French composer Henri Dutilleux dies, aged 97

French composer Henri Dutilleux has died at the age of 97. He was one of the few contemporary composers to be widely played both in France and elsewhere.

Mezzo Voce/YouTube/Screengrab

Dutilleux, a musical inheritor of the mantle of Claude Debussy, saw himself as neither a traditionalist nor an avant-gardist.

His work is sometimes described as “modern classical”.

One of the most recent Correspondances, which was first performed in Berlin in 2003, was recorded last January on the occasion of his 97th birthday.

Dutilleux was awarded the Legion of Honour in 2004 and won several prizes, including the Grand Prix de Rome in 1938.

He was married to pianist Géneviève Joy, for whom he composed several pieces.

 Henri Dutilleux’s life in dates:

1914: Born in Angers, north-west France;
1924: Starts music studies at the Douai conservatory;
1929: First composition, La Fleur (The Flower) a setting of a poem by Charles-Hubert Millevoye;
1933: Enrols at the Paris conservatory;
1935-1938: Wins Grand prix de Rome for harmony, counterpoint and fugue for his cantata, l’Anneau du Roi (The King’s ring);
1942: Appointed choirmaster of the Paris Opera;
1943: Employed by Radio France, where he will stay for 20 years;
1945: First performance of Trois Tableaux Symphoniques for a play based on Charlotte Bronte’s Wuthering Heights;
1951: Composes First Symphony;
1953: Le Loup (The Wolf), a ballet and L’Amour d’une femme (A Woman's love), music for cinema;
1959: Second symphony, Le Double, first performed in Boston under Charles Munch;
1961: Starts teaching composition at l'École Normale de Musique de Paris ;
1965: Métaboles, fve pieces for orchestra, first performed by the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra under George Szell;
1967: Awarded France’s Grand prix de la musique for his work;
1970: Tout un monde lointain… (A whole distant world) for cello and orchestra commissioned by Mstislav Rostropovich, becomes teacher at the Paris conservatory;
1973-74: Becomes associate member of the Belgian Royal Academy, awarded the Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris;
1978: Timbres, espaces, mouvement (Starry Night) first performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Mstislav Rostropovich;
1985: L’Arbre des Songes (The Tree of dreams), concerto for violin and orchestra commissioned and performed by the Orchestre National de France under Lorin Maazel with Isaac Stern performing;
1997: The Shadows of Time, commissioned and performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa;
2002: Sur le même accord (On the same chord) for violin and orchestra, dedicated to Anne-Sophie Mutter ;
2003: Correspondances for voice and orchestra commissioned by the Berlin Philarmonic under Simon Rattle;
2004: Awarded Legion of Honour;
2005: Awarded Ernst von Siemens prize, known as the Nobel for music;
2007 and 2009: Le Temps l’horloge for voice and orchestra, with words by Jean Tardieu and Robert Desnos, commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France and the Saito Kinen Festival, conducted by Seiji Ozawa, decicated to Renée Fleming ;
2013: Correspondances recorded on the occasion of Dutilleux’s 97th birthday.