Pierre-Octave Ferroud

Pierre-Octave Calixte Ferroud (6 January 1900 – 17 August 1936)^[1] was a French composer of classical music.

Life

Ferroud was born in Chasselay, Rhône, near Lyon. He went to Lyon, to Strasbourg (for military service from 1920-2) where he studied with Guy Ropartz,^[2] and again to Lyon where he was for a time an associate and "disciple" of Florent Schmitt, and a pupil of Georges Martin Witkowski.^[3] He then travelled to Paris in 1923, settling as a composer and music critic.^[4] In 1932, together with Henry Barraud, Jean Rivier and Emmanuel Bondeville, he founded Triton, a contemporary music society.^[5][6]

In a letter to Boris Asafiev, Sergei Prokofiev described his encounter with Ferroud, praised the Symphony in A and suggested that Asafiev might have a look at it. Ferroud's opera, he reported, impressed him much less.^[7]

He wrote a biographical work about his mentor Florent Schmitt (whom he was, nevertheless, to pre-decease - Schmitt died 31 years after Autour de Florent Schmitt was published, in 1958.)

Ferroud was a regular contributor of musical reviews and essays to the journal Paris-Soir.

He died in 1936, when he was decapitated in a road accident in Debrecen, in Hungary. On hearing of Ferroud's death, Francis Poulenc wrote to Georges Auric of his distress.^[8]

Selected compositions

• Andante cordial (1919/26)^[1]
• Types (Vieux Beau - Bourgeoise de qualité - Businessman)(1922-1924) (recorded by Emmanuel Krivine and the Orchestre National de Lyon)^[9]
• Foules (1922-1924) (recorded by Krivine)^[9]
• Sérénade (piano and orchestra) (1927)
• Chirugie 1927 (opéra comique)
• Jeunesse (1929-1933) (ballet in two scenes)
• Chansons de Fous
• Sonnerie pour le Hérault (1935)
• Le Porcher (1924) (ballet)
• March for L'éventail de Jeanne (collaborative work by Auric, Ferroud and others) (1927) (ballet)^[1]
• Monte-Carlo (1928)
• Sérénade pour orchestre (1927) (Berceuse; Pavane; Spiritual)^[10]
• Symphonie en la (1930) in three movements ^[1][10](recorded by Krivine)^[9]
• Chirurgie vers. orchestrale (1930)^[1](recorded by Krivine)^[9]
• Trois pièces pour flûte seule (1920-1921)^[1]
• Spiritual (guitar) (1926) ^[1]
• Sonate pour violon et piano (1929)^[1]
• Sonate el la mineur pour violoncelle et piano (1930)^[1]
• Trio à vent en mi (1933)^[1]
• Quatuor à cordes (1932-1936)^[11]
• Sarabande (1920/1926)
• Au parc Monceau (1921-1925)
• Sarabande pour piano (1920)
• Sarabande pour orchestre (1920-1926)
• Sonatine en ut dièse (in C♯) (1928)
• Fables (1931)
• A contre-cœur (1922-1925)
• Cinq poèmes de P.J. Toulet (1927)
• Cinq poèmes de P. Valéry (1929)
• Trois chansons de J. Supervielle (1932)
• Trois poèmes intimes de Goethe (1932)