Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel (5 April 1869 - 23 August 1937) was a Frenchcomposer. Roussel spent seven years as a midshipman. He only turned to music as an adult. But he then became one of the most important composers of the years between the two world wars. His earlier music came from the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel. He turned more towards neoclassicism with his later music.
Personal life
Bust of Roussel in Paris
Albert Roussel was born in Tourcoing (Norddepartment of France). HIs earliest interest was not music. It was mathematics. He spent some time in the French Navy. In 1889 and 1890 he served on the crew of the frigateIphigénie. These travels were significant to his later career as a composer. This is because many of his musical works would reflect his interest in far-off and interesting places.
After Roussel left the Navy in 1894, he began to study music with Eugène Gigout. He continued his studies until 1908 at the Schola Cantorum (one of his teachers there was Vincent d'Indy). While he studied, he would also teach at the Schola. His fellow students were Erik Satie and the young Edgard Varèse.
During World War I, he served as an ambulance driver on the Western Front. After the war, he bought a summerhouse in Normandy. This is where he gave most of his time to composing music.
Roussel was a classicist. Some of his first works are very much like impressionism. But he soon found a style fit just for him. This style had a strong rhythmic sound.
The Schola Cantorum left a mark on Roussel's mature writing. Compared with the style of other French composers like Gabriel Fauré or Claude Debussy, Roussel's orchestration is rather powerful and heavy.
Roussel also liked jazz. He wrote a piano-vocal composition called Jazz dans la nuit. This has a lot in common with other jazz-influenced works such as the "Blues" second movement of Maurice Ravel's Violin Sonata.
