Maurice Delage

Maurice Charles Delage (13 November 1879 – 19 or 21 September 1961) was a French composer and pianist.^[1]

Maurice Delage 1912

Life and career

Maurice Charles Delage was born and died in Paris. He first worked as a clerk for a maritime agency in Paris, and later as a fishmonger in Boulogne. He also served for a time in the French army, before embarking on a music career in his twenties.^[2] A student of Ravel, who proclaimed him one of the supreme French composers of his day,^[3] and member of Les Apaches, he was influenced by travels to India and Japan in 1912, when he accompanied his father on a business trip.^[4] Ravel's "La vallée des cloches" from Miroirs was dedicated to Delage.

Delage's best known piece is Quatre poèmes hindous (1912–1913).^[5] His Ragamalika (1912–1922), based on the classical music of India, is significant in that it calls for prepared piano; the score specifies that a piece of cardboard be placed under the strings of the B-flat in the second line of the bass clef to dampen the sound, imitating the sound of an Indian drum.

Selected works

Poèmes symphoniques

• Conté par la mer (1908)
• Les Bâtisseurs de ponts (1913) after Rudyard Kipling
• Overture to Ballet de l'avenir (1923)
• Contrerimes (1931), orchestration of pieces for piano
• Bateau ivre (1954) after the poem by Arthur Rimbaud
• Cinq danses symphoniques (1958)

Chamber music

• String quartet (1949)
• Suite française for string quartet (1958)

Mélodies (voice and piano)

• Trois mélodies (1909)
• Ragamalika, chant tamoul (1914)
• Trois poèmes (1922)
• Ronsard à sa muse (1924)
• Les Colombes (1924)
• La Chanson de ma mie (1924)
• Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1924)
• Sobre las Olas (1924) on a poem by Jean Cocteau
• Toute allégresse (1925) on a poem by Paul-Jean Toulet

Mélodies (voice with instrumental ensemble)

• Quatre poèmes hindous (1912)
• Sept haï-kaïs (1924) for soprano and chamber orchestra (to be sung without a break between songs)

1. Préface du Kokinshū (tanka by Ki no Tsurayuki), dedicated to Mrs. Louis Laloy ;
2. Les herbes de l’oubli…, dedicated to Andrée Vaurabourg (future spouse of Arthur Honegger) ;
3. Le coq…, dedicated to Jane Bathori (première performer of the work) ;
4. La petite tortue…, dedicated to Mrs. Fernand Dreyfus (the mother of Roland-Manuel) ;
5. La lune d’automne…, dedicated to Suzanne Roland-Manuel (the spouse of Roland-Manuel) ;
6. Alors…, dedicated to Denise Jobert (the daughter of the editor) ;
7. L’été…, dedicated to Georgette Garban.

• Deux fables de La Fontaine (1931), Le Corbeau et le Renard, and La Cigale et la Fourmi
• Trois chants de la jungle (1934) after Kipling
• In morte di un samouraï (1950) on a collection of haïkaïses and tankas by Pierre Pascal
• Trois poèmes désenchantés (1955)

Music for solo piano

• Schumann... (1918)
• Contrerimes (1927)