André Jolivet

Composer André Jolivet (1905–1974) devoted himself to French culture and musical thought. He composed in a wide variety of forms for many different types of ensembles. André Jolivet developed an interest in the arts early in his life, taking up painting and cello lessons at the age of 14. However, he was encouraged by his parents to become a teacher, going to teachers' college and teaching primary school in Paris. One of his own teachers, however, strongly encouraged Jolivet to pursue composition, and introduced him to Paul Le Flem, Jolivet's first teacher in composition. Le Flem gave him a firm grounding in classical forms of harmony and counterpoint. After hearing his first concert of Arnold Schoenberg, Jolivet became interested in atonal music, and then on Le Flem's recommendation became the only European student of Edgard Varèse, who passed on his knowledge of musical acoustics, atonal music, sound masses, and orchestration. In 1936 Jolivet co-founded the group La jeune France along with composers Olivier Messiaen, Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur, and Yves Baudrier, who were attempting to re-establish a more human and less abstract form of composition. Jolivet was a prolific composer who worked in many different musical genres. Jolivet's aesthetic ideals underwent many changes throughout his career. In 1945 he was named music director of the Comédie-Française, where he remained until 1959. While there, he composed for plays by Molière, Racine, Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Claudel. He wrote Concertino for trumpet, piano and string orchestra (1948), and Flute Concerto (1949), in which he developed an expressive melodic style. A love-hate relationship with the Neoclassicism of the 1930s led him to experiment with the futuristic, electronic Ondes Martenot, for which he wrote a concerto in 1947, and with complex orchestrations, that evoke the sounds of Africa, East Asia, and Polynesia. André Jolivet held the post of Professor of Composition at the Paris Conservatoire from 1966 till 1970. He was regarded, with Messiaen, as one of the leading figures in contemporary French music.