Jules_Massenet

Jules Massenet
Jules (Émile Frédéric) Massenet (May 12, 1842 – August 13, 1912) was a French composer. He is best known for his operas, which were very popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Massenet was very able to use the orchestra and vocalists to reveal a plot and the personalities of characters on stage to the delight of the audience. The music that he created made the plot and characters more believable and he thus could impart a bit of his wisdom in the cultivation of character and moral growth through music education. Massenet's works later fell into oblivion for the most part, but have undergone periodic revivals since the 1980s. Certainly Manon and Werther have held the scene uninterruptedly for well over a century.

Contents

1 Biography
2 Works of Jules Massenet

2.1 Opera
2.2 Oratorios and Cantatas
2.3 Ballets
2.4 Orchestral


3 Legacy
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links
7 Credits



Biography
Massenet was born in Montaud, then an outlying hamlet and now a part of the city of Saint-Étienne, in the French département of the Loire. When he was eleven his family moved to Paris so that he could study at the Conservatoire there. In 1862, he won a Grand Prix de Rome and spent three years in Rome. His first opera was a one-act production at the at Opéra-Comique in 1867, but it was his dramatic oratorio, Marie-Magdeleine, that won him the praise of the likes of Tchaikovsky and Gounod.
Massenet took a break from his composing to serve as a soldier in the Franco-Prussian War, but returned to his art following the end of the conflict in 1871. From 1878, he was professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory where his pupils included Gustave Charpentier, Reynaldo Hahn, and Charles Koechlin. His greatest successes were Manon in 1884, Werther in 1892, and Thaïs in 1894. A notable later opera was Don Quichotte, produced in Monte Carlo 1910, with the legendary Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin in the title-role.

Works of Jules Massenet
Massenet used Wagner's leitmotiv technique but gave it a Gallic lightness, a style considered by some, perhaps, to be a bit saccharine. The dry and stern Vincent d'Indy, for instance, accused him of purveying "un érotisme discret et quasi-réligieux"; while the ferocious polemicist Léon Daudet cordially loathed Massenet's manner, likening it to "the inflamed sensuality of the lyrebird or the peacock spreading his tail."[1] In his lifetime, however, Massenet was one of the most popular and successful composers in the world, and the best of his music contains a vitality and charm that has lasted to this day. He was a consummate melodist and man-of-the-theatre and, for better or worse, a completely individual creative artist. None of his music could ever be confused for anyone else's.
In addition to his operas, he also composed concert suites, ballet music, oratorios, and cantatas and about two hundred songs. Some of his non-vocal output has achieved widespread popularity, and is commonly performed: for example the Méditation réligieuse from Thaïs, which is a violin solo with orchestra, as well as the Aragonaise, from his opera Le Cid and Élégie for solo piano. The latter two pieces are commonly played by piano students.

Opera
La grand'tante - 1867
Don César de Bazan - 1872
Le roi de Lahore - 1877
Hérodiade - 1881
Manon - 1884
Le Cid (opera) - 1885
Esclarmonde - 1889
Le mage - 1891
Werther - 1892
Thaïs (opera) - 1894
Le portrait de Manon - 1894
La Navarraise - 1894
Sapho (opera) - 1897
Cendrillon - 1899
Grisélidis - 1901
Le jongleur de Notre-Dame - 1902
Chérubin - 1903
Ariane (opera) - 1906
Thérèse (opera) - 1907
Bacchus (opera) - 1909
Don Quichotte - 1910
Roma (opera) - 1912
Panurge (opera) - 1913
Cléopâtre - 1914
Amadis (opera) - 1922
Oratorios and Cantatas
David Rizzio - 1863
Marie-Magdeleine - 1873
Ève - 1875
Narcisse - 1877
La Vierge - 1880
Biblis - 1886
La Terre Promise - 1900
Ballets
Le Carillon (ballet) - 1892
Cigale - 1904
Espada - 1908
L'histoire de Manon (arr. Leighton Lucas) - 1974
Orchestral
Première suite d'orchestre - 1867
Scènes hongroises - 1870
Scènes pittoresques - 1874
Scènes dramatiques - 1875
Scènes napolitaines - 1876
Scènes de féerie - 1881
Scènes alsaciennes - 1882
Fantaisie pour violoncelle et orchestre - 1897
Concerto pour piano et orchestre - 1903
Legacy
Jules Massenet is most famous for his operas, Manon and Werther, and the solo violin, Méditation, from Thaïs. His ability to create music which portrays the intimacy of human relationships and the emotions and conflicts that arise from them became his greatest achievement. He enjoyed wide popularity, which led to great wealth and acclaim from his public. Jules Massenet was unique in his concern for the well-being of others, especially in the scoring of his musical compositions, and with that concern, brought out the very best from the performers a well as the listeners.

Notes

↑ Using Werther to Teach Humanities, The Metropolitan Opera, 2007.


ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
Harding, James. Massenet. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1971. OCLC 127270
Massenet, Jules, Edouard Blau, Paul Milliet, Georges Hartmann, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Werther: opera in four acts. U.S.: G. Schirmer; Winona, MN: H. Leonard Publishing Corp., 1968. OCLC 30320663
Massenet, Jules. Manon. London: J. Calder; NY: Riverrun Press, 1984. ISBN 0714540412
External links
All links retrieved October 4, 2022.

IMSLP – Public Domain Sheet Music by Massenet.

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