Louis Durey facts for kids

Louis Edmond Durey (born May 27, 1888 – died July 3, 1979) was a French composer. He is known for being part of a group of musicians called Les Six. Durey wrote many different kinds of music, including pieces for piano and choral works.

Life of a Composer

Louis Durey was born in Paris, France. He didn't start studying music until he was 19 years old. This happened after he heard a performance of music by Claude Debussy. Durey mostly taught himself how to compose music.

From early on, Durey loved writing music for choirs. One of his first important pieces was L'Offrande Lyrique (1914). His piano duet called Carillons was the first of his works to become well-known. In 1918, the famous composer Maurice Ravel heard Carillons and liked it so much that he recommended Durey to his own music publisher.

Joining Les Six

Durey talked with his friend, Darius Milhaud, about a special project. They wanted to create a piano piece that would bring together six composers. In 1920, these six composers became known as Les Six. Their joint project was called L'Album des Six. Even though the group became famous, Durey decided not to join their next big project in 1921, called Les mariés de la tour Eiffel. This decision upset Jean Cocteau, who was involved with the group.

Later Years and Beliefs

After his time with Les Six, Durey continued to compose. He didn't feel the need to be part of the main music world. Instead, he started to share his strong left-wing political ideas. These beliefs made him feel a bit alone in the art world for the rest of his life.

After leaving the Les Six project, Durey moved to his home in Saint-Tropez in the south of France. There, he wrote music for small groups of instruments and his only opera, L'Occasion. In 1929, he married Anne Grangeon and moved back to Paris the next year.

In the mid-1930s, Durey joined the French Communist Party. He also became active in a new group called the Fédération Musicale Populaire. During World War II, when the Nazis occupied France, Durey joined the French Resistance. He was an important member of the Front National des Musiciens. This group worked to help hide Jewish people and protect French music from Nazi control. He also wrote songs that were against the Nazis. Like many others, he stopped composing new music during the war. Instead, he arranged and collected older French music and folk songs.

After the war, Durey strongly supported communism. His firm political views sometimes made it harder for his music career to grow. To earn a living, in 1950 he became a music critic for a communist newspaper in Paris.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Durey kept composing. However, these works did not become widely popular. In the 1960s, he wrote music about Vietnam. He was upset about the problems France had left in Vietnam (which was once called French Indochina) and the Vietnam War that followed. His music at that time felt like a lone voice in Paris. He even set poems by leaders like Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong to music. Other works from this period include a string quartet, a flute sonatina, and Images à Crusoe.

Louis Durey passed away in Saint-Tropez in 1979.

Piano Works