Koechlin, Charles

Charles-Louis-Eugène Koechlin – Ballade pour Piano et Orchestre

(b. Paris, 27 November 1867 – d. Le Canadel, Var, France, 31 December 1950)

Assez lent, mais sans trainer p. 1
Très modéré] p. 3
Andante con moto p. 16
Andante (presque adagio) p. 27
Andante (pas trop lent) p. 37
Adagio intime et très expressif p. 47
Adagio, maestoso, tres lent et tres egal p. 85

Preface
Charles Koechlin was born into a large upper-middle-class Protestant family in Paris on Nov. 27, 1867, and died on the last day of the year in 1950. His father was a textile designer. However, music, indeed all the arts, played a key role in the family. His sister played the piano, and early on, he was moved by the music of Bach upon hearing a cantata in a church setting. As he stated, Bach’s music became a lifelong obsession: Perhaps it is necessary to love Bach to understand Koechlin.

Following his father’s wishes, he was admitted to the Ecole Polytechnique in 1887 to study engineering. Both an unenthusiastic and poor student, he left two years later and, following his passion gained entry into the Paris Conservatoire. He studied composition with Jules Massenet, Gabriel Fauré, and Maurice Ravel. His opus 1, Cinq Rondels for voice and piano, was completed at age 23. In the following sixty years, he authored a large quantity of music, numbering more than 200 works. Koechlin was more well-known as an author, theorist, and teacher than a composer in his lifetime. His writings include a multi-volume treatise on music theory, Traite de l’harmonie, and an extensive four-volume treatise on orchestration Traite de l’orchestration. …

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