Emmanuel, (Marie François) Maurice Page 1 of 4

Emmanuel, (Marie François) Maurice

(b Bar-sur-Aube, 2 May 1862; d Paris, 14 Dec 1938). French composer and
musicologist. In 1869 his family moved to Beaune, and the landscape and
monuments of Burgundy instilled in Emmanuel a love of nature and the visual
arts, which was encouraged by his mother, a skilled and perceptive artist. Here
Emmanuel interested himself in folksong and frequent visits to the Hôtel-Dieu
in Beaune stimulated his feeling for the beauty of the liturgy. Both of these
factors played an important part in the evolution of his music. He passed his
baccalauréat at Dijon and, following the encouragement of a local composer,
Charles, Marquis d’Ivry, entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1880. Here his
teachers were Savart (solfège), Dubois (harmony), Bourgault-Ducoudray
(history) and Delibes (composition). He also studied classics, poetics, philology
and history of art at the Sorbonne and the Ecole du Louvre, gaining the licence
ès lettres in 1887. His free approach to rhythm and the introduction of
medieval modes into his early works (notably the Cello Sonata op.2, cast in the
Phrygian mode) met with strong censure from Delibes who branded his
Ouverture pour un conte gai ‘baroque and unperformable’ and forbade his
entry for the Prix de Rome. As a result Emmanuel studied privately with the
more liberal Ernest Guiraud and so came into close contact with Debussy.
In 1896, after a viva voce examination involving dancers from the Opéra and
ambitious projections by Jules Marey, Emmanuel was awarded the doctorat ès
lettres for his thesis on ancient Greek dance, a comprehensive study which
stressed its freedom and eurhythmic qualities in contrast with the greater
rigour of the contemporary French dance, in which the mimetic element was
almost entirely absent. After a report on the state of music in German
universities, the Collège de France decided in 1898 to create the post of
lecturer in musical history for Emmanuel, but vigorous opposition from
Berthelot forced it to abandon this idea, and Emmanuel, in the absence of
other more congenial employment, spent the period until 1904 lecturing on the
history of art at secondary level. He was then appointed maître de chapelle at
Ste Clotilde, but his revival of Gregorian chant led to his dismissal in 1906. In
1909 he was appointed lecturer in the history of music at the Paris
Conservatoire in succession to Bourgault-Ducoudray, continuing his
predecessor’s pioneering interest in folksong and the ancient modes. He held
the post until his retirement in 1936; his pupils included Migot, Casadesus and
Messiaen.
Emmanuel was unusually self-critical, and of the 73 works he composed
between 1877 and 1938, he destroyed all but 30. His compositions reflect his
strong views on the ‘tyranny’ of the major scale, the conventional cadence, the
dominant 7th and the bar-line. As Koechlin wrote, ‘he used modes through
taste and natural instinct; he thought modally’. Like Koechlin, he demonstrated
how modality and folksong could be used constructively in 20th-century music.
While his prose works are perceptive and scholarly in the extreme, there is
nothing pedantic about his compositions, which are remarkable for their virility
and concision, and their polymodal and polyrhythmic originality.
His eight purely orchestral works (including the overture to Salamine and the
prologue to Prométhée enchaîné) cover the whole of a career which was
planned with extreme care. None of these was performed before 1920. Apart
from his Suite française, each is accompanied by a literary ‘argument’,
although only in his last work, Le poème du Rhône, did he approach the
symphonic poem beloved of his contemporaries d’Indy, Roussel and Koechlin.

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Emmanuel, (Marie François) Maurice Page 2 of 4

Each work entailed a new approach: Zingaresca recreates the improvisations

of a Hungarian gypsy orchestra; the First Symphony expresses the sentiments
felt on the death of the aviator son of his friend Louis de Launay, making no
attempt to follow Classical sonata form; the short, programmatic Second
Symphony was suggested by the Breton legend of King Grallon of Ys.
Emmanuel’s three major stage works (opp. 16, 21 and 28) reflect his great
sympathy with ancient Greek civilization, and his knowledge of Greek rhythms
and methods enabled him to go beyond Fauré’s refined interpretation of
ancient beauty, nobility and simplicity to achieve powerful, tautly constructed
dramas of considerable intensity. One of his greatest gifts was the creation of
balanced, large-scale sections filled with a wealth of detail which is more
remarkable for its harmony and rhythm than for its melody. Even so, his stage
works deserve to be revived. Most important among his pieces for lesser
forces are the six piano sonatinas written between 1893 and 1925, of which
the fourth is based on Hindu modes and prefigures Messiaen. It is through
these striking and consistently inspired piano works that Emmanuel is most
widely known.
One of the few genuine independents in French music, he sought to liberate it
from all that limited its scope, deriving his material from sources almost entirely
outside the Classical and Romantic traditions.
WORKS
stage
all unpublished

op.

