Marie-Joseph Antoine Jean-Victor Hocquard (17 January 1910 – 21 December 1995) was a French musicologist, and a specialist of Mozart.
Biography
Hocquard was born in Obernai. He graduated from Metz high school and obtained his philosophy degree in Nancy. He was successively professor at Wissembourg, Sélestat and Sarreguemines. During the war, he served on the Maginot line. Imprisoned, released, re-imprisoned, he escaped from Metz at Christmas 1940. After the war, he was a professor of philosophy at the Grenoble, Tournon, Tanger and Altkirch high schools.[1]
He passed a Doctorate of Arts from the University of Paris in 1956. His thesis was devoted to La pensée de Mozart[2] partially published two years later at Éditions du Seuil, with a small book from the "Solfèges" series, reprinted since 1964 during its fourth reprint and in 1970 for the second edition, and then reprinted regularly.
He taught philosophy, but devoted most of his energy to deepening the knowledge of the Viennese musician. His name is considered to be "inseparable from Mozart's.", even more than Alfred Einstein, Jean and Brigitte Massin.[3] These authors having dealt with other studies in Beethoven or Schubert for example, Jean-Victor Hocquard in about ten books, has invested himself entirely in Mozart.
From his thesis, he maintained throughout his various studies, the idea that Mozart's specificity resides in a thought of "intrinsically musical character",[3] going even went so far as to consider Mozart as an initiatory guide who, through aesthetic ideals, "would make his music a work of "truth".[4] To do this, he first dismantled the "interpretative overloads" accumulated on the person and the Mozartian work.[3]
Mozart; l'amour, la mort. Musiques et musiciens (in French). Paris: Archimbaud/Lattès. 1992. p. 810. ISBN2-7096-1179-1. OCLC264101476. Hocquard1992.[5]
Mozart, Don Giovanni – Choirs and orchestra Philharmonia, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, EMI (1983)
Mozart, Piano concertos 5 and 6 / Rondo K. 382 – Mitsuko Uchida, English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Tate, Philips (1991)
Mozart, Piano concertos 8 and 9 – Mitsuko Uchida, English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Tate, Philips (1992)
Mozart, piano concertos 11 and 12 – Mitsuko Uchida, English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Tate, Philips (1990)
Mozart, Piano concertos 13 and 14 – Mitsuko Uchida, English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Tate, Philips 422 359-1 (1988)
Mozart, Piano sonatas K. 282, 310 & 545 – Sviatoslav Richter, piano (Philips 1990)
Mozart, Don Giovanni, Dramma Giocoso, K. 527 - Colin Davis, Philips 422 541-2 (1991)
Mozart, Le Nozze Di Figaro, Opera buffa, K. 492 - BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Colin Davis, Philips 422 540-2 (1991)
Articles and forewords
Jean-Victor Hocquard participated to issues of the L'Avant-scène [fr] in the 1980s and 1990s.
"La finta giardiniera, commentaire musical et littéraire", L'Avant-scène Opéra.
" Mithridate, commentaire musical et littéraire", L'Avant-scène Opéra, 1983.
"L'enlèvement au Sérail, commentaire musical et littéraire", L'Avant-scène Opéra, 1991
"Don Juan, commentaire musical et littéraire". L'Avant-scène Opéra (in French). No. 24. Paris. 1992. pp. 29–118. ISSN0764-2873. OCLC715992975..
Prefaces
Le concerto pour piano dans l'œuvre mozartienne, (pp. 9–18), in Olivier Messiaen (1987). Les 22 concertos pour piano de Mozart (in French). Paris: Éditions Séguier. p. 120. ISBN2-906284-46-7. OCLC906580385. Messiaen1987.