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André Caplet (23 November 1878 – 22 April 1925) was a French composer and conductor of classical music. He was a friend of Claude Debussy and completed the orchestration of several of Debussy's compositions as well as arrangements of several of them for different instruments.

André Caplet
André Caplet in 1910
Born(1878-11-23)23 November 1878
between Le Havre (Seine-Maritime) and Honfleur (Calvados, France
Died(1925-04-22)22 April 1925
Neuilly-sur-Seine

Early life


André Caplet was born in Le Havre on 23 November 1878, the youngest of seven children born to a Norman family of modest means. He began studying piano and violin when a child and by the age of 13 performed in the orchestra of the Grand Théâtre there. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1896 and won several prizes. While a student he supported himself first by playing in dance orchestras in the evening and then by conducting, where had immediate success. After a stint as assistant conductor of the Orchestre Colonne, in 1899 he took over the musical direction at the Théâtre de l'Odéon.[1] Some of his student compositions were published as early as 1897. The Société des compositeurs de musique (SCM), the less avant-garde of French organizations promoting new music,[lower-alpha 1] awarded his quintet for piano and winds first prize in 1901 and premiered it on 28 February of that year.[2][1] Caplet soon had success with the more progressive Société nationale de musique (SCM) as well, including a concert dedicated to his work on 9 March 1901, and he was hailed in the musical press and from these performances until the end of his career his chamber works had a champion is the flutist Georges Barrère.[2]

He won the Prix de Rome in 1901, composing in a conventional style to please the judges, while Maurice Ravel showed his contempt for the assigned text.[lower-alpha 2] Caplet's native city celebrated his participation with a performance of his Été for chorus and orchestra (1899) on 3 April 1901 and marked his victory by presenting several of his works at a concert on 24 November, including L'Été, Pâques citadines for chorus and orchestra, Feuillets d'album for flute and piano (1901), and the cantata that won him the Prix de Rome, Myrra (1901).[1]

Until the end of 1905, Caplet lived at the French Academy in Rome with the financial support the prize provided, though he took leave for long periods to attend performances in Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg.[1]


Pre-war career


As a composer Caplet wrote many vocal works and chamber pieces, several works for orchestra and only a handful of piano pieces. Especially interesting is his instrumental use of voices, as in his Septuor à cordes vocales et instrumentales (1909). He was also one the composers who first incorporated the saxophone into his chamber works, like Légende (1903) and Impressions d’automne (1905).[3][4][lower-alpha 3]

Caplet served as one of the conductors of the Boston Opera Company for four seasons, from 1910 to 1914, specializing in the French repertoire.[lower-alpha 4] He secured the appointment through one of its co-founders, the impresario Henry Russell, whose wife Nina became a friend of Caplet during his time in Rome. He accepted the position to enhance his reputation as a conductor and used it to introduce contemporary French repertoire to the United States. Works by Debussy that he led include L'enfant prodigue, the Children's Corner, Pelléas et Mélisande, and the incidental music to Le Martyre de saint Sébastien.[1][lower-alpha 5]


World War I


At the end of 1914, after he had completed two movements of a work that became Les Prières, Caplet enlisted[9] in the French army and saw combat in the trenches at Verdun. He was wounded in May 1915 and later promoted to sergeant. In 1917 he completed the third movement and the work premiered that same year in the small church of Ham, Picardy, accompanied by the distant sounds of artillery.[10] His service ended in 1919. On 4 June of that year he married Geneviève Perruchon, a general's daughter who followed his work as a composer closely. They had a son in 1920.[9]

In 1918–19, he taught conducting, harmony, and orchestration at the music school established by Walter Damrosch at the behest of U.S. General John J. Pershing in Chaumont to train U.S. military personnel in hopes of creating military bands on the model of those found in France.[11][12][lower-alpha 6]


Post-war years


Caplet did not return to teaching and conducting at the war's end. Instead he devoted himself to composition, including a number of religious works. His Messe à trois voix for a capella female chorus had its premiere in Sainte Chapelle on 13 June 1922. It lacks the traditional "Credo" and includes the familiar Communion motet "O salutaris hostia".[13]

