A Selection of Letters from Déodat de Séverac

Abstract

Twenty-five years ago, I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the life and piano works of Deodat de Severac (1872-1921), a contemporary of Debussy and Ravel, widely honored in his lifetime but consigned almost to oblivion some forty years after his death. In the quarter century since I embarked on my efforts to bring him some of the recognition that was his due, two complete series of recordings of his entire piano oeuvre have been released; an Association of Friends of Deodat de Severac has been established; a new biography is in the works; an earlier one by Joseph Canteloube, never before published, will soon be in print. For the last few years, his home town, St. Felix, has been the site of summer chamber music festivals; and soon, his birthplace will become a museum of memorabilia of the composer and his friends. De Severac produced a corpus of piano works that reveal his deep love of the countryside in southwestern France, near Spain. These pieces bear titles similar to those of Albeniz, whose assistant he was for a few years at the Schola Cantorum, the school established in Paris in 1890 by Charles Bordes (1863-1909) and Vincent d'Indy (1851-1931). They also contain some of the color and picturesque quality of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. But one hardly acquired fame through the composition of piano pieces, and like every other musician at the beginning of the century, Severac recognized that to attain any kind of eminence would require the composition of at least one opera for Paris. He wrote not one but two in that genre: Le Coeur du moulin, produced in 1909 at the Opera-Comique and Heliogabale, performed at the arena in Beziers in 1910. In 1907, as a new graduate of the Schola, Severac entered the mainstream of music and musicians in Paris and apparently was promised a performance of Le Coeur du moulin, an event that did not occur until two years later. After the successful outdoor performance of Heliogabale - fifteen thousand crowded into the arena to hear the opera - the French cellist and conductor Louis Hasselmans (1878-1957) determined to present a concert version at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, using several of the Cobla players from Ceret (another town in the south of France, where Severac. lived for a time) to give the work an authentic folkloric air. Severac's works met with considerable success and for a time he joined the ranks of celebrated musicians of his day. But he was not happy. More and more Severac sought the peaceful surroundings of his native village, St. Felix. A generous, jovial man, he preferred the tranquillity of Languedoc to the bustle of Paris, and he soon settled permanently in Ceret surrounded by a group of artists that included Picasso, Frank Haviland, Stuart Merrill, Aristide Maillol, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Marie Laurencin, Andre Salmon, Max Jacob, and the Greek expatriot Moreas. Several of them established residence in the town, which, for a time became known as the Mecca of Cubism. Later Severac began dividing his time between St. Felix and Ceret. Like many young composers, Severac was concerned with obtaining appropriate performances of his works. How do I get a performance? he asked himself. How do I get the best singers I need? What kind of involvements do these artists have that might prevent their participation in my work? Who can advise me? For answers to these questions, Severac sought the advice of his teacher and friend Charles Bordes. Paul Poujaud, a lawyer who was a close friend of Debussy, also made himself available to the young man for suggestions and assistance. Moreas, (the pseudonym of Iannis Pappadiamantopoulos, 1856-1910), the first writer to use the designation Symbolist, became another confidant. He and the critic Pierre Lalo (1866-1943) are among the correspondents to whom Severac wrote during 1906 to 1911. I recently acquired several of his letters at auction, and I thought they might interest readers. …