DUTILLEUX, HENRI (1916–2013)

Jean-Pierre Armengaud is considered a leading interpreter of French music and a specialist in impressionist and expressionist repertoire, and is renowned for his ‘fluidly supple playing, his round and mellow tone’ (Classica). As a concert artist his programmes are notable for the extent and variety of their repertoire. He has appeared in major concert halls around the world, performing in over 40 countries, and given masterclasses at leading conservatoires. His albums for Naxos and Grand Piano feature music by Debussy, Roussel, Poulenc, Aubert, d’Indy, Dutilleux and others. As a musicologist and writer he has published a biography of Erik Satie (Fayard, 2009, which won the 2009 Prix des Muses) and a book of essays on Debussy, Claude Debussy: La trace et l’écart (L’Harmattan, 2018). He has been director for musical programming at Radio France and is associate professor at the Paris-Sorbonne University and professor emeritus at the University of Évry Val d’Essonne at Paris-Saclay University.

Born in Angers on 22 January 1916, Henri Dutilleux grew up in Douai, studying piano, harmony and counterpoint at the conservatoire there with Victor Gallois, before moving to Paris in 1933. At the Paris Conservatoire he studied with the Gallon brothers, as well as with Maurice Emmanuel and Henri Büsser, winning the Prix de Rome in 1938 with the cantata L’anneau du roi. Returning to France at the outbreak of war, he worked at the Paris Opéra; then, in 1945, began an 18-year tenure as director of music productions at Radio France. From 1963 he devoted himself to composition, while being in demand as a guest teacher in France and at summer schools abroad. He died in Paris on 22 May 2013.