Maurice Jaubert (3 January 1900 – 19 June 1940) was a prolific French composerGrove Music Online - Jaubert, Maurice by Mark Brill accessed 2 June 2020. who scored some of the most important films of the early sound era in France, including Jean Vigo’s Zero for Conduct and L'Atalante, and René Clair’s Quatorze Juillet and Le Dernier Milliardaire. Many of his film scores were used as the basis for concert pieces. The song "À Paris, dans chaque faubourg" full score, Paris, bibliothèques patrimoniales, on Gallica remains well known today. François Truffaut used his music posthumously in four of his films.
Serving in both world wars, he died in action during World War II at the age of 40.
Early life and education Born in Nice on 3 January 1900, he was the second son of François Jaubert, a lawyer who would become the president of the Nice bar. Jaubert grew up in a musical household, and began playing the piano aged five.Landormy, Paul. La Musique française après Debussy – Chapter X – De Droite et de Gauche (Suite): Maurice Jaubert. Gallimard, 1943, p318-322. After gaining his baccalaureat from the Lycée Masséna in Nice in 1916, he enrolled at the Nice Conservatory of Music, where he studied harmony, counterpoint and piano. He was awarded the first piano prize in 1916. He left for Paris and studied law and literature at the Sorbonne. When he returned to his native town in 1919, he was the youngest lawyer in France.
Career
Beginnings His first compositions date from this period but soon after he undertook his military service and became an officer in engineering. Demobilized in 1922, Jaubert decided to give up law practice and devote all his time to music. The next year, he completed his musical education in Paris with Albert Groz, while undertaking a variety of music related jobs such as proof correction and checking Pleyela rolls.
Jaubert's compositions in the early 1920s include songs, piano pieces, chamber music, and divertissements. He wrote his first stage music in 1925 for a play by Calderón, Le Magicien prodigieux, using the Pleyela, a revolutionary player piano at the time. He was then hired by Pleyel to record rolls on the Pleyela. Indeed, Jaubert was always attracted by technical innovations that could serve his artistic aspirations. While working on this play, he met a young soprano, , who would sing most of his vocal compositions. They married in 1926, with Maurice Ravel as Jaubert's best man. They had a daughter, Françoise, in 1927. His 'poème chorégraphique' Le Jour was premiered by the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris under Pierre Monteux in 1931, while a Suite française was premiered by Vladimir Golschmann in St Louis the following year.
His music was written in a style of clarity, frankness and freedom, in which he did not seek novelty for the sake of it and in which his spontaneity is not weighed down by pedantic formulas. His writings comprise articles and lectures, as well as a large number of letters that capture his political opinions. how he viewed his times, and his musical tastes (for example, he was a strong supporter of Kurt Weill when that composer was widely misunderstood).
Film scores In 1929, while pursuing his work for the concert hall and the stage, Maurice Jaubert began writing and conducting for cinema. He collaborated with prominent directors such as Alberto Cavalcanti (Le Petit Chaperon Rouge), Jean Vigo (Zero for Conduct and L'Atalante), René Clair Quatorze Juillet and Le Dernier Milliardaire, Julien Duvivier (Carnet de bal and La Fin du Jour, Marcel Carné’s Drôle de drame, Hôtel du Nord, Quai des brumes (Port of Shadows), and Le Jour se lève (Daybreak) and Henri Storck’s Belgian documentaries.
He also worked briefly in the UK, scoring We Live in Two Worlds directed by Cavalcanti and produced by John Grierson.New Worlds and the Old - Documentary Films of the Quarter reviewed by H. Forsyth and William Farr. Sight & Sound, Vol.6 No.22, Summer 1937, p86.
In his films L'Histoire d'Adèle H. (1975), L'Homme qui aimait les femmes (1977) and La Chambre verte (1978) and Small Change (Divertimento from the Sonata a due), François Truffaut uses music by Jaubert.Richard Roud. Turning Points: Ruiz/Truffaut (Truffaut's La Chambre verte). Sight and Sound, Summer 1978 p.166.