His oratorio-like Le Miroir de Jésus composed in September 1923 features a "choeur de femmes" in an supporting role. In Miroir Caplet set texts by Henri Ghéon as meditations on the fifteen decades of the rosary. The chorus announces each section's title but the female soloist delivers most of the text. The music of the central movements that take Christ's passion as their subject are, according to one commentator, "remarkable for its restraint as for its dissonance". It was a religious concert work of a sort not encountered again until Olivier Messiaen's Trois petites liturgies (1944). The British music critic Felix Aprahamian wrote that the musical textures of this work "reflect at once the polychrome tones and timbres of Debussy's art and the fourths, fifths, discant and parallel motion of the ars antiqua". Caplet conducted its premiere in February 1924 in Lyon and its Paris premiere on 1 May of that year.[13]


Work with Debussy


André Caplet with Claude Debussy
André Caplet with Claude Debussy

He became a close friend of Claude Debussy, sometimes serving as translator, and he orchestrated part of Debussy's Le Martyre de saint Sébastien.[14][15] He also collaborated with Debussy in the orchestration of La boîte à joujoux. In 1911, Caplet prepared an orchestration of Debussy's Children's Corner, which, along with his orchestration of Clair de lune from the Suite bergamasque is probably the most widely performed and recorded example of his work.[lower-alpha 7]


Death


In 1925, Caplet caught a cold and, given how his lungs had been weakened when he was gassed during his military service, developed pleurisy, which proved fatal. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine), a suburb of Paris, on 22 April 1925 at the age of 46.[citation needed] He was buried in Montmartre Cemetery.

His widow conducted many concerts of his music.

In 1926, the sculptor Jacques Zwobada, a native of Neuilly, was commissioned to create a monument to Caplet. This was one of Zwobada's earliest works after he graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts.[17]


Works



For voice


Voice and piano
1. Le livre ou je veux lire
2. Premier prix
3. Les pleurs de bébé
4. Le furet du bois, mesdames
1. Préludes
2. Ce sable fin et fuyant
3. Angoise
1. Oraison dominicale
2. Salutation angélique
3. Symbole des apôtres
1. Songe
2. Berceuse
3. In una selva oscura
4. Forêt
1. Le corbeau et le renard
2. La cigale et la fourmi
3. Le loup et l'agneau
1.) Cloche d'aube
2. La ronde
3. Notre chaumière en Yveline
4. Songe d'une nuit d'été
5. L'adieu en barque
Voice and organ
Voice and flute
Voice and harp
Voice and orchestra
1. Préludes
2. Angoisse
A cappella chorus
1. Kyrie eleison
2. Gloria
3. Sanctus
4. Agnus Dei
5. O Salutaris
Mixed chorus and orchestra

Orchestral works



Chamber music


Small ensembles
1. Allegro
2. Adagio
3. Scherzo
4. Finale
1. Scharki, (allegretto)
2. Nihavend, (andantino)
3. Iskia Samaisi, (vivo)
1. Quiet
2. Interieur
3. Alleluia
Cello and piano
Flute and piano
Piano, two hands
Piano, four hands
Harp solo

Arrangements of works by Debussy


For various numbers of pianos and players
1. Rondes de Printemps
2. Gigues
3. Ibéria
For orchestra

