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Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013)

May. 22, 2013

Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013)

Henri Dutilleux - Master of magical narrative power

The international music world has lost one of its major figures with the death of Henri Dutilleux. The French composer Henri Dutilleux, born in Angers in 1916, created a personal and distinctive musical language glowing with tonal originality and visual radiance with its foundations in the traditions of Maurice Ravel, Albert Roussel and Claude Debussy. Although always intensely aware of the prevailing trends of the second half of the 20th century, he searched for his own individual solutions and his great popularity with audiences confirmed his instincts. Dutilleux focused his concentration on essential elements. Reflecting his long and fulfilled musical life shared over many decades with his wife, the pianist Geneviève Joy, he has left behind a highly select oeuvre including orchestral works, lieder, ballet scores and chamber music.

Dutilleux was born into a musical family and experienced the multifaceted musical world of pre-war Paris first-hand. Despite his intensive contact with colleagues such as André Jolivet, Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc, he never became a member of the "Groupe des Six" or "Jeune France". The budding composer already perceived himself as an artist who would have to search for his own individual path.

The prospects of an international career initially beckoned in 1938 with the award of the prestigious "Prix de Rome", but fate intervened: the Second World War broke out only months after Dutilleux had received his scholarship and taken up residence in Italy, and the young composer had to return to France. After a brief period of military service, necessity forced him to eke out a living as occasional pianist, arranger and music teacher. In 1942, he was appointed as the temporary choir director at the Paris Opéra. His circumstances improved however with the end of the war: he worked for Radio France before subsequently being appointed as professor of composition at the École Normale de Musique and the Paris Conservatoire.

He ultimately achieved international recognition with his two Symphonies (1951 and 1959). Dutilleux was the first composer to utilize a consistent structural principle in which musical themes were not presented in full at the beginning, but instead developed gradually over the progress of a composition: "My aim is to permit each individual work to originate as a living and organic entity". The composer was fascinated by the fine-limbed polyphony of old French and Flemish masters; Bach chorales were his perennial accompaniment throughout his life and he considered Beethoven’s late works as a refuge. These archetypes have left their traces in the meticulous accuracy with which Dutilleux developed, transformed and interweaved his musical material – metamorphosis as a labyrinthine structural principle, "a musical game of reflections".

Even though traces of serial technique can be detected in Dutilleux's works, the composer retained a certain degree of skepticism towards the traditions of the Second Viennese School. "In my heart, I am not a serial composer," he stated categorically: "What I reject is the dogmatism and belief in authority during this period". He defined his own individual harmonic treatment as a "free tonal continuity" blending classical chord theory with modality, polytonality and atonality. Dutilleux was always aware of the underlying limitations of theory: "How does a work originate? It is a unique mystery".

The success of the composer's orchestral works attracted the attention of major international soloists. In 1970, Dutilleux dedicated his cello concerto Tout un monde lointain to Mstislav Rostropovitch with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. Isaac Stern commissioned the violin concerto L'arbre des songes and the series of commissions on the part of prominent soloists was continued into the 21st century with works for Anne-Sophie Mutter, Dawn Upshaw and Simon Rattle, and Renée Fleming.

Literature held a great fascination for Dutilleux and numerous authors provided him with a source of inspiration. It is not mere chance that Dutilleux's mythical-organic treatment of musical material has a certain resemblance to Marcel Proust's concept of recurring memories which undergo constant transformation. During the final years of his life, the composer returned to the poetry of Charles Baudelaire – an elective literary-musical affinity which found its expression in Le temps l’horloge for soprano and orchestra, a composition only completed in 2009.

Dutilleux was equally attracted to painting and referred to himself as a "color composer". In Timbres, espace, mouvement, he undertook the remarkable attempt to transform the magical color constellations of van Gogh's epoch-making painting "Starry Night" into expressive shades of orchestral color. Dutilleux was not only fascinated by van Gogh’s paintings, but also by his strife-torn character. Excerpts from written documents by van Gogh can be found alongside literary extracts and passages from personal letters in the texts of Correspondances which was composed in 2003.

Although Dutilleux cannot be counted as an explicitly political artist, he nevertheless retained a lively interest in the historical events which had overshadowed the generation of his contemporaries. He composed The Shadows of Time for the Boston Symphony Orchestra to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The third movement employs three children's voices alongside the orchestra and is dedicated to the memory of Anne Frank.

Dutilleux remained his own harshest critic throughout his life. He withdrew all of his early works and altered the numbering of his compositions making the Piano Sonata (1946/48) dedicated to his wife his Op. 1. His elevated artistic standards demanded that each new work should reveal a unique musical world. Dutilleux was a perfectionist who took great pains to ensure that no work would ever leave his hands in an unfinished state or inferior standard. This highest possible degree of quality, which the composer also demanded from us as publishers and which we have always attempted to fulfill to the highest possible degree, was for Dutilleux an unspoken dogma. For all of us it was a privilege to experience him as a highly sensitive, greatly cultured and charming partner and as a man of his time: he generated admiration and respect from all colleagues and it was a great pleasure to work with him at all times. Henri Dutilleux leaves a gap in the music world which can never be bridged.

Dutilleux passed away this morning in Paris at the age of 97.

Henri Dutilleux - composer profile

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