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Jules Massenet

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Jules-Émile-Frédéric Massenet
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(born May 12, 1842, Montaud, near Saint-Étienne, France — died Aug. 13, 1912, Paris) French composer. He attended the Paris Conservatoire from 1851. When his family left Paris in 1854, he ran away to continue his studies, playing piano and drums and teaching to support himself. His hard work paid off when he won the Prix de Rome in 1863, and he began writing operas in 1867. His reputation was established with his oratorio Marie-Magdeleine (1873), and his Le Roi de Lahore was performed at the Paris Opéra in 1877. There followed the series of successes for which he is chiefly known, including Hérodiade (1881), Manon (1884), Le Cid (1885), Esclarmonde (1889), Werther (1892), Thaïs (1894), and Don Quichotte (1910).

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Music Encyclopedia: Jules (Emile Frédéric) Massenet
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(b Montand, St Etienne, 12 May 1842; d Paris, 13 Aug 1912). French composer. His family moved to Paris in 1847 and he entered the Conservatoire at the age of 11 as a piano pupil of Adolphe Laurent. He later studied harmony with Reber and composition with Ambroise Thomas, winning the Prix de Rome in 1863. In Rome he got to know Liszt and, through him, Constance de Sainte Marie, who became his pupil and, in 1866 after his return to Paris, his wife. The following year his opera La grand′tante was given at the Opéra-Comique, and in1873 Marie-Magdeleine at the Théâtre de l′Odéon initiated a series of drames sacrés based on the lives of female biblical characters. Many of his secular operas, too, are in effect portraits of women.

In 1878 Massenet was made a teacher of composition at the Conservatoire, where he remained all his life, influencing many younger French composers, including Charpentier, Koechlin, Pierné and Hahn. In his own music he began to move away from the suave, sentimental melodic style derived from Gounod and to adopt a more Wagnerian type of lyrical declamation. The change is apparent in Manon (1884), which placed Massenet in the forefront of French opera composers, and still more in Werther (1892).

But as early as 1877, in Hérodiade, Massenet had begun to modify the symmetry and loosen the syntax of his melodies to give them a more speaking, intimate, conversational character. Repetitions are usually masked or transferred to the orchestra while the voice takes a lyrical recitative line in the Wagnerian manner; literal repetitions are carefully calculated to provide an insistent, emotional quality. Often his melodies have a swaying, hesitant character (9/8 or 6/8) - first and most effectively used in Act 1 of Manon to express a girl's hesitant yet delighted awareness of her own charms. By Werther, the relationship of voice and orchestra is more sophisticated, and that opera contains clear examples of Massenet's dissolution of formal melody into rhapsodic recitative-like writing as evolved by Wagner. Massenet's music is harmonically conservative, rarely venturing beyond modest chromaticisms; rhythmically, it is original in the variations he uses to give the melody a more caressing, intimate character. He had a characteristically French ear for orchestral nuance. Though primarily a lyrical composer, he was also a master of scenes of action, as for example at the opening of Manon.

After Sapho (1897) Massenet scored few major successes. His conception of opera became outdated long before his death and his position as France's leading opera composer was finally challenged when Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande was given at the Opéra-Comique in 1902. The unpretentiousness of his best works recommends their melodic charm and gracefulness, and they remain firmly in the standard opera-house repertory.

works:
Dramatic music
  • Le roi de Lahore (1877)
  • Hérodiade (1881)
  • Manon (1884)
  • Le Cid (1885)
  • Esclarmonde (1889)
  • Werther (1892)
  • Thaïs (1894)
  • Sapho (1897)
  • Cendrillon (1899)
  • Le jongleur de Notre-Dame (1902)
  • Thérèse (1907)
  • Don Quichotte (1910)
  • c20 others
  • incidental music for 13 plays, incl. Notre-Dame de Paris (1879)
  • Phèdre (1900)
  • 3 ballets
Choral music
  • Requiem (c1863)
  • motets, cantatas, partsongs
Vocal music
  • over 200 songs, incl. cycles
Instrumental music
  • Scènes alsaciennes, suite (1881)
  • other suites
  • 3 ovs.
  • Pf Conc. (1903)
  • chamber music
  • pf music

French Literature Companion: Jules Massenet
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Massenet, Jules (1842-1912) was in his time an extraordinarily successful and prolific French opera composer. His musical style has a melodic charm and grace, aptly described by d'Indy as a discreet and quasi-religious eroticism. His most famous operas are Werther (1892, based on Goethe's novel), Manon (1894, based on Prévost's novel), and Thaïs (1894, based on a novel by Anatole France). He also collaborated with Catulle Mendès on two operas and based compositions on works by Hugo, Alphonse Daudet, Flaubert, and many other contemporary authors. Professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire from 1878 until his death, Massenet had an impact on a generation of French composers, some of whom reacted violently against what they saw as the facile charm of his music.

