Henri Constant Gabriel Pierné (1863 – 1937) was a
French composer, conductor, and organist.
Gabriel Pierné was born in Metz in 1863. His family
moved to Paris to escape the Franco-Prussian War. He
studied at the Paris Conservatoire, gaining first
prizes for solfège, piano, organ, counterpoint and
fugue. He won the French Prix de Rome in 1882, with his
cantata Edith. His teachers included Antoine François
Marmontel, Albert Lavignac, Émile Durand, César
Franck (for the organ) and...(+)
Henri Constant Gabriel Pierné (1863 – 1937) was a
French composer, conductor, and organist.
Gabriel Pierné was born in Metz in 1863. His family
moved to Paris to escape the Franco-Prussian War. He
studied at the Paris Conservatoire, gaining first
prizes for solfège, piano, organ, counterpoint and
fugue. He won the French Prix de Rome in 1882, with his
cantata Edith. His teachers included Antoine François
Marmontel, Albert Lavignac, Émile Durand, César
Franck (for the organ) and Jules Massenet (for
composition).
He succeeded César Franck as organist at Saint
Clotilde Basilica in Paris from 1890 to 1898. He
himself was succeeded by another distinguished Franck
pupil, Charles Tournemire. Associated for many years
with Édouard Colonne's concert series, the Concerts
Colonne, from 1903, Pierné became chief conductor of
this series in 1910.
His most notable early performance was the world
premiere of Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird, at
the Ballets Russes, Paris, on 25 June 1910. He remained
in the post until 1933 (when Paul Paray took over his
duties).
He was a master musical craftsman, and his skill is as
apparent in ear candy such as the Canzonetta for
clarinet and piano, Op. 19 (probably composed sometime
during the final decade of the nineteenth century), as
it is in his more weighty, "serious" organ and dramatic
music. The Canzonetta is dedicated "to [his] friend
Charles Turban."
The single-movement Canzonetta divides into several
distinct but connected sections of music. The
clarinet's wistful opening melody has hints of the
siciliano in its dotted rhythms; it is followed by a
new "scherzando" episode in C minor. Here the pianist
is granted the body of thematic action while the
clarinetist adds isolated arpeggios that are derived
from the very first gesture the clarinetist played in
the piece. The dotted rhythms of the opening are
completely dissolved during a more syrupy section in A
flat major (Più lento), but soon the players develop a
hankering for those old siciliano rhythms and return to
the opening music, this time with the tune in the
piano. The close is magical if played well: the
clarinetist makes a whispering run up the treble clef
as the music drops from pianissimo to triple-piano, and
then disappears into the very highest register of the
instrument -- E flat three lines above the staff
(written F on a B flat clarinet)! -- as the pianist
provides a soft harmonic cushion.
I created this transcription at the request of my
friend Dr. leonard Anderson.
SHEET MUSIC