1 Pierrot peintre (pantomime, 2 tableaux, Emmanuel and F. Régamey), A/Mez,

spkr, orch, 1886, French radio, Sept 1938
16 Prométhée enchaîné (op, 3, Emmanuel, after Aeschylus), 1916–18, Paris,
Champs-Elysées, 23 Nov 1959
21 Salamine (op, 3, Emmanuel after Aeschylus), 1921–3, orchd 1924, rev. 1927–8,
Paris, Opéra, 19 June 1929
28 Amphitryon (incid music, Plautus, trans. A. Ernout), 1936, Paris, Amphithéâtre
de l’Institut d’art et d’archéologie, 20 Feb 1937
other works
Orch: Ouverture pour un conte gai, after P. Bergon and E. Meurant, op.3, 1890;
Zingaresca, fantaisie, op.7, 2 pic, 2 pf, timp, str, 1902; Prologue de Prométhée
enchaîné, op.16, 1916; Sym no.1, A, op.18, 1919; Ouverture de Salamine, op.21,
1923–8; Sym no.2 ‘Bretonne’, A, op.25, 1930–31; Suite française [5 of 6 movts from
Sonatine no.5], op.26, 1934–5; Le poème du Rhône, sym. poem after F. Mistral,
op.30, 1938 [orch. M. Béclard d’Harcourt]
Chbr and solo inst: Sonata, op.2, vc, pf, 1887; 3 Pieces, op.14, org/hmn, 1892–
1911; Sonatine no.1 ‘Bourguignonne’, op.4, pf, 1893; Sonatine no.2 ‘Pastorale’,
op.5, pf, 1897; Sonata, d, op.6, vn, pf, 1902; Str Qt, B , op.8, 1903; Suite sur des
airs populaires grecs, op.10, vn, pf, 1907; Sonata [Trio], op.11, fl, cl, pf, 1907;
Sonatine no.3, op.19, pf, 1920; Sonatine no.4 ‘sur des modes hindous’, op.20, pf,
1920; Sonatine no.5 ‘alla francese’, op.22, pf, 1925; Sonatine no.6, op.23, pf, 1925;
Sonata, B , op.29, cornet/bugle, pf, 1936
Vocal: O filii, op.9, 1v, SATB, 1905 [after trad. Easter melody]; In memoriam (R.
Vallery-Radot), op.12, 1v, vn, vc, pf, 1908; Musiques (L. de Launay: Crépuscules et
nocturnes), 12 songs, op.12/2, 1v, pf, 1908; 3 odelettes anacréontiques (R. Belleau,
P. de Ronsard), op.13, 1v, fl, pf, 1911 [arr. 1v, orch, 1911]; 30 chansons

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bourguignonnes du pays de Beaune (after folksongs collected by C. Bigarne, A.

Bourgeois, C. Masson), op.15, 1v, pf, 1913, 6 arr. chorus, orch, 1914–15, 1930–35;
10 arr. 1v, orch, 1914, 1932–6; Vocalise, op.24, A/B/cl, 1926; 2 chansons
populaires (after folk carols), op.27, 1935: 27/1, 1v, pf; 27/2, 1v, va da gamba/vc, pf
unpubd