[Kerry Murphy]

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Jules Massenet
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Massenet, Jules (zhül mäsənā'), 1842-1912, French composer. He studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he taught from 1878 to 1896. In addition to many songs, several oratorios, and a number of orchestral suites, he composed more than 20 operas. His most famous work is Manon (1884), which exemplifies his sensuous style and contains accompanied spoken dialogue instead of traditional recitative. His other operas are Werther (1892), Thaïs (1894), and Le Jongleur de Notre Dame (1902).

Bibliography

See his memoirs (tr. 1919, repr. 1970); study by J. Harding (1970).

Dictionary: Mas·se·net   (măs'ə-nā', mäs-nā') pronunciation, Jules Émile Frédéric
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1842-1912.

French composer whose works include more than 20 operas, including Manon (1884) and Thaïs (1894).


Artist: Jules Massenet
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Jules Massenet
  • Period: Post-Romantic (1870-1909)
  • Country: France
  • Born: May 12, 1842 in Montaud, Loire, France
  • Died: August 13, 1912 in Paris, France
  • Genres: Concerto, Miscellaneous Music, Opera, Orchestral Music, Vocal Music

Biography

Today Jules Massenet is best known for the operas Manon and Werther and the solo violin Méditation, from Thaïs. During his lifetime, however, Massenet was one of the most prolific and celebrated operatic composers on earth. The public anxiously awaited his output, and Massenet became both wealthy and famous practicing his craft. His legacy endures because of his ability to create music which portrays the intimacy of human relationships and the emotions and conflicts that arise from them. His gift for melody is reflected in a variety of arias that are among the most beautiful in the French operatic repertoire. He was also a brilliant orchestrator, a skill which allowed him to capture the moods and colors of a wide variety of places and eras. In addition to opera, Massenet composed songs, oratorios, ballets and orchestral works, as well as chamber music and works for solo piano.

Massenet was born in Montaud, France, to the family of a struggling metal worker. At the tender age of 10, he was admitted to the Paris Conservatory, where he studied with famed operatic composer Ambroise Thomas. In 1863, Massenet won the Prix de Rome, a prize which allowed him to travel and study in Italy. There the young man experienced the sounds and textures of the region and began to compose in earnest. While in Italy, Massenet met Liszt, who introduced him to his future wife, Mademoiselle Sainte-Marie.

Massenet's first opera, a one-act entitled La Grand' Tante (The Great Aunt), was produced (with only moderate success) at the Opéra-Comique in 1867. In 1877 Massenet's exotic opera Le Roi de Lahore (The King of Lahore) had a highly successful premiere at the Paris Opera, marking the beginning of his ascendancy as France's most prolific and celebrated operatic composer.

In 1878, his former teacher, Thomas, invited him to become a professor at the Paris Conservatory. Massenet achieved considerable success as a teacher, influencing an entire generation of French composers, including Gustav Charpentier and the song composer Reynaldo Hahn.

A highly prolific composer, Massenet worked continuously throughout his life, completing a great deal of music in addition to his 25 published operas. His approximately 250 songs often reflect the same melodic ingenuity and expressiveness that define his operatic works. Massenet composed several song cycles, including Poéme d'Avril (April Poem), which is often identified as the first French song cycle. Among the most famous of his solo songs are "Ouvre tes yeux bleus" (Open your blue eyes) and "Si tu veux, Mignonne" (If you wish it, sweetheart). The composer's First Orchestral Suite (originally entitled Symphony in F) premiered in 1867. This was the first of seven suites by Massenet, with programmatic subjects ranging from Alsace (Scènes alsaciennes, 1882) to Hungary (Scènes hongroises, 1871), and from Shakespeare (Scénes dramatiques, 1875) to Fairyland (Scènes de féerie, 1881). The most famous of his orchestral suites, Scénes pittoresques (Picturesque Scenes), was first performed in Paris during March of 1874. Massenet also composed several ballets, including La Cigale, Espada, and Les Rosati. In addition to Marie-Magdeleine, his oratorios include Ève (1875) and La Terre promise (The promised land, 1900). He wrote a considerable amount of incidental music for plays, including Sardou's Le Crocodile (1886) and Racine's Phèdre (1900). His only piano concerto was first performed in 1903 and receives occasional modern performances. ~ Robert Barefield, All Music Guide
Wikipedia: Jules Massenet
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Jules Massenet

Jules (Émile Frédéric) Massenet (May 12, 1842 – August 13, 1912) was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, his style went out of fashion, and many of his operas fell into almost total oblivion. Apart from Manon and Werther, his works were rarely performed. However, since the mid-1970s, many of his operas such as Esclarmonde, have undergone periodic revivals.

