Paul Bazelaire

Paul Bazelaire (born March 4, 1886 in Sedan , † December 11, 1958 in Paris ) was a French cellist .

Life

At the age of seven, Bazelaire was a student of the Turenne College in Sedan when Jean-Nicolas-Henri Clarinval - director of the Société Philharmonique von Sedan - became aware of him. At the age of ten he moved to the Conservatoire de Paris in the class of Jules Delsart . At the age of eleven he won first prize for his virtuoso cello playing. He received further awards for his skills in harmony , counterpoint and fugue . Paul Bazelaire gave his first concert on December 18, 1897 in Sedan, the city of his birth.

Monument to Heinrich the child with the physiognomy of Paul Bazelaire

At the age of seventeen he won first prize in harmony in the class of Xavier Leroux . At the end of his studies he worked on the final compositional subtleties in terms of counterpoint and fugue together with Georges Caussade and Charles Lenepveu . At the age of 19, he received another first prize in both disciplines. He also learned to play the organ with the composer and organist Louis Vierne and was successful in this discipline after only a few months.

In 1918, at the age of 32, he was appointed professor at the Conservatoire national Supérieur in Paris. Here he impressed both with his skillful pedagogy and his virtuoso playing, so that the conservatory attracted numerous students, including Reine Flachot . In 1958, the year he died, Paul Bazelaire was working on arrangements for two cellos and harp . The trio consisted of his second wife Monique Viaudez and their two daughters.

monument

More by chance a memorial with the physiognomy of the young Bazelaire was erected in Berlin . The sculptor August Kraus had the contract for the Siegesallee the 9 Monument group with the last Askanischen Margrave Heinrich the child to design in the center. Heinrich had died in 1320 at the age of eleven and there were no images or descriptions of people. Probably in 1899 (the monument was unveiled in 1900) the thirteen-year-old Paul Bazelaire was a guest in Berlin and was the sculptor's model for the graceful boy, with a wide cloak and a dreamy, slightly melancholy facial expression. As a reminder, "the head of the Secret Civil Cabinet sent the musician two photos of the monument."

Kraus won several awards with this figure, which was represented with a plaster cast at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 . (See Kraus, group 9. )

literature

• Uta Lehnert: The Kaiser and the Siegesallee. Réclame Royale , Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-496-01189-0 . Quote p. 126.