Lucien Durosoir

The Concert Violinist

At the age of 14, Lucien Durosoir enrolled in Conservatoire Superieur de Paris, where he studied with Henri Berthelier; however, after several months he was expelled for insolence toward its director, Ambroise Thomas. Durosoir continued his violin studies privately with Berthelier while at the same time learning composition with Charles Tournemire. In 1898, Edouard Colonne engaged him as first chair violinist for his Orchestra of the Concerts Colonne. He went to Germany, where he perfected his technique and interpretive skill under the violinists Joseph Joachim and Hugo Heermann. Starting in 1900, he undertook concert tours extending to central Europe, Russia, Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There he played, for the first time, the violin repertory of contemporary French composers such as Saint-Saens, Lalo, Widor and Bruneau, and in Vienna in 1910, he premiered the Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano by Gabriel Faure. While on tour in France he premiered modern German and Danish masterpieces:

His performances were all met with favorable reviews:

[reference: Les Archives biographiques contemporaines (Paris, sd. [vers 1911]), p. 219-220. Posters and concert programs from the Durosoir family archives, Belus, France]

The soldier

When World War I broke out, Durosoir was 36. After a year fighting in the trenches, he became a stretcher-bearer and awaited nightfall before venturing out to collect the wounded. Durosoir came to the attention of General Mangin, a great music lover, who recruited him, along with the composer Andre Caplet and the young cellist Maurice Marechal, to form a chamber music ensemble. The trio played for funeral services, for guests (such as visiting English officers and, more rarely, civilians) in the general's quarters, and in the barracks for the soldiers’ entertainment. Their concerts featured all kinds of arrangements of orchestral works for piano and solo instruments. During this time the duties of Durosoir and Caplet also included caring for the carrier pigeons.

The three spent these terrible years together, and their friendship was sealed in the trenches as well as in their music-making. The inspiration to compose increasingly seized Durosoir's imagination. He acquired scores and studied the style of Brahms, Beethoven, Haydn, and others. In 1915 Emma Debussy sent him Claude Debussy's Etudes. Durosoir and Caplet were examining these when six bombs fell around their building. Thinking ahead to the end of the war, Durosoir wrote on 12 September 1916, "I begin to compose so as to become accustomed to managing the freer forms, and my efforts, I am convinced, will be fruitful." During the periods of repose from his duties in the trenches, he continued his study of counterpoint and fugue with exercises "corrected" by Andre Caplet.

[reference: Deux musiciens dans la Grande Guerre (Paris, Tallandier-Radio France, 2005; Mangin (General), Lettres de guerre, 1914-1918 (Paris, Fayard, 1950)]

The composer

Durosoir returned to civilian life in February 1919. In 1921, the Boston Symphony Orchestra offered him the position of first chair violin. He accepted, and was on the point of leaving when an accident prevented his departure, and he had to give up his career as a violinist. From then until his death, he lived in retirement far from Paris and its artistic circles. On the basis of his academic work, reinforced by his personal study of scores and compositional exercises, he began composing, and crafted an individual and bold musical style independent from the mainstream. His works display neither perceptible influences nor overtly stated references. Nearly all of his works are headed by a quotation of contemporary poetry, or by a prose quotation of a philosophical nature.

Andre Caplet wrote to him in 1922: "I will speak with enthusiasm to all my associates of your quartet, which find many times more interesting than all the products with which the group of flashy newcomers overwhelm us." Lucien Durosoir composed around forty unpublished works, including pieces for varied ensembles, symphonic works and chamber music: string quartets, sonatas, trios, short piano works, numerous pieces for piano and solo instruments. After 1950, illness prevented him from composing, and he died in December 1955.

The music

As a result of his intentional isolation from the Parisian musical trends of the time, Durosoir's compositions have a unique character. While not outwardly programmatic, they are often preceded by some verses of poetry which serve as a threshold into this highly personal world of expression. His style is a lean and spare one that is marked by solid construction, sudden contrasts and avoidance of gratuitous ornament. Tonal with a harmonic palette enriched by non-chord tones and altered scales, the music shows a strong need for resolution that occasionally veers off toward regions of atonality. Similarly, the constraints imposed by regular meter are cast off by means of frequent metric changes and tempo alterations. Durosoir shows great imagination in the area of musical texture and the use of extended performance techniques (con sordino, sul ponticello, col legno, ricochet, harmonics), and consequently expressive indications are encountered in each melodic line. In short, the music of Lucien Durosoir avoids categorization with many of the "ism" labels (i.e.: impressionism, neoclassicism) that are commonly applied to music of the early twentieth century.

Orchestral works

Chamber works

Vocal

Piano

Two pianos

Harmonium and organ