Eugène COOLS

Born 27 March 1877, Eugène Cools studied under Gedalge, Fauré and Widor at the Paris Conservatoire. Having been Gedalge’s assistant in his counterpoint and fugue classes for many years (from 1907 to 1923), he became professor at the École Normale de Musique, where he taught harmonic analysis and musical structure. He wrote a treatise on counterpoint published around 1913. At the same time as his teaching commitments, he pursued a career as a critic at Le Monde and as a music publisher, running the Maison Eschig. Eugène Cools also composed a large body of works which enjoyed a fair degree of popularity during his lifetime. In 1906, his Symphony in C Minor op. 59, earned him one of the prestigious Concours Crescent prizes. The work was subsequently a huge public success when performed at the Concerts Colonne on 20 January 1907. Apart from this symphony, Cools’ catalogue includes several orchestral pieces, many of which were programme works (in particular the symphonic poems La Mort de Chénier and Hop-Frog; as well as the incidental music for Hamlet, Le Souper de Noël and Le Jugement de Midas). HIs concertante works were characterised by the same willingness to embrace extra-musical inspirations: they include two Poèmes, for viola and for piano. Cools also left behind several works of chamber music, some art songs and a large number of stage works. In addition to two operas (Kymris and Le Jugement de Midas), a lyric drama (Jellulura), a pastoral (Narcisse) and a ballet (Lydia), there are a dozen operettas and musical comedies, such as François réserviste, Le Dîner de Pierrot, Les Violettes de la Malmaison, or Ravioli aubergiste. Cools also made transcriptions of the Viennese Waltzes by the two Johann Strausses, senior and junior, and arranged the music of Rossini for an opéra bouffe, Beaumarchais, set to a libretto by André Baugé.