936)

Épitaphe de Jean Harlow for flute, alto saxophone and piano, Op. 164 (1937)

Septet for wind instruments, Op. 165 (1937)

14 Pièces for clarinet and piano, Op. 178 (1942)

14 Pièces for oboe and piano, Op. 179 (1942)

15 Pièces for horn (or saxophone) and piano, Op. 180 (1942)

15 Études for saxophone and piano, Op. 188 (1942–44)

12 Monodies for Instruments, Op. 213 (1947)

First and Second for flute

Third and Fourth for oboe

Fifth and Sixth for clarinet

Seventh and Eighth for bassoon

Ninth for alto saxophone

Tenth for trombone

Eleventh for trumpet

Twelfth for horn

Sonate à sept for flute, oboe, harp and string quartet, Op. 221

Morceau de lecture pour la flûte, Op. 218 (1948)

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)

Motets de style archaique, 15 pieces for various instruments, Op. 225 (1949)

Charles Koechlin

Charles Koechlin

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Life and career

Music

As teacher and author

List of compositions

Symphonies

Symphonic poems

Other orchestral works

Solo instrument and orchestra

Wind band

Chamber music

Instrumental music

Choral works

Songs

About Charles Koechlin

About Charles Koechlin

Article

Related journals

Live room · 1 here

Related journals

Article

Life and career

Music

As teacher and author

List of compositions

Symphonies

Symphonic poems

Other orchestral works

Solo instrument and orchestra

Wind band

Chamber music

Instrumental music

Choral works

Songs