Contents

Biography

Massenet was born in Montaud, then an outlying hamlet and now a part of the city of Saint-Étienne, in the Loire. When he was six, his family moved to Paris due to his father's ill-health. There, his mother (Adélaïde Massenet, née Royer; her husband's second wife) started taking piano pupils. She also taught Jules so well that at eleven he was able to enter the Paris Conservatoire. He was still a student when his family moved from Paris to Chambéry, but Jules returned to Paris after a few months, living with a married member of his father's family by his first wife. To support himself during his studies, he worked as timpanist for six years at the Théâtre Lyrique, playing also other percussion instruments in other theatres, and working as a pianist in the Café de Belleville.

Although, at first, some of his teachers had not predicted for him any career in music, this changed in 1862 when he won the Grand Prix de Rome with his cantata David Rizzio, and spent three years in Rome. There he met Franz Liszt, at whose request he gave piano lessons to the daughter of Mme. Sainte-Marie; within three years, his pupil became his wife.

His first opera La Grand' Tante was a one-act production at the Opéra-Comique in 1867. Nevertheless it was his dramatic oratorio Marie-Magdeleine (first performed in 1873) that won him praise from the likes of Tchaikovsky, Vincent d'Indy (who afterwards turned against him), and Charles Gounod. His real mentor, though, was the composer Ambroise Thomas, a man with important contacts in theatrical milieux. Another important early patron was his publisher, Georges Hartmann, whose connections with journalistic circles aided him in becoming better known during the difficult initial years of his composing activity. Even Massenet's marriage to Louise-Constance de Gressy (1866) helped him a great deal in social circles, which was important during this time.

Massenet took a break from his composing to serve as a soldier in the Franco-Prussian War, but returned to his art following the end of the conflict in 1871. From 1878 he was professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory where his pupils included Gustave Charpentier, Reynaldo Hahn and Charles Koechlin. His greatest successes were Manon in 1884, Werther in 1892, and Thaïs in 1894. Notable later operas were Le jongleur de Notre-Dame, produced in 1902, and Don Quichotte, produced in Monte Carlo 1910, with the legendary Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin in the title-role.

In 1876 he received the Légion d'honneur, and was appointed a Grand Officer in 1899. In 1878 he was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, to the exclusion of Camille Saint-Saëns. He was only 36, the youngest member ever elected to the Académie.

In addition to his operas, Massenet composed concert suites, ballet music, oratorios and cantatas and about two hundred songs. Some of his non-vocal output has achieved widespread popularity, and is commonly performed: for example the Méditation from Thaïs, which is a violin solo with orchestra, as well as the Aragonaise, from his opera Le Cid and the Élégie for cello and orchestra (from his incidental music to Les Érinnyes). The latter two pieces are commonly played by piano students, and the Élégie became world famous in many arrangements.

Massenet died in Paris at the age of 70, after suffering from a long illness (cancer).[1] [2]

Being a very prolific, hard-working composer (over 25 extant operas, with his daily schedule starting frequently from as early as 4 a.m.), he created his pieces not "at the piano" (as so many other composers do), but entirely from his imagination. That ability greatly helped him to achieve his high standards as an orchestrator: even in his loudest passages, the instrumental texture is always lucid. It is curious that he was also known to avoid all public dress rehearsals and performances of his works; often he would have to be informed by others of his own operatic successes.

Compositions

Massenet
Massenet at his home in Égreville, near Fontainebleau.
Massenet, c. 1910.

Operas

Oratorios and cantatas

Ballets

Orchestral compositions

  • Première suite d'orchestre - 1867
  • Scènes hongroises - 1870
  • Scènes pittoresques - 1874
  • Scènes dramatiques - 1875
  • Scènes napolitaines - 1876
  • Scènes de féerie - 1881
  • Scènes alsaciennes - 1882
  • Fantasy for cello and orchestra - 1897
  • Piano Concerto - 1903
  • Ouverture de concert
  • Overture to Racine's Phèdre
  • Sarabande espagnole

Incidental music

  • Les Érinnyes (containing the famous Élégie) - 1873
  • Un Drame sous Philippe II - 1875
  • La Vie de Bohème - 1876
  • L'Hetman - 1877
  • Notre-Dame de Paris - 1879
  • Michel Strogoff - 1880
  • Nana-Sahin - 1883
  • Théodora - 1884
  • Le Crocodile - 1900
  • Phèdre - 1900
  • Le Grillon du foyer - 1904
  • Le Manteau du roi - 1907
  • Perce-Beige et les sept gnomes - 1909
  • Jérusalem - 1914

Song collections and cycles

  • Poëme d'Avril (Armand Silvestre), Op. 14, songs, declaimed poems and piano solos, c.1866, published 1868
  • Poëme pastoral (Florian and Armand Silvestre), baritone, 3 female voices, piano, 1870-72, published 1872
  • Chansons des bois d'Amaranthe (M. Legrand, after Redwitz), four solo voices (SATB) and piano, 1900, published 1901