Conductor Although Maurice Jaubert understood and appreciated film, composing and scoring them was but one of his creative activities. As music director of Pathé-Nathan studio, he conducted the film scores of several other composers, including Arthur Honegger and Darius Milhaud. In the 1930s he gained a reputation as a conductor in France and abroad, most notably for the final season of Marguerite Bériza's opera company and the season of opéras-bouffes for the 1937 exposition (where he also led the premiere of his Jeanne d’Arc, Op. 61, a 'Symphonie concertante pour soprano et orchestre'). At the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, in 1937 he conducted the premiere of Philippine, an opérette, by Marcel Delannoy with libretto by Henri Lyon and Jean Limozin. The 'complainte de l'homme serpente' "Ah! Elle était de type femme" was recorded on Columbia by Hugues Cuénod with an orchestra conducted by Jaubert in November 1937.Reissued in the 8-CD set 'Les Introuvables de Chant Français' (EMI, 2004).
Personal life
Death War, however, disrupted Jaubert's artistic path. Mobilized in September 1939, he joined an engineering company he would command as a reserve captain. His letters to his wife reflect a spirit of sacrifice tinged with deep humanism. Jaubert did not live to hear his last two compositions, written at his base camp. He was fatally wounded at Azerailles and died a few hours later at the Baccarat Hospital on 19 June 1940.Bnf entry for Jaubert, Maurice (1900-1940) accessed 2 June 2020. According to some accounts he had just successfully blown up a bridge, or been struck by gunfire from a machine gun Var Matin (local newspaper) or, according to Desbiolles, hit by shrapnel.
Jean Rivier's Heureux ceux qui sont morts (in memory of Maurice Jaubert, text by Charles Péguy) and Henry Barraud's Offrande à une ombre, for orchestra (1941–42) in memory of Maurice Jaubert were played at 'In memoriam: concert in memory of political deportees who died for France', by the Orchestre national et chœurs de la Radiodiffusion Française (dir. Manuel Rosenthal) on 2 November 1944 (Palais de Chaillot). They also played Jaubert's Jeanne d'Arc and planned to play works written by two other composers killed in action in 1940 : Jehan Alain's Prière pour nous autres charnels (text by Charles Péguy) and Jean Vuillermoz's Veglione but they were unable to get the score of the latter work back to Paris in time, and instead gave Jaubert's Géographies. Concert programme, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées & Radio 44, on Gallica
In 1952, the composer’s remains were relocated from the Baccarat cemetery to the Caucade Cemetery in Nice. An official state funeral was finally held on 18 October. Maryline Desbiolles's novel Le Beau Temps is about Maurice Jaubert's life (Éd. Seuil, 2015)
Credits L'absente (poem by , from Le jardin des caresses, no. 139, Paris, Éd. Piazza), for voice and piano; Feuillet d'album (song for high voice, words Stéphane Mallarmé), Paris: Heugel, op. 2, 1926 (full score on IMSLP and on Gallica); Suite en la for cello and piano op. 5, 1923, ; Cinq chants sahariens op. 8, set of 5 melodies for pour soprano, oboe, string quartet and percussion,https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb14000832j 1924 (on anonymous Tuareg poems); Impromptu for piano (Ed Jobert), 1925 (according to Desbiolles, p. 66) Lyrica, September 1, 1928, on Gallica Les Pêcheurs (1925) : divertissement for singers and dancers in one tableau, texts by Claude-André Puget, op. 11, 1925; Le Tombeau de l'amour op. 13 (4 songs on poems from Charles-Albert Demoustier's Lettres à Émilie, 1786 : Sous ces pavots...; Ah! si mon sort vous intéresse...; De nos vergers, de nos prairies...; Exilée au sein de Paris), Paris: Heugel, 1926 (score on IMSLP and : full score on Gallica); Le Magicien prodigieux: incidental music for the drama by Pedro Calderon de la Barca, op. 