Jean-Michel DAMASE

Son of the harpist, Micheline Kahn, Jean-Michel Damase was raised in a family of musicians and showed a precocious talent for the piano and composition. He wrote his first works when he was still a child: at the age of nine, he met the writer Colette and set several of her poems to music. At the age of twelve, he joined Cortot’s class at the École Normale de Musique before becoming a pupil of Armand Ferté at the Paris Conservatoire the following year. In 1943, he was unanimously awarded the Premier Prix for piano. Two years later, he began studying composition under Büsser and harmony and counterpoint under Dupré. After winning a Premier Prix for composition with his Quintet, Damase received the Premier Prix de Rome in 1947 for his cantata Et la belle se réveilla. At the same time as studying composition, he pursued a brilliant career as a concert pianist, performing, among others, with the Concerts Colonne, the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, as well as the ORTF orchestra. In 1960, his recording of the first complete set of Faure’s Nocturnes and Barcarolles earned him the Grand Prix du Disque. Damase’s works bear the hallmark of his early initiation into music and his extensive abilities. His instrumental pieces show his complete mastery of orchestration and his quest for an idiomatic style of writing for each of the instruments he wrote works for. Particularly interested in the genre of ballet, he collaborated in particular with the dancer and choreographer, Roland Petit. He also worked on several operas with Jean Anouilh, who wrote the librettos for Colombe (1958), Madame de… (1969) and Eurydice (1972). This last work demonstrates Damase’s liking for parody, also apparent in Eugène le mystérieux, in which he makes reference to the works of Liszt, Adam and Offenbach.