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Biography |
by Uncle Dave Lewis
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French composer Alfred Bachelet was a key figure in French opera in the early years of the twentieth century as both a conductor and performer. Born in Paris, Bachelet studied with Ernest Guiraud at the Paris Conservatoire and won the Prix de Rome cantata in 1890. Afterward, Bachelet joined the staff of the Paris Opéra, where he directed the chorus, and in 1907 he moved up to the position of its principal conductor. Bachelet stepped down from this position in 1919 in order to relieve Guy Ropartz as director of the Conservatoire in Nancy, a post Bachelet held until his death in 1944.
Bachelet composed three operas of his own, of which the last, Un jardin sur l'Oronte (1922), is generally adjudged the most successful. Bachelet also composed orchestral tone poems, of which the very late Sûryâh was once cited by composer and journalist Gustave Samazeuilh as one of the key French works of the World War II era. Bachelet was also industrious as a composer of choruses and songs, and one of the latter, Chèrè nuit (1897), is the work by which he is internationally best known. Composed for Nellie Melba, it is an uncharacteristic work in that it uses a vaguely impressionistic language; for most of his career, Bachelet was regarded as a French post-Romantic whose music was closer to that of Richard Strauss than Debussy. |
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