14, 1925 : 9 pieces for pleyela player piano, percussion, 2 soprani and 2 mezzi. Includes Opus 14A: Nocturne, interlude et pastorale for orchestra, : Bibliothèque nationale de France Théâtre Albert-Ier, December 2, 1925, with Marthe Brega (Commissioned by Henri Ghéon); 4 Romances sur des poèmes de Paul-Jean Toulet (songs for high voice), Paris: Jobert, 1925 ('En Arles', dedicated to Roland-Manuel ; 'Les trois dames d'Albi' (to Marcel Delannoy) ; 'Plus oultre' (to Arthur Honegger) ; 'Le temps d'Adonis' (to Jacques Brillouin, a man of the film world); Scores on IMSLP ; : : full score on Gallica Deux Poèmes de Malherbe op. 15 : No.1 Dessein de Quitter Une Dame, No.2 Chanson, for soprano, tenor and piano. First performed on December 5, 1926, Paris, by Marthe Bréga; Elpénor op. 16 (two songs, 'Chanson De La Sirène Rousse' and 'Chanson Du Pilote'), poems by Jean Giraudoux by Suzanne Peignot, the Roth quartet and Jaubert. Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier on April 26, 1929, concert organised by La Sirène musicale (); Six inventions for piano op. 18 played by Maurice Jaubert at the same April 1929 concert.; La Semaine à Paris April 26, 1929. Both works were finished in 1927, there may have been earlier performances of both works Contrebande, op. 19 (1927) : chamber opera based on a text by Georges Neveux; Trois sérénades op. 21: 'La Traversée' (Guillaume Apollinaire), 'Pour Virginie' (Francis Jammes), 'Airs' (Jules Supervielle), by Ninon Vallin, Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, 1928, with another performance at L'Artistique (Nice, 27 Bd Dubouchage) on March 8, 1929; L'Artistique, June 1, 1929, on Gallica Terminus, op. 22: music for the play by Henry Soumagne, directed by Gaston Baty, Paris, Théâtre de l'Avenue, 10 September 1928. Includes “'C'est l'avenir, c'est le passé”': separate score for voice and piano; Avenue 30, op. 23: divertissement by Paul Colline, sketches by Simon Gantillon and Marcel Espiau, performed by Renée Falconetti, Paris, Théâtre de l'Avenue, 31 May 1930. For orchestra, and also for 7 instruments; Suite for piano op. 24, from his music for the silent film The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna by Hanns Schwarz (1929). The suite includes a 'Rêverie' dedicated to the memory of Erik Satie; Intermezzo en forme de rondeau for piano and orchestra, also taken from his score for The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna, op. 24B, 1929; Juliette ou La clé des songes, Op. 25: song (voice and piano) for the comedy by Georges Neveux, lyrics by Georges Neveux, Paris, Théâtre de l'Avenue, 8 March 1930, directed by Alberto Cavalcanti; Chants de la Côte (1925) «Popular Songs from Provence and Nice county» harmonized for one voice and piano;Lou Moussi (The oung sailor), Digo, Jeannette... (Tell me Jeannette...), La cabro pardudo (The lost goat), Belo Viergi courounado! (Beautiful Virgin crowned!), Ai rescountrat ma mio (I met my love), La roso de mai (The rose of May). Dedicated to Marianne Clouzot Cinq danses de l'Amazone "sur des thèmes indiens", op. 28A (1930) : for orchestra, from his score for Au Pays du Scalp, a documentary film by and about ; L'Œuvre, June 19, 1931, on Gallica Le jour op.30 (1931) : choreographic poem for symphony orchestra based on an argument that Jules Supervielle wrote for Jaubert about the night sky, the appearance of the Sun, and the awakening of life. First performance on December 13, Salle Pleyel, with Pierre Monteux and the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris.; L'Ère nouvelle Dec. 13, 1931, on Gallica & Comœdia, August 27, 1931 on Gallica Little Red Riding Hood" (French: Le Petit Chaperon Rouge) op. 32A (1931) : burlesque suite for 12 instruments, from his score for Alberto Cavalcanti's film on a scenario by Cavalcanti and Jean Renoir; Quatorze Juillet op. 35 (1933) : suite of dances for piano based on his score for René Clair's film;