Songs

  • À Colombine (Serenade d’Arlequin) (Louis Gallet)
  • À la Trépassée (Armand Silvestre)
  • À la Zuecca (Alfred de Musset)
  • À Mignonne (Gustave Chouquet)
  • Adieu (Complainte) (Armand Silvestre)
  • Adieux (Gilbert)
  • Anniversaire (Armand Silvestre)
  • Aubade (Gabriel Prévost)
  • Automne (Paul Collin)
  • Berceuse (Gustave Chouquet)
  • Bonne nuit! (Camille Distel)
  • Ce que disent les cloches (Jean de la Vingtrie)
  • C'est l'amour (Victor Hugo)
  • Chant Provençal (Michel Carré)
  • Crépuscule (Armand Silvestre)
  • Dans l'air plein de fils de soie (Armand Silvestre)
  • Declaration (Gustave Chouquet)
  • Élégie (Louis Gallet)
  • Epitaphe (Armand Silvestre)
  • Être aimé (Jules Massenet after Victor Hugo)
  • Guitare (Victor Hugo)
  • La mort de la cigale (Maurice Fauré)
  • La Veillée du Petit Jésus (André (Theuriet)
  • La vie d'une rose, Op. 12, No. 3 (Jules Ruelle)
  • L'air du soir emportati (Armand Silvestre)
  • L'âme des oiseau (Elena Vacarescu)
  • Le portrait d'une enfant, Op. 12, No. 4 (Pierre de Ronsard)
  • Le Sais-Tu? (Stéphan Bordèse)
  • Le Sentier Perdu (Paul de Choudens)
  • Le verger (Camille Distel)
  • Les alcyons (Joseph Antoine Autran)
  • Les bois de pins (Camille Distel)
  • Les enfants
  • Les Femmes de Magdala (Louis Gallet)
  • Les mains (Noel Bazan)
  • Les Oiselets (Jacques Normand)
  • L'esclave, Op. 12, No. 1 (Théophile Gautier)
  • Lève-toi (Armand Silvestre)
  • Loin de Moi ta Lèvre Qui Ment (Jean Aicard)
  • Madrigal (Armand Silvestre)
  • Musette (Jean Pierre Claris de Florian)
  • Narcisse à la Fontaine (Paul Collin)
  • Néére (Michel Carré)
  • Nouvelle chanson sur un vieil air (Victor Hugo)
  • Nuit d'Espagne (Louis Gallet)
  • Ouvre tes yeux bleus (Paul Robiquet)
  • Pensée d'automne (Armand Silvestre)
  • Pour qu'à l'espérance (Armand Silvestre)
  • Prélude (Armand Silvestre)
  • Première Danse (Jacques Clary Jean Normand)
  • Puisqu’elle a Pris ma Vie (Paul Robiquet)
  • Que l'heure est donc brève (Armand Silvestre)
  • Rêvons, c'est l'heure (Paul Verlaine)
  • Riez-vous (Armand Silvestre)
  • Rondel de la Belle au bois (Julien Gruaz)
  • Roses d’Octobre (Paul Collin)
  • Sérénade (Moliére)
  • Sérénade aux mariés, Op. 12, No. 2 (Jules Ruelle)
  • Sérénade de Zanetto (François Coppée) *Sérénade du passant (François Coppée)
  • Si tu veux, Mignonne (Abbé Claude Georges Boyer)
  • Soir de rêve (Antonin Lugnier)
  • Soleil couchant (Victor Hugo)
  • Sonnet (Georges Pradel)
  • Sonnet matinal (Armand Silvestre)
  • Sonnet Payen (Armand Silvestre)
  • Souhait (Jacques Normand)
  • Sous les branches (Armand Silvestre)
  • Souvenez-vous, Vierge Marie! (Georges Boyer)
  • Souvenir de Venise (Alfred de Musset)
  • Stances (Gilbert)
  • Sur la source (Armand Silvestre)
  • Un adieu (Armand Silvestre)
  • Un souffle de parfums (Armand Silvestre)
  • Voici que les grans lys (Armand Silvestre)
  • Voix suprême (Antoinette Lafaix-Gontié)
  • Vous aimerez demain (Armand Silvestre)

Other

  • Miscellaneous piano pieces
  • Massenet completed and orchestrated Léo Delibes' unfinished opera Kassya.

Media

Notes

  1. ^ Jules Massenet Dies Suddenly, New York Times, August 14, 1912
  2. ^ Hammerstein: In Memorial, New York Times, August 15, 1912

References

External links

Scores and Vocal Scores on Indiana University Bloomington Libraries:


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