Today is the 100th birthday of Marcel Landowski, an anniversary that likely won’t be widely celebrated. Which is too bad.
Landowski, the son of sculptor Paul Landowski (the creator of the statue of Christ that looks over the bay of Rio de Janeiro) and the great-grandson of violinist-composer Henri Vieuxtemps, studied at the Paris Conservatory with, among others, Philippe Gaubert (composition) and Pierre Monteux (conducting). As a child, he also studied harmony and piano with Marguerite Long.
Arthur Honegger was his greatest influence. Among his own compositions are five symphonies, a number of concertos (including one for ondes Martenot!), operas and a mass. He also composed several dozen film scores, including that for the original French version of “Gigi” (not to be confused with the Hollywood musical, which starred Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier and the late Louis Jourdan).
Landowski wrote a biography of Honegger. During his tenure as music director of France’s Ministry of Culture (1964-1974), he was responsible for establishing a number of orchestras, including the Orchestre de Paris.
For him, composition had religious, or at any rate spiritual, overtones. He stated, “True art is always an expression of faith.”
He died in 1999, at the age of 84.
Bon anniversaire, Marcel Landowski.
Concerto for Ondes Martenot, Strings and Percussion (1954):
Movt. I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a4IJ3g_CLg
Movt. II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIdy22KzUR8
You can actually see it played here, if the hand-held camera and the hallucinatory, superimposed keyboard don’t make you crazy:
Symphony No. 3 “des Espaces” (1964):
PHOTO: (left to right) composer Marcel, his son, future architect Marc, and his father, sculptor Paul Landowski