Sévérac, Déodat de

Déodat de Séverac – Le Coeur du Moulin

(b. Saint-Félix-Lauragais, 20. July 1872 – d. Céret, 24. March 1921)

first performed at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, on 8 December 1909

Preface
Marie Joseph Alexandre Déodat, Baron de Sévérac, was born in the village of Saint-Félix-Lauragais, not far from Toulouse. He was one of five children born to Aglaé and Gilbert de Sévérac, and he would receive his early training in the rudiments of music from his father – who was also a talented painter. On graduating in 1890 from the Dominican-run College at Sorèze where he had studied the piano, the organ and the oboe, he enrolled, on his father’s insistence, at Toulouse University to pursue a law degree. Three years later his father relented, and Déodat entered the conservatory in that city. As his musical vocation became ever more apparent he moved to the newly founded Schola Cantorum in Paris in 1896, where he was taught composition by d’Indy and Magnard, and organ by Guilmant. He remained at the Schola until 1907, and made close friendships there with Albeniz, Roussel and Canteloube. Outside his academic environs he met and befriended other composers – Dukas, Schmitt, Fauré and Ravel – together with leading poets, painters, sculptors and critics of the day, many of whom frequented the salon hosted by the Princesse de Polignac. However Sévérac did not find life in the capital conducive, and once his studies were completed he moved back south, initially to the village of his birth before settling in Céret (Eastern Pyrenees) where he devoted himself to the musical life of the region. It was in this town that he died prematurely in 1921. It was certainly Sévérac’s decision to abandon Paris for the Mediterranean that led to him being considered a provincial musician, and so ‘a composer in the second tier’. Although his music is now being reconsidered, recorded and performed anew, the ‘regional’ tag still attaches itself to him and his art. This is extremely unfortunate, as his compositions are fresh, beguiling, and deeply evocative of the south of France. …

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