Product Description
Koechlin (1867-1950) was an extremely prolific French composer in virtually every genre. In the 1930s, he became fascinated with motion pictures with sound, and also becaome obsessed with film star Lillian Harvey. Conceived as 89 different vignettes for piano and other instruments, Le Portrait de Daisy Hamilton is a thinly veiled tribute to Lillian Harvey. Published here for the first time. ... Read more

Product Description
Koechlin (1867-1950) was an extremely prolific French composer in virtually every genre. In the 1930s, he became fascinated with motion pictures with sound, and also becaome obsessed with film star Lillian Harvey. Conceived as 89 different vignettes for piano and other instruments, Le Portrait de Daisy Hamilton is a thinly veiled tribute to Lillian Harvey. Published here for the first time. ... Read more

Book Description
Lavishly illustrated with photographic and musical examples, this book provides the first comprehensive evaluation of Koechlin's life and works. As well as concentrating on major symphonic works like Koechlin's jungle Book cycle, it also discusses his attraction to the early sound film and themusic inspired by such stars as Lilian Harvey, Marlene Dietrich and Charlie Chaplin in the 1930s.
Koechlin's career provides a fascinating study of the triumph of integrity and independence over almost overwhelming odds and his rich and varied output offers a veritable treasure-trove for performers, scholars and enthusiasts alike.
In 1942, Wilfred Mellers classed Koechlin "among the select number of contemporary composers who really matter", yet it is only in teh 1980s that Koechlin began to achieve the recognition he deserves as a composer of breadth, vision andpowerful originality: a pioneer of polytonality and a master orchestrator who was greatly admired by contemporaries such as Fauré, Debus ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

comprehensive,analytical and provoking
Robert Orledge is a consummate musicologist working in Liverpool, and this work on the neglected French composer Charles Koechlin is a wonderful profile of his entire life's work. Koechlin was a contemporary of Debussy, and Satie, yet we seldom have heard his music. Even today there is scantrecordings, and what there was in the past was inferior to our modern earsnow. I recall an excellent early disc however with the BBC Orchestra underAntal Dorati with Koechlin's Bander-Log, with Messiaen and Boulez worksincluded.Today however there are exceptions with conductor Simon Rattle,and David Zinman here.The Koechlin aesthetic followed a lifelongfascination with a full spectrum of conceptual complexities in nature, butalso classical mythology, Roman civilization, the jungle, the night,starlit sky, dreams and fantasy, yearnings for distant shores, also the seaand water. Water in particular inspired the wonderful set of piano solos"Paysages et marines (1915-16) subtitled Landscapes andSeascapes.There you will find the piano evoking a fluidity largly bysustained sounds in the lower regions of the piano,shaped yet waiting forits full decay.Creativily Koechlin was a miniaturist finding genres(as thepiano solo)as deep recepticles for these countless images,where one workcould scour through some 40 images. The Chants de Nectaires is an exampleand has an unusual premise as well, it is a work for unaccompanied flute ofsome three hours,with an array of dances,prayers, and songs. The virtuosoPierre-Yves Artaud has edited a performing version, after years ofneglect.Koechlin's other side is the Sonatinas for piano which arechildlike in their harmonic simplicity,yet not facile in their conception.Orledge identifies all of the genres in Koechlin's creative edifice with adeep focus on the elements of music at work here. Rhythm was not asimportant as harmony for instnace,yet inmelody reigns supreme.He abhorredrhythmic excursion for the mere sake of it. If anything at all Koechlin'screativity utilized his innate gift for lyricism.And being lyrical impliesa reduced focus on harmonic progression of rhythmic complexity. Orledgeadmirable covers each in succession. His life is treated in periods ratherthan genres, in that he wrote in each,however incomplete and at timesimmature that creative process proved to be.Also there is a look at hisuniqueness as an orchestrator.There are wonderful vintage photographs aswell as numerous musical examples, many being reductions and transpositionsfrom the original source. ... Read more