Paule Maurice (1910-67) - Tableaux de Provence, for
Saxophone and Orchestra
Maurice
was French. More pointedly, Paule Maurice was a French woman
composer, which immediately impales me on a cleft stick of Political Correctness.
If I suggest that this is in any way remarkable, I risk condemnation for
being “patronising”, and if I don’t I risk accusations of glossing over
the achievements of women! Far from taking my life in my hands, like the
critic who pronounced “[Maurice] is not a composer of the same stature
as her husband Pierre Lantier” (particularly as the latter is himself hardly
a household name!), I shall take cowardly refuge behind the skirts of a
misquotation of Richard Strauss: “Do you know what a 'woman composer' is?
I don't. There are only good and bad composers”.
So, which
is it? Her career credentials are impeccable. She studied under Henri Busser
and the frères Gallion, winning a first prize in composition and
harmony. She became a respected educator, professor of sight-reading at
the Paris Conservatoire (1943), then of harmony and analysis at the Normal
School of Music (1967). As a composer, her main claim to fame was to foster
the reputation of the saxophone, hitherto disdained as a crude jazz instrument
or at best regarded as a “special effect”. Motivated by her friend Marcel
Mule, a pioneer of the “classical” saxophone, she set about producing music
to demonstrate its capability of “serious” musical expression. I am tempted
to enquire, “Do you know what a 'classical instrument' is? I don't. There
are only good and bad instruments.” So, which is it? Listen, and decide
for yourselves!
Tableaux
de Provence crept into being between 1954-9, during which period Charlie
Parker died, and Brubeck’s Take Five was born. This protracted gestation
is partly because Maurice was not especially prolific but, I suspect, more
because it grew out of the Lantiers’ and Mules’ shared family holidays
in that special part of southern France, a region whose shimmering pastoral
beauty has understandably inspired umpteen artists. The juxtaposition of
evocative scenery and M. Mule’s saxophone may have been the source of Maurice’s
inspiration, but the music also constitutes a real challenge, to composer
and performer alike: to express the quinessentially pastoral through a
medium that is essentially urban, both in origin and association.
1.
Farandole des Jeunes Filles (Dance of the Young Girls)
2.
Chanson Pour ma Mie (Song for my Love)
3.
La Bohemienne (The Bohemian Girl)
4.
Des Alyscamps L'Ame Soupire (The Sigh of the Soul for the Alyscamps)
5.
Le Cabridan (The Big Bee [presumed translation!])
[I am indebted to the saxophonist Sarah Field for
providing a vital fund of information, without which this note would never have got off the ground!]
.
© Paul Serotsky
29, Carr Street,
Kamo,
Whangarei 0101,
Northland,
New Zealand
Conditions
for use apply. Details here
Copyright in these notes is retained by the author without whose prior written permission they may not be used, reproduced, or kept in any form of data storage system. Permission for use will generally be granted on application, free of charge subject to the conditions that (a) the author is duly credited, and (b) a donation is made to a charity of the author's choice.
Return to:
Music
on the Web