ALEXIS

See also:

• EMMANUEL, or IMMANUEL

EMMANUEL

See also:

• ALEXIS EMMANUEL CHABRIER (1841-1894)

CHABRIER (1841-1894)  , French composer, was born at Ambert, Puy de Dome, on the 18th of January 1841 . At first he only cultivated music as an amateur, and it was not until 1879 that he threw up an administration appointment in order to devote himself entirely to the art . He had two years previously written an opera bouffe entitled L'Etoile, which was performed at the Bouffes Parisiens . In 1881 he was appointed chorus-master of the concerts then recently established by Lamoureux . In 1883 he composed the brilliant orchestral rhapsody entitled Espana, the themes of which he had jotted down when travelling in Spain . His opera Gwendoline was brought out with considerable success at Brussels on the loth of April 1886, and was given later at the Paris Grand Opera . The following year 1887, Le Roi malgre lui, an opera of a lighter description, was produced in Paris at the Opera Comique, its run being interrupted by the terrible fire by which this theatre was destroyed . His last opera, Briseis, was left unfinished, and performed in a fragmentary condition at the Paris Opera, after the composer's death in Paris on the 13th of September 1894 . Chabrier was also the author of a set of piano pieces entitled Pieces pittoresques, Valses romantiques, for two pianos, a fantasia for horn and piano, &c . His great admiration for Wagner asserted itself in Gwendoline, a work which, in spite of inequalities due to want of experience, is animated by a high artistic ideal, is poetically conceived, and shows considerable harmonic originality, besides a thorough mastery over the treatment of the orchestra . The characteristics of Le Roimalgre lui have been well summed up by M . Joncieres when he alludes to " cette verve inepuisable, ces rythmes endiables, cette exuberance de gaiete et de vigueur, a laquelle venait se joindre la note melancolique et emue." Chabrier's premature death prevented him from giving the full measure of his worth .