Frank Martin (composer)
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Frank Martin (September 15, 1890 – November 21, 1974) was a Swiss composer, who lived a large part of his life in the Netherlands, but always remained famous in Switzerland.
He was born in Geneva, the tenth and last child of Charles Martin, a pastor. Before he started school, he was already playing the piano and improvising. At nine, he was composing complete, fully formed songs, without having had any instruction in song forms or harmony. A performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion which he heard at the age of 12 left a lasting impression, and Bach became his true master.
He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Geneva for two years, working on composition and studying piano with Joseph Lauber on the side. From 1918 to 1926, he lived in Zürich, Rome, and Paris. The compositions of this period show him searching for his own musical language.
In 1926, he founded the Société de Musique de Chambre de Genève, which he directed as pianist and harpsichordist for ten years. During this time, he also taught theory and improvisation at the Jaques-Dalcrose Institute and chamber music at the Geneva Conservatory.
He was director of the Technicum Moderne de Musique from 1933 to 1940 and president of the Association of Swiss Musicians from 1942 to 1946.
He moved to the Netherlands in 1946 to find more time for his composition than in Switzerland, where he was involved in too many other activities. He lived for ten years in Amsterdam, and finally settled in Naarden.
From 1950 to 1957, he taught composition at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany. At that time, he renounced teaching and concentrated on his composition, leaving it only for occasional chamber music tours and conducting engagements (of his own works).
His better known compositions include:
- Quatre pièces brèves for guitar (1933)
- Le vin herbé (1938)
- Petite symphonie concertante (1944)
- In terra pax (1944)
- Concerto for seven wind instruments, timpani, and strings (1949)
- Golgotha (1949)
- Polyptyque, for violin and two small string orchestras (1973)
- Requiem (1973)
He also wrote a full-scale symphony (1937), two piano concertos, a harpsichord concerto, a violin concerto, a cello concerto, and a series of ballades for various solo instruments with piano or orchestra.
He developed a style based on Arnold Schoenberg's twelve tone method, having become interested in this around 1932, but did not abandon tonality.
He worked on his last cantata, Et la Vie l'Emporta until ten days before his death. He died in Naarden.
External link
- The Frank Martin society (http://www.frankmartin.org/english.html)da:Frank Martin