Harry Halbreich (

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, 9 February 1931 –

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, 27 June 2016) was a Belgian

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

.Dust jacket biography of Harry Halbreich from Halbreich (2007).Patrick Szersnovicz. Harry Halbreich (obituary). '' Diapason'', September 2016, No.649, p.18.

Biography

The son of a

Jewish-German The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish comm ...

father and English mother, Halbreich studied with

Arthur Honegger Arthur Honegger (; 10 March 1892 – 27 November 1955) was a Swiss-French composer who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. Honegger was a member of Les Six. For Halbreich, '' Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher'' is "more even ...

and later with

Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century, he was also an ou ...

at the Paris Conservatoire, gaining a first prize in analysis and history of music. He later made his base in Belgium. From 1970 to 1976 he was Lecturer () in Musical Analysis at the Royal Conservatory in

Mons Mons commonly refers to: * Mons, Belgium, a city in Belgium * Mons pubis (mons Venus or mons veneris), in mammalian anatomy, the adipose tissue lying above the pubic bone * Mons (planetary nomenclature), a sizable extraterrestrial mountain * Batt ...

. He worked on numerous radio broadcasts and co-founded the Belgian music magazine ''Crescendo'' for which he was a major contributor. From 1973 to 1976 he was artistic director of the Festival de Royan. He was known for a number of books, articles and studies on modern and contemporary music, including monograph works on

Claude Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

, and

Bohuslav Martinů Bohuslav Jan Martinů (; December 8, 1890 – August 28, 1959) was a Czech composer of modern classical music. He wrote 6 symphony, symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber music, chamber, vocal and ins ...

. He prepared musical catalogues of the works of Honegger and Martinů, and their works are therefore sometimes referred to by their H number. He assisted Nicolas Bacri in orchestrating Honegger's

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

, ''La morte de Sainte Alméenne'', originally written in 1918 for voice and piano; the new version was premiered in

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

on 26 November 2005, on the 50th anniversary of the composer's death. Halbreich's interest in modern music led to him writing articles on composers including contemporary music, particularly Spectral music: Horațiu Rădulescu,

Iancu Dumitrescu Iancu Dumitrescu (born 15 July 1944) is a Romanian Avant-garde music, avant-garde composer. Life and works Dumitrescu was born in Sibiu, Kingdom of Romania, Romania. He received a master's degree in composition in Bucharest, where his teache ...

, Ana-Maria Avram, Gérard Grisey, and Tristan Murail. He has also written on composers of the past, including

Edgard Varèse Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French and American composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; h ...

George Enescu George Enescu (; – 4 May 1955), known in France as Georges Enesco, was a Romanians, Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor, teacher and statesman. He is regarded as one of the greatest musicians in Romanian history. Biography En ...

, Maurice Ohana as well as

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (German: Help:IPA/Standard German, �joːhan zeˈbasti̯an baχ ( – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque music, Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety ...

, Francisco Guerrero,

Marc-Antoine Charpentier Marc-Antoine Charpentier (; 1643 – 24 February 1704) was a French Baroque composer during the reign of Louis XIV. One of his most famous works is the main theme from the prelude of his ''Te Deum'' ''H.146, Marche en rondeau''. This theme is st ...

, Jean Marie Leclair,

Jan Dismas Zelenka Jan Dismas Zelenka (16 October 1679 – 23 December 1745), baptised Jan Lukáš Zelenka was a Bohemian composer and musician of the Baroque period. His music is admired for its harmonic inventiveness and mastery of counterpoint. Zelenka was ...

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...

. A personal friend of contemporary performers and composers such as

Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; , ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde composer, music theorist, architect, performance director and enginee ...

, Giacinto Scelsi,

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde music, avant-garde composers in the latter half of the ...

and

Witold Lutosławski Witold Roman Lutosławski (; 25 January 1913 – 7 February 1994) was a Polish composer and conductor. Among the major composers of 20th-century classical music, he is "generally regarded as the most significant Polish composer since Szymanow ...

, he was a keen defender of younger composers. He had a broad interest in culture, and while a convert to Catholicism, he was open to, and expressed deep knowledge of eastern spiritual history alongside Christian mystics. He died on 27 June 2016 at the age of 85.Death of H-number musicologist
/ref> Of his three children, the eldest Frédéric is a painter.

Bibliography

*''Albéric Magnard'', together with Simon-Pierre Perret,

Fayard Fayard (complete name: ''Librairie Arthème Fayard'') is a French Paris-based publishing house established in 1857. Fayard is controlled by Hachette Livre. In 1999, Éditions Pauvert became part of Fayard. Claude Durand was director of Fayar ...

, 2001. () *''Arthur Honegger, un musicien dans la cité des hommes'', Fayard, 1992. () *''L'Oeuvre d'Arthur Honegger : Chronologie, catalogue raisonné, analyses, discographie'', Fayard, 1994. () *''Bohuslav Martinů'', Fayard, 1968. () *''Debussy, sa vie et sa pensée'', together with Edward Lockspeiser, Fayard, 1989. () *''Olivier Messiaen'', Fayard, 1980. () *''Bohuslav Martinů Werksverzeichnis, Dokumentation und Biographie''. Zürich: Atlantis Verlag, 1968 (384 pages). *''Bohuslav Martinů Werkverzeichnis und Biographie''. Mainz: Schott, 2007 (579 pages). () * ''Musiciens de France'', together with

Paul-Gilbert Langevin Paul-Gilbert Langevin (Boulogne-Billancourt, 5 July 1933 – Paris, 4 July 1986) was a French musicologist, who was a specialist on Anton Bruckner, Franz Schubert and 19th-century classical music. History Paul-Gilbert Langevin was the son of Fre ...

, La Revue Musicale, N°324/326, 1979. () * ''Musiciens d'Europe'', together with Paul-Gilbert Langevin, La Revue Musicale, N°388/390, 1986. () *''Roumanie, Terre du Neuvième Ciel'', together with Ana Maria Avram, interviews and papers, Bucharest, Edition Axis Mundi, 1992 (215 pages). *'' La Musique Spectrale au début du XXIè Siècle'', conference in Paris with Harry Halbreich, Ben Watson, Costin Cazaban, Sébastien Beranger, moderated by Ana Maria Avram, CREMAC, 2006 (234 pages).

Notes

Sources

: Part of the text was translated from the Harry Halbreich article in the

French Wikipedia The French Wikipedia () is the French-language edition of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. This edition was started on 23 March 2001, two months after the official creation of Wikipedia. It has :fr:Special:Statistics, encyclopedia artic ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Halbreich, Harry 1931 births 2016 deaths Belgian musicologists category:Belgian Jews Classical music catalogues Conservatoire de Paris alumni Musicians from Berlin Debussy scholars Belgian people of German-Jewish descent Belgian people of English descent Messiaen scholars