Victor Serventi (23 June 1907 – 16 March 2000) was a French composer.

Life

Born in Algiers, Serventi studied at the

Conservatoire de Paris The Conservatoire de Paris (), or the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (; CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue Jean Ja ...

from 1921; piano with Joseph Morpain then Lazare-Lévy,

harmony In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...

with

Jean Gallon Jean Charles Claude Gallon (25 June 1878 – 23 June 1959) was a French composer, choir conductor, and music educator. His compositional output consists of six antiphons for strings and organ, one mass, one ballet, and several art songs. Biograph ...

counterpoint In music theory, counterpoint is the relationship of two or more simultaneous musical lines (also called voices) that are harmonically dependent on each other, yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. The term originates from the Latin ...

and

fugue In classical music, a fugue (, from Latin ''fuga'', meaning "flight" or "escape""Fugue, ''n''." ''The Concise Oxford English Dictionary'', eleventh edition, revised, ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson (Oxford and New York: Oxford Universit ...

with Noël Gallon and

musical composition Musical composition can refer to an Originality, original piece or work of music, either Human voice, vocal or Musical instrument, instrumental, the musical form, structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new pie ...

with Henri Busser. From 1934, he competed several times to the

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

where he won the first Grand Prix in 1937 with his

cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian language, Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal music, vocal Musical composition, composition with an musical instrument, instrumental accompaniment, ty ...

''La Belle et la Bête''. From 1943 to 1977, he was professor at the Conservatoire de Paris. His compositions include ''Variations sur une complainte corse'' for piano in 1938, a piano suite in 1942 and variations for clarinet and piano. His most famous work, regularly given in concert and recorded several times, is the ''Largo et scherzando''''Largo et scherzando''
/ref> for double bass and piano which he composed in 1944. Serventi was married to singer Suzanne Juyol (1920-1994). He died at

Margency Margency () is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department and Île-de-France region of France. The composer Victor Serventi died in Margency on 16 March 2000. Population See also *Communes of the Val-d'Oise department The following is a li ...

(

Val-d'Oise Val-d'Oise (, "Vale of the Oise") is a department in the Île-de-France region, Northern France. It was created in 1968 following the split of the Seine-et-Oise department. In 2019, Val-d'Oise had a population of 1,249,674.< ...

) at the age of 92.

References

External links

Victor Serventi Largo-Scherzando
(YouTube) {{DEFAULTSORT:Serventi, Victor French classical composers French male classical composers 20th-century French composers Prix de Rome for composition Conservatoire de Paris alumni Academic staff of the Conservatoire de Paris Musicians from Algiers 1907 births 2000 deaths 20th-century French male musicians Emigrants from French Algeria to France