Severac: Cerdana / En Languedoc

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Cat No: 8555855

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Release Date: 12 January 2003

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313585526

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: SEVERAC

Description
Deodat de Severac (1872-1921)Cerdana En LanguedocThe French composer Deodat de Severac belonged to a family oflong distinction. He was born in 1872 at St Felix de Caraman en Lauragais, inthe Haute-Garonne, the son of a distinguished Toulouse painter, Gilbert deSeverac, his first piano teacher. His mother was descended from the Aragonfamily of Spain, while his great-grandfather had served as naval minister toLouis XVI, the family boasting a descent that went back to the ninth century.The boy studied at the Dominican College of Sor?¿ze, established in 1854 on thesite of an ancient Benedictine foundation, before embarking on a degree in lawat the university in Toulouse. Before long he was able to move to the ToulouseConservatoire, where he was a student from 1893 to 1896. On the recommendationof Charles Bordes, a former pupil of Cesar Franck, he was accepted by Franck'sleading disciple, Vincent d'Indy, as a pupil at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, achoice of institution that he soon found preferable to the more rigidlyconservative academic discipline of the Paris Conservatoire.At the Schola Cantorum Deodat de Severac was a compositionpupil of d'Indy and Alberic Magnard, with organ lessons from AlexandreGuilmant, and piano training with Blanche Selva and with Isaac Albeniz, servingas the latter's assistant from 1900. The period brought connections with fellowstudents, including Albert Roussel, and also with leading painters, sculptorsand writers of the time. His compositions were heard in Paris, thanks in goodmeasure to the advocacy of Blanche Selva and Ricardo Vines. He later returnedto southern France, making his home either at St Felix or at Ceret, the latteran artistic centre for painters such as Braque and Picasso in the second decadeof the twentieth century, earning the place the name of the 'Barbizon ofCubism'. It was at Ceret that de Severac died in 1921.Through his relatively short career de Severac stressed theimportance of local inspiration as a means of preserving a form of music thatwas distinctively French. His songs include settings of texts in Catalan and inProven?ºal, and it was this region, between Marseilles and Barcelona, that drewhis continuing interest and loyalty. His emphasis on the importance ofregionalism, the subject of his Schola Cantorum thesis La centralisation et lespetites chapelles en musique, was in accordance with the prevalent views at theSchola and to some extent with the policies of Action fran?ºaise and CharlesMaurras, a patriotic campaigner for a strong hereditary monarchy that wouldallow significant regional autonomy. De Severac retained his intense localloyalties and interests, but not his sympathy with the Schola. Attitudes ofyounger composers underwent some change, particularly after the scandal at theConservatoire over the denial of the Prix de Rome to Ravel and the subsequentappointment of Gabriel Faure as director, and de Severac had more in commonwith Debussy and Ravel than with the perceived formalism o
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