Marius Constant

Marius Constant (born February 7, 1925 in Bucharest , † May 15, 2004 near Paris ) was a French composer and conductor of Romanian origin.

Constant studied piano and composition at the Bucharest Conservatory and received the George Enescu Prize in 1944 . In 1946 he moved to Paris, where he was a student of Olivier Messiaen , Tony Aubin , Arthur Honegger and Nadia Boulanger at the Conservatory . His compositions won several awards. From 1950 he became increasingly involved with electronic music and became a member of Pierre Schaeffer's Groupe de Recherche de musique concrète .

From 1956 to 1966 Constant was the conductor of the Ballets de Paris, which Roland Petit directed. During these years he wrote numerous ballet compositions for Petit and Maurice Béjart , such as Haut-voltage (1956), Contrepointe (1958), Cyrano de Bergerac (1959), Éloge de la folie (1966) and Paradis perdu (1967). He wrote a piano concerto for the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 1957, but he was best known for the world premiere of the 24 Préludes pour Orchester (1958) conducted by Leonard Bernstein . Turner (1961) translated the painterly language of the English painter William Turner into music.

In 1963 Constant founded the Ensemble Ars Nova, which was one of the first to focus specifically on the performance of contemporary music. In 1970 he took over the management of the music department of the ORTF ; from 1973 to 1978 he was the musical director of the Paris Opera , and in 1988 and 1989 he was Professor of Orchestration and Instrumentation at the Paris Conservatory . He has also taught at Stanford University, California and Hilversum . Other ballets were created, such as Septentrion (1975), Nana (1976) and L'ange bleu (1985). La tragédie de Carmen (1981), an adaptation of the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet, written together with director Peter Brook , became a global success . In 1988 he also created an excellent orchestration of the piano work Gaspard de la nuit by Maurice Ravel . In 1992 Constant was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts as the successor to his former teacher Olivier Messiaen .

Works

• Operas
  • La serrure (1969)
  • Le souper (1969)
  • Le jeu de Ste Agnes (1974)
  • La tragédie de Carmen (1981; after Georges Bizet)
  • Impressions de Pelléas (1992; after Claude Debussy )
  • Teresa . Mélodrame fantastique (1995)
  • Of the season in summer . Mélodrame lyrique (1999)
• Ballets
  • Le joueur de flûte (1951)
  • Haut-voltage (1956; in collaboration with Pierre Henry )
  • Contrepointe (1958)
  • Cyrano de Bergerac (1959)
  • Éloge de la folie (1966)
  • Paradis perdu (1967)
  • Candide . Mimodrama (1970; concert version for harpsichord and orchestra)
  • Septentrion (1975)
  • Nana (1976)
  • L'ange bleu (1985)
• Orchestral works
  • Piano Concerto (1957)
  • 24 Preludes for Orchestra (1958)
  • Turner (1961)
  • Chaconne et marche militaire (1968)
  • Faciebat Anno 1973 for 24 violins and orchestra (1973)
  • Gli elementi . Concerto for trombone, string orchestra and 2 horns (1977)
  • Symphonie pour instruments à vent (1978)
  • Nana Symphony (1980)
  • 103 regards dans l'eau for violin and orchestra (1981)
  • Pelléas and Mélisande . Symphony (1983)
  • L'inauguration de la maison for orchestra (1985)
  • Concerto for barrel organ and orchestra (1988)
  • Choruses and Interludes for horn and orchestra
  • Concertante for saxophone and orchestra
• Chamber music
  • Brass Trio (1949)
  • 3 complexes for piano and double bass (1950)
  • Ponant 19 . Mouvement choréographique for piano and 19 instruments (1963)
  • Winds for 14 wind instruments (1968)
  • Traits for 6–25 Instruments (1969)
  • Equal for 5 percussionists (1969)
  • 14 stations for 7 instruments (1969–70)
  • Moulins à prière for harpsichord (1969)
  • Pour flûte et un instrument (1971)
  • 9 mars 1971 for piccolo (1971)
  • Strings for 12 strings and electric guitar (1972)
  • Piano personnage for piano and 16 instruments (1973)
  • Silètes for harpsichord (1973)
  • For Clarinet (1974)
  • Psyché for 2 pianos and 2 percussionists (1975)
  • The separation . String quartet (1990)
• Vocal works
  • Les chants de Maldoror for speakers, 23 instrumentalists, 10 cellos and a choreographer-conductor (1962)
  • 5 chants et une vocalise for soprano and orchestra (1968)
  • Trois poèmes élastiques for choir (1987)
  • Oratorio des droits de l'homme (1989)
  • Chant de retour . Oratorio (1995)

Web links

• Marius Constant at the Académie des Beaux-Arts (French)
• Works catalog, Durand-Salabert-Eschig publishing house, Paris (French)
• Works by and about Marius Constant in the catalog of the German National Library
• Marius Constant at the Internet Movie Database (English)