Claude Ballif (22 May 1924 – 24 July 2004) was a French composer, writer, and pedagogue. He worked at a number of institutions throughout more than 40 years of teaching, one of which he had attended as a student. Among his pupils were Raynald Arseneault, Nicolas Bacri,

Gérard Buquet Gérard Buquet (born 1954) is a tubist, conductor and composer, who was born in France. Life He studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, and musicology at the Strasbourg University. Composition studies with Claude Ballif a ...

Joseph-François Kremer Joseph-François Kremer (born 22 June 1954) is a French composer, conductor, cellist and musicologist. Biography Joseph-François Kremer was born in Lyon (France) in 1954. Currently director of the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud of the City of A ...

, Philippe Manoury,

Serge Provost Serge Provost (born August 29, 1952) is a Canadian composer and organist. He has been "recognized as one of the most active Québécois composers of his generation".Mehmet Okonsar, Simon Bertrand, Alexandre Desplat, and Claude Abromont. He was described as a French modernist and as "the product of the exciting and turbulent post World War II years of the Western avant-garde" alongside composers

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mont ...

and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Biography

Ballif was born in Paris on 22 May 1924, the fifth of ten children. He grew up in a bourgeois family but did not recognize the privilege of his childhood as a rarity until much later. His mother Odette was from the Festugière family, forgemasters and owners of the Château de Poissons in Haute-Marne. Her brother was

André-Jean Festugière André Jean Festugière

André-Jean Festugière Dominica ...

and her first cousin was George Desvallières. Ballif's father, Colonel Laurent Ballif, was a senior military officer who served in the Tibesti War, World War I, and World War II. Laurent was of Swiss descent. Ballif started music at an early age; though the piano was his first love, he was told piano was for girls and that his fingers would never be able to make the right positions, so he learned violin. When Ballif was 13, his father was assigned to a base in Madagascar and the family moved to Antananarivo. While in Madagascar, "Captain Durand," an artillery director on base, taught Ballif music theory; he took violin lessons from a beggar. He also learned the play the

djembe A djembe or jembe ( ; from Maninka language, Malinke ''jembe'' , N'Ko script, N'Ko: ) is a rope-tuned skin-covered goblet drum played with bare hands, originally from West Africa. According to the Bambara people in Mali, the name of the djembe ...

, the valiha, and the

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

. The family returned to France while Ballif was still in high school and he started at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux in 1942 at 18. He left in 1948 to attend the Conservatoire de Paris with Aubin and Messiaen as his teachers and

Alain Weber Alain Weber (8 December 1930 — 14 November 2019) was a French composer and music educator. Training and activities Born in Château-Thierry, Weber began his studies at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1941. First Grand Prix de Rome in 1952, he w ...

, Michel Fano, and

Jean-Michel Defaye Jean-Michel Defaye (born 18 September 1932) is a French pianist, composer, arranger and conductor known for his collaboration with French poet and singer-songwriter Léo Ferré. He was born in Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne near Paris, on 18 Septemb ...

as his classmates. He dropped out in 1951 before finishing his degree because he did not feel that he could properly express himself with the academic constraints on the students' music. In 1954, he was awarded a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) grant that allowed him to study at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. Blacher and Rufer were among his teachers. He spent three summers in Germany, particularly at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, where he met Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, Luigi Nono, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. He also interpreted the Darmstadt Summer Courses for

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

, who did not speak German. He performed the music for film advertisements for a while and in 1959 started at the Groupe de Recherche Musicale with Pierre Schaeffer. Ballif's friend Hélène Boschi worked at École Normale de Musique de Paris and told him of an opening for a teacher of music history, analysis, and pedagogy. Not long after, he married Elisabeth, the daughter of an army general. In 1965, he helped establish the music department at Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis and in 1971 was appointed to succeed Messaien, his former teacher, at the Conservatoire de Paris. He also taught at the and as a visiting professor at McGill University in Montréal. He left the Conservatoire de Paris in 1990. He subsequently taught in Sevran for ten years before visiting Venezuela with Williams Montesinos and Austin Marianu in July 2000. What was intended to be a short trip stretched out for months and Ballif settled there because he was "able to do what I dreamed of when I was 16... just be a composer". He taught lessons on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and spent the rest of his time at his piano. During his career, he published the following books: ''Introduction à la métatonalité'' (1956), ''Berlioz'' (1969), ''Voyage de mon oreille'' (1979), ''Souhaits etre Symboles'' (1988; published only in Canada), and ''L'Habitant du labyrinthe : entretiens avec Alain Galliari'' (1992). He also founded the Ivan Wyschegradsky Association in 1983. Ballif spent the final years of his life living in Haute-Marne at the Château de Riaucourt, which had been passed down to him by his maternal grandfather. He died on 24 July 2004 in Saint-Dizier and is buried in Poissons. His mother died two days later, age 104.

Metatonality

Metatonality, "a fusion of

diatonic scales In music theory, a diatonic scale is any heptatonic scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps ...

with the

chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...

one, which form an 11-element metatonal scale", was invented by Ballif in 1949. He struggled in his early years of music study with balancing his need for independent creation and the university's regimented music lessons. This is what led him to leave the Conservatoire de Paris without a completed degree in 1951. Ballif published his first book about metatonality (''Introduction à la métatonalité'') in 1956. He credits his "deep friendship" with Jean Wahl, Josef Rufer, Andréas Rónaï, and Pierre Schaeffer for solidifying the concept and practice of metatonality very early on. He added referential and orient concepts to his theory as well. He became interested in microtonal theory after meeting Ivan Wyschnegradsky for the first time; Wyschnegradsky and Alois Hába "launched iminto the ultrachromatic universe." Ballif wrote his doctoral dissertation on metatonality. His music was also deeply influenced by his staunch Catholicism.

Awards

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ballif, Claude 1924 births 2004 deaths 20th-century classical composers 20th-century French composers 20th-century French male musicians Conservatoire de Paris faculty Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Commanders of the Ordre national du Mérite Conservatoire de Bordeaux alumni Conservatoire de Paris alumni French male classical composers Microtonality Musicians from Paris Sociétaires of the Comédie-Française Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin alumni Academics of the École Normale de Musique de Paris McGill University faculty People from Haute-Marne Educators from Paris