Henri Tomasi

Henri Tomasi, 1942

Henri Fredien Tomasi (born August 17, 1901 in Marseille , † January 13, 1971 in Paris ) was a French composer and conductor .

Life

Tomasi was born in the working-class district "La Belle de Mai" in Marseille. Both his father Xavier Tomasi and his mother Josephine Vincensi came from La Casinca in Corsica . The father was a music lover and amateur flautist. When Henri was five years old, he moved with his family to Mazargues near Marseille, where his father worked for the post office. During this time Henri received his first music theory lessons. At the age of seven, Henri came to the Marseille Conservatory . He won a first prize in music theory at the age of ten , and a first prize in piano at the age of thirteen. Forced by his father, Henri played for families of "better society", where he felt humiliated and like a trained animal ("l'humiliation d'être exhibé comme un animal savant"). In 1913 the family returned to Marseille. In 1916 Henri won the first prize in harmony with his friend Zino Francescatti , who became known as a violinist. The First World War prevented him from studying at the Conservatoire de Paris , so he earned money as a pianist in Marseille and played in hotels, restaurants, brothels and cinemas.

In 1921 Tomasi was able to begin studying at the Paris Conservatoire thanks to a scholarship. In addition, he continued to play in cafes and cinemas to make money. His teachers at the conservatory were u. a. Gaubert , d'Indy , Caussade and Vidal . In 1925 he won the Prix ​​Halphen with the wind quintet Variations sur un Theme Corse . In 1927 the second Rome Prize for the Coriolan cantata and a first prize for orchestral conducting followed. In the same year he met his future wife Odette Camp, whom he married in 1929. Tomasi's career as a conductor began when he took over the management of the Concerts du Journal .

Between 1930 and 1935 Tomasi was the musical director of the Radio Colonial Orchestra in French Indochina . Tomasi thus became one of the first radio conductors. In 1932, together with Prokofiev , Milhaud , Honegger and Poulenc , he founded the chamber music society "Triton" in Paris, which advocated contemporary music. Later he also conducted studio productions for the Orchester Radio Symphonique de la Radiodiffusion Francaise (Paris Radio). In 1936 he made a recording with the mezzo-soprano Alice Raveau in Gluck's Orfeo, which received the Grand Prix du Disque .

In 1939 Tomasi was drafted into the French army and came to Villefranche-sur-Mer as Kapellmeister . In 1940 Tomasi was released from military service and took over the management of the Orchester National de France . He temporarily withdrew to a monastery near Marseilles, which he only left to fulfill his duties as a conductor. In 1944 his son Claude was born. In the same year, under the influence of the war, he began to compose a requiem , dedicated to "aux martyrs de la Résistance et à tous ceux qui sont morts pour la France" ("the martyrs of the Resistance and all those who died for France") . However, he withdrew this work after two performances. Tomasi turned u. a. under the impression of the concentration camps that had become known and the atomic bombs dropped from his belief in God. In 1996 the Requiem was rediscovered and also recorded on CD. In 1946 Tomasi took over the post of conductor at the Monte Carlo Opera and became a sought-after guest conductor throughout Europe. His most famous work, the Trumpet Concerto , was written in 1948 . In 1949 his saxophone concerto was premiered by Marcel Mule .

In 1952, Tomasi had to stop conducting for several months due to a car accident. Also in 1952 he was awarded the Grand Prix de la Musique française by the organization SACEM . In 1956 the clarinet concerto and the trombone concerto were written . In the same year the staged world premiere of the opera Don Juan de Manara took place in Munich , which had been performed and recorded in concert years in Paris. In addition, L'Atlantide and the comic opera Le Testament di Pere Gaucher consolidated his reputation as an opera composer. In 1957, Tomasi stopped conducting because of health problems (including numbness of the right ear). In 1966 Jean-Pierre Rampal launched the "Printemps" flute concerto as a soloist . In Tomasi's last creative phase, criticism of political and social grievances came to the fore, and works such as the Symphonie du Tiers-Monde ("Third World Symphony") and Chant pour le Vietnam were created . In 1969 Tomasi conducted a series of autobiographical interviews with his son Claude, which were recorded on tape ("Autobiography au magnétophone"). As his health deteriorated, he began an operatic version of the Hamlet story.

In January 1971, Henri Tomasi died in his apartment in the Paris district of Montmartre and was buried in his wife's family grave in Avignon . On the occasion of Tomasi's 100th birthday, his remains were transferred to the homeland of his ancestors, Penta-di-Casinca in Corsica.

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As a composer, Tomasi felt strongly drawn to the theater. He wrote numerous operas and ballet music. In the field of instrumental music he preferred wind instruments and composed solo concertos for flute, clarinet, saxophone, bassoon, trumpet, oboe, horn and trombone, as well as for violin and viola. He also wrote chamber music and some sacred works.

In addition to the influence of his French contemporaries ( neoclassicism ), Tomasi's music shows borrowings from very different musical traditions. Elements of folk music from Corsica and Provence appear alongside exotic sounds from Cambodia , Laos , the Sahara and Tahiti . But he also resorted to the music of the Middle Ages, especially Gregorian chant . At times he used a personally shaped form of the twelve-tone technique . Tomasi himself said: "Although I have not avoided the use of most modern forms of expression, I have always remained a melodic inside. I can't stand systems and sectarianism. I write for a large audience. Music that is not from the heart comes is not music. "

Web link

• Detailed information on the life and work of Henri Tomasi (French, partly also English)