Georges Delerue
Georges Delerue | |
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Background information | |
Born | Roubaix, France | 12 March 1925
Died | 20 March 1992 Los Angeles, California, U.S. | (aged 67)
Genres | Film scores, classical |
Occupation(s) | Composer |
Instrument(s) | Piano, clarinet |
Years active | 1947–1992 |
Website | www |
Georges Delerue (12 March 1925 – 20 March 1992) was a French composer who composed over 350
The French newspaper Le Figaro named him "the Mozart of cinema."[3] Delerue was the first composer to win three consecutive César Awards for Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1979), Love on the Run (1980), and The Last Metro (1981). Georges Delerue was named Commander of Arts and Letters, one of France's highest honours.[4]
Early life and education
Delerue was born 12 March 1925 in
In 1945, following his studies at the Roubaix conservatory, Delerue was accepted into the Conservatoire de Paris, where he studied fugue with Simone Plé-Caussade and composition with Henri Büsser. To help support himself, he took jobs playing at dances, baptisms, marriages, and funerals—even performing jazz in the piano bars near the Paris Opera.
In 1947 he received an honorable mention for the Rome Prize, and the following year he won the Second Grand Rome Prize. That year at the Theater Festival of Avignon, Delerue conducted a performance of Scheherazade. In the 1949 Rome Prize competition, he won the First Second Grand Prize, and the First Prize for Composition.[5] He began writing stage music during the late 1940s, including for the Théâtre National Populaire, Comédie-Française and the company of Jean-Louis Barrault.[6] He also became friends with Maurice Jarre and Pierre Boulez.[6]
Career
By the early 1950s Delerue was composing music for short films and writing theatrical music for the Théâtre Babylone and the Opéra Comique. He began collaborating with Boris Vian on a number of projects during this time, including theatrical adaptations of The Snow Knight and The Builders of Empire, an oratorio A Regrettable Incident, and a ballet The Barker. In 1952 he began directing the orchestra of the Club d'Essai for French National Radio and Television, and scored his first television drama Princes du sang. In 1954 he wrote his first compositions for historical spectacles of light and sound, Lisieux and The Liberation of Paris. In 1955 he composed his Concert Symphony for Piano and Orchestra, and on 31 January 1957 his opera The Snow Knight premiered at Nancy and was a popular success. In 1959 he composed his first score for a feature film, Le bel âge.[5]
His career was diverse and he composed frequently for major art house directors, most often François Truffaut (including Jules and Jim), but also for Jean-Luc Godard's film Contempt (Le Mépris), and for Alain Resnais, Louis Malle, and Bernardo Bertolucci, besides later working on several Hollywood productions, including Oliver Stone's Platoon and Salvador. Another director Delerue composed for was Ken Russell, who in return filmed a BBC documentary about Delerue entitled Don't Shoot the Composer (1966).
He composed the music for
Delerue also made cameo appearances in La nuit americaine and Les deux anglaises et le continent.[6]
Collaborations with Jack Clayton
Delerue composed the music for five of the films made by the noted British director
Working methods
According to many testimonies Delerue would do and redo some cues to fit the new editing of a sequence without any protestation. He insisted on being allowed to orchestrate and conduct himself in order to polish every detail. Georges Delerue had a great talent for melody and for creating surrounding overtones which encapsulated the spirit of the movies on which he collaborated, enhancing them often beyond the expectations of their directors.
Death
Georges Delerue died on 20 March 1992 from a
Filmography
Georges Delerue composed the musical scores for 351 feature films, television movies, television series, documentaries, and short films. The following is a list of feature films for which he composed the music.