Other arrangements



Notes


  1. The SCM was "too conventional for Debussy or Satie".[2]
  2. The judges were unforgiving and Ravel never won the Prix de Rome.[1]
  3. Both those works were commissioned by Elise Hall, who campaigned on behalf of the saxophone.[3]
  4. Most of the German repertoire was assigned to Felix Weingartner from 1911 to 1914.[5]
  5. Other operas included Massenet's Thaïs, Werther and Manon; Offenbach's Tales of Hoffman; Bizet's Carmen; Delibes' Lakmé; Gounod's Faust; Charpentier's Louise;[6] Raoul Laparra's Habañera; Saint-Saens' Samson et Dalila; Louis Aubert's La Forêt Bleue; Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel; Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger. In addition to operas he led the Verdi Requiem and incidental music to stage performances: Bizet's music for Daudet's L'Arlésienne and Fauré's music for Maeterlinck's Pelléas.[7][8]
  6. One of Caplet's students there was Albert Stoessel.[2]
  7. While it has been noted that Debussy allowed others to work on arrangements of his compositions, such efforts were undertaken while Caplet was conducting in Boston or in combat.[16]
  8. The three additional movements do not survive in their flute versions.

References


  1. Spencer, Williametta (1982). "André Caplet, Aussi 'Musicien Français'". Revue Belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap. 36/38: 162–74. doi:10.2307/3687160. JSTOR 3687160.
  2. Toff, Nancy (2005). Monarch of the Flute: The Life of Georges Barrère. Oxford University Press. pp. 18, 31–2, 40, 59–60, 116–7, 197, 330.
  3. Cottrell, Stephen (2013). The Saxophone. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300190953. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  4. Thiollet, Jean-Pierre (2004). "André Caplet". Sax, Mule & Co. Paris: H & D. pp. 108–109.
  5. "Boston Gets Weingartner". New York Times. 7 May 1911. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  6. ""Louise" at the Boston Opera". Harvard Musical Review. I (4): 19. January 1913. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  7. "[Advertisement]". Harvard Musical Review. I (3): 27. December 1912. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  8. Eaton, Quaintence (1965). The Boston Opera Company. Appleton-Century. pp. 28, 89–91, 118, 129, 180–2, 208–9, 245, et.
  9. Warszawski, Jean-Marc (20 September 2021). "André Caplet". Musicologie. Archived from the original on 6 November 2022. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  10. Landormy, Paul (2022). La musique française (in French). Vol. 3. p. 306. ISBN 9782322450213. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  11. "Music Here and Afield". New York Times. 13 March 1927. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  12. Watkins, Glenn (2002). Proof Through the Night: Music and the Great War. University of California Press. p. 328. ISBN 9780520927896. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  13. Simeone, Nigel (2017). "Church and Organ Music". In Potter, Caroline (ed.). French Music Since Berlioz. Taylor & Francis. pp. 178–82. ISBN 9781351566476. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  14. Bernac, Pierre (1978). The Interpretation of French Song. New York: Norton. p. 221.
  15. Orledge, Robert. L. Macy (ed.). "Caplet, André (Léon)". Grove Music Online. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.04843. Retrieved 25 November 2003.
  16. Brown, Matthew (2012). Debussy Redux: The Impact of His Music on Popular Culture. Indiana University Press. p. 71. ISBN 978-0253357168. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  17. Vasseur, Bernard (2008). Jacques Zwobada – L'œuvre dessiné (in French). Paris: Éditions Cercle d'Art.
Additional sources



На других языках

[de] André Caplet

André Léon Caplet (* 23. November 1878 in Le Havre; † 22. April 1925 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) war ein französischer Komponist und Dirigent.
- [en] André Caplet

[es] André Caplet

André Caplet (Le Havre, 23 de noviembre de 1878 - Neuilly-sur-Seine, 22 de abril de 1925). Compositor y director de orquesta francés, fue una figura importante en la vida musical de principios del siglo XX. Amigo y colaborador de Debussy, y con un fuerte sentimiento religioso, compuso obras principalmente para la voz.

[ru] Капле, Андре

Андре Капле (фр. André Caplet; 23 ноября 1878, Гавр, Франция — 22 апреля 1925, Нёйи-сюр-Сен, департамент О-де-Сен) — французский композитор и дирижёр. В его творчестве прослеживается влияние эстетики музыкального символизма и импрессионизма, что во многом было обусловлено его тесными и дружескими контактами с композитором Клодом Дебюсси, для которого он осуществил несколько переложений и оркестровых аранжировок[1].


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