MSS privately owned by F. Emmanuel, Paris

Principal publishers: Durand, Heugel, Lemoine, Salabert

WRITINGS
Essai sur l’orchestrique grecque (diss., U. of Paris, 1895; Paris, 1895; Eng.
trans., 1916)
Histoire de la langue musicale (Paris, 1911, 2/1928)
Traité de l’accompagnement modal des psaumes (Lyons, 1913)
Preface to R. Bertrand: Coins de Bourgogne (Beaune, 1919)
‘Grèce: art gréco-romain’, EMDC, I/i (1921), 377–537
with R. Moissenet: La polyphonie sacrée (Oullins, 1923)
Preface to P. Brunold: Traité des signes et agréments employés par les
clavecinistes français des XVII et XVIII siècles (Lyons, 1925/R)
Preface to A. Dandelot: Résumé d’histoire de la musique (Paris, 1925)
Pelléas et Mélisande de Claude Debussy (Paris, 1926, 2/1950)
César Franck (Paris, 1930)
Preface to R. Bertrand: La montagne de Beaune (Beaune, 1932)
Anton Reicha (Paris, 1936)
editions
with M. Teneo: J.-P. Rameau: Oeuvres complètes, xvii (Paris, 1913), xviii
(Paris, 1924)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
G. Larroumet: ‘Sur une conférence de Maurice Emmanuel, consacrée à la
danse grecque’, Le temps (9 Feb 1897)
M. Brillant: ‘Maurice Emmanuel’, Le correspondant (25 Aug 1929)
R. Dumesnil: La musique contemporaine en France (Paris, 1929)
E. Vuillermoz: ‘Etudes sur Salamine’, Candide (27 June 1929)
A. Cortot: La musique française de piano, ii (Paris, 1932, 3/1948/R)
M. Béclard d’Harcourt: ‘L’oeuvre musical de Maurice Emmanuel’, ReM,
nos.152–5 (1935), 22–33
R. Dumesnil: ‘Maurice Emmanuel, musicien français’, Le flambeau (16 Nov
1935)
L. Laloy: ‘Un musicien de grande classe: Maurice Emmanuel’, Page musicale
(23 Dec 1938)
J. Prod’homme: ‘Maurice Emmanuel’, RMI, xliii (1939), 105–8
R. de Souza: ‘Maurice Emmanuel et le rythme poétique’, Mercure de France,
ccxci (1939), 693–700
H.F. Stewart: ‘Maurice Emmanuel’, ML, xx (1939), 278–80
N. Dufourcq: Petite histoire de la musique en Europe (Paris, 1942, 11/1973)
R. Bernard: ‘Maurice Emmanuel’, Information musicale (16 Jan 1942)
P. Landormy: La musique française après Debussy (Paris, 1943)
G. Samazeuilh: Musiciens de mon temps (Paris, 1945)
R. Dumesnil: La musique en France entre les deux guerres 1919–1939
(Geneva, 1946)
ReM, no.206 (1947) [Emmanuel issue]
J. Lonchampt: ‘Musique bourguignonne de Beaune à Auxerre’, Journal

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Emmanuel, (Marie François) Maurice Page 4 of 4

musical français, no.3 (1951), 2, 16

R. Dumesnil: ‘Maurice Emmanuel et la musique modale’, Le monde (17 Feb
1955)
R. Stevenson: ‘Maurice Emmanuel: a Belated Apologia’, ML, xl (1959), 154–
65
H. Gagnebin: ‘Un grand compositeur oublié: Maurice Emmanuel’, Tribune de
Genève (12 Oct 1963)
J. Durbin: ‘Hommage à Maurice Emmanuel’, Croix (9 Nov 1963)
J. Bruyr: ‘Hommage à Maurice Emmanuel’, Guide du concert (28 Nov 1963)
M.-C. Valette: Contribution à l’étude de l’oeuvre musical de Maurice
Emmanuel (diss., U. of Strasbourg, 1972) [on chbr music, Trois odelettes
anacréontiques, Sonatines, Salamine]
E.A. Carlson: Maurice Emmanuel and the Six Sonatinas for Piano (diss.,
Boston U., 1974)
A. Michel: ‘Modernité de Maurice Emmanuel’, Education musicale, no.242
(1977), 71–3
F. Emmanuel: ‘Maurice Emmanuel et son temps (1862–1938): lettres
inédites’, Revue internationale de musique française, no.11 (1983), 7–92
A. Hoérée, A. Surchamp and M. Emmanuel: ‘Maurice Emmanuel’, Zodiaque,
no.139 (1984), 2–38
ReM, nos.410–11 (1988) [expansion of 1947 Emmanuel issue]
F. Emmanuel, ed.: ‘Maurice Emmanuel et les musiciens suisses’, Revue
musicale de Suisse romande, xliii/2 (1990), 89–95
ROBERT ORLEDGE

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