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- Memento Mori1 (1992) (A BBC drama)
Discography
The following is a select list of albums of the music of Georges Delerue.[9]
- Jules et Jim (1961)
- Cent Mille Dollars Au Soleil (1963)
- Il Conformista (1970)
- Paul Gauguin (1974)
- A Little Romance (1979)
- The Borgias (1981)
- Vivement Dimanche! (1981)
- La Femma d'A Cote (1983)
- Agnes of God (1984)
- The London Sessions (1990)
- Delerue: Suite Cinématographique, Tirée des films (1990)
- Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent (1991)
- Black Robe (1992)
- Diên Biên Phú (1992)
- Man Trouble (1992)
- Rich in Love (1992)
- Like a Boomerang (1993)
- Georges Delerue: Music from the Films of François Truffaut (1997)
- Comme un Boomerang (2000)
- Joe Versus the Volcano (2002)
- True Confessions (2005)
- An Almost Perfect Affair (2006)
- The Pick-Up Artist (2006)
- The Cinema of François Truffaut (2007)
- Promise at Dawn (2008)
- Georges Delerue: Jules et Jim; Les Deux Anglaises (2008)
- Partitions Inedites (2011)
Other compositions
- Operas: Ariane; Le chevalier de neige; Une regrettable histoire; Médis et Alyssio
- Ballets: L'emprise; Conte cruel; La leçon; Les trois mousquetaires
- Diptyque for flute
- Duos pour flûte et guitare
- Concerto pour Trombone
- Visages (for guitar)
- Mosaique (for guitar)
- Graphic (for guitar)
- Antienne 1 for violin and piano
- Concerto de l'Adieu
- Aria et Final
- Mouvements pour instruments à percussion et piano
- Stances for cello and piano
- Violin Sonata
- Récit et choral for trumpet and organ
- Madrigal, for solo trombone and five trombones (published 1999)
- Fanfares Pour Tous Les Temps for brass
- Cérémonial (for brass ensemble)
- Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano
- Prélude & danse for oboe and piano
- String Quartet No. 1
- String Quartet No. 2
Awards and nominations
- 1969 Best Original Score (Anne of the Thousand Days)
- 1969 Golden Globe Award Nomination for Best Original Score(Anne of the Thousand Days)
- 1970 BAFTA AwardNomination for Film Music (Women in Love)
- 1973 Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Score (The Day of the Dolphin)
- 1973 Golden Globe Award Nomination for Best Original Score (The Day of the Dolphin)
- 1977 Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Score (Julia)
- 1977 Best Music Written for a Film(Police Python 357)
- 1979 Academy Award for Best Original Score (A Little Romance) Won
- 1979 César Award for Best Music Written for a Film (Get Out Your Handkerchiefs) Won
- 1979 Golden Globe Award Nomination for Best Original Score (A Little Romance)
- 1979 BAFTA Award Nomination for Film Music (Julia)
- 1980 César Award for Best Music Written for a Film (Love on the Run) Won
- 1981 César Award for Best Music Written for a Film (The Last Metro) Won
- 1983 César Award Nomination for Best Music Written for a Film (La passante du Sans-Souci)
- 1984 César Award Nomination for Best Music Written for a Film (One Deadly Summer)
- 1985 Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Score (Agnes of God)
- 1988 ASCAP Award for Top Box Office Film (Twins) Won
- 1990 ASCAP Award for Top Box Office Film (Platoon) Won
- 1991 Best Original Score (Black Robe) Won
- 1992 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Original Music Score (Black Robe) Won
- 1993 César Award Nomination for Best Music Written for a Film (Dien Bien Phu)[10]
References
- ^ a b "Georges Delerue". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
- ^ "Georges Delerue". Soundtrack Guide. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
- ^ "Georges Delerue". The Criterion Collection. Archived from the original on 18 May 2013. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
- ^ "Georges Delerue Biography". BBC. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
- ^ a b c d "Georges Delerue Biography". Official Web Site. Archived from the original on 25 January 2012. Retrieved 5 March 2012.
- ^ a b c Brill, Mark. Georges Delerue. In: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition. Macmillan, London, 2001.
- ^ Stephanie Lerouge, CD liner notes for Georges Delerue Unused Scores (Universal France, 2011)
- ^ "Georges Delerue, 67, a Composer On Truffaut and Stone Films, Dies". The New York Times. 23 March 1992. Retrieved 6 March 2012.
- ^ "Georges Delerue". Allmusic. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
- ^ "Awards for Georges Delerue". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
External links
- Official website
- Georges Delerue at IMDb
- [French] Book : Georges Delerue, la musique au service de l'image, Daniel Bastié, Éd. Grand Angle, 2014.
- Georges Delerue at Soundtrack Guide
- Georges Delerue Biography (French)