Marcel GRANDJANY

Marcel Grandjany, who was orphaned at the age of four, came from a musical family: his uncle, Lucien Grandjany (1862-1891), was a composer and organist and a repetiteur at the Paris Conservatoire, his father had apparently worked for the Érard piano firm, and his cousin Juliette, who with her mother, his aunt, raised him, had studied harmony and accompaniment at the Paris Conservatoire. Initially taught by his cousin, Marcel Grandjany went on to study music theory at the Conservatoire, before taking private harp lessons with Henriette Renié, whom he held in the highest esteem throughout his life. In 1902 he entered the harp class directed by Hasselmans at the Paris Conservatoire, and at the age of thirteen he was awarded the coveted Premier Prix. A few months after his first public concert (with the orchestra of the Concerts Lamoureux for the première of Variations plaisantes sur un thème grave by Roger Ducasse), he left the Conservatoire with first prizes for harmony and for counterpoint and fugue (1909). In 1914 he was called up, but for health reasons was not sent to the front; his international career had to be put on hold until the war was over. After creating (1921) and directing for several years the harp class at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, he left Europe in 1936 to escape the rise of Nazism and settled first in New York, then in Montreal. He continued to appear as a soloist until 1970. Grandjany was the author of numerous transcriptions aimed at expanding the harp repertoire. He also composed original pieces for that instrument, including Le Vanneur, Baiser d’enfant and Parmi les marronniers, as well as piano music and art songs (mélodies).