Faà di Bruno, Giovanni Matteo [Horatio, Orazio] 83

Fleuret, Maurice

(b La Talaudière, 22 June 1932; d Paris, 22 March 1990). French writer on music and administrator. He studied music at the Paris Conservatoire with Dufourcq, Roland-Manuel and Messiaen, and was subsequently a lecturer (1955–65) and artistic adviser (from 1974) of the Jeunesses Musicales de France. His other activities included editing the review Musique de tous les temps (1958), directing the music department of the Centre National de Diffusion Culturelle (1960–64) and working as music critic of France observateur (1962–4) and Nouvel observateur (from 1964). From 1962 he was also a producer at ORTF and then at Radio-France, editing Evénements-musique, and in 1967 he became head of the music section of the Paris Musée d’Art Moderne. He was director of music and dance at the French Ministry of Culture from 1981 to 1986, and founded in 1986, together with Henry-Louis de La Grange, the Bibliothèque Gustav Mahler in Paris.

Fleuret’s main interest was contemporary music, which he promoted in numerous writings, as well as radio and television programmes, concert series and festivals (notably Semaines Musicales Internationales de Paris, 1968–74, and an annual Fête de la Musique); as an ethnomusicologist he undertook fieldwork in West Africa (1966, 1967), travelled extensively throughout Africa and Asia, and organized many concert series in Europe. His papers are held in the Bibliothèque Gustav Mahler.

WRITINGS

‘Claude Ballif: notes pour un portrait’, ReM, no.263 (1968), 11–18 [partially repr. in ReM, nos.370–71 (1984), 7-8]

ed.: ‘Varèse, Xenakis, Berio, Pierre Henry’, ReM, nos.265–6 (1969) [special issue]

‘Créateur d’une nouvelle critique musicale’, Schumann (Paris, 1970), 93–113

‘La puissance d’une imagination prophétique’, Berlioz (Paris, 1973), 229–39

Xenakis (Paris, 1978, 2/1981)

‘L'Opéra des paris: confessions d'un fonctionnaire désabusé’, L'opéra: théâtre en Europe, no.14 (1987), 47–51

‘Variations libres sur des thèmes de sempé’, Musiques – signes – images: liber amicorum François lesure, ed. J.-M. Fauquet (Geneva, 1988), 117–26

ed.: ‘Joseph Kosma (1905–1969): un homme, un musicien’, ReM, nos.412–15 (1989) [issue]

‘Das Musikleben in Frankreich: eine Kulturrevolution?’, ÖMz, xliv (1989), 500–11

‘Actualité et commentaires’, Georges Aperghis: le corps musical, ed. A. Gindt (Paris, 1990), 163–92

Chroniques pour la musique d’aujourd’hui (Arles, 1992) [articles by Fleuret, 1963–81]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

T. de La Croix: ‘La musique dans tous ses états’, Silences, i (1985), 17–21 [interview with Fleuret]

La collection d'un voyageur: les instruments de musique de Maurice Fleuret, Musée de l'Hospice Comtesse, Lille, 16 Nov–31 Dec 1990 (Lille, 1990) [exhibition catalogue]

M.-G. Soret: ‘La Bibliothèque musicale Gustav Mahler’, FAM, xxxvii (1990), 239–42

Fleuretis.

See Flos.

Fleurie

(fl ?1385). French composer. He is probably to be identified with the Martin Florie who was chaplain at the Ste Chapelle in Paris in 1385. His only known composition is a three-voice Sanctus from the Avignon repertory (in F-APT 16bis), in discant style; surprisingly, it omits the Benedictus section (edn in CMM, xxix, 1962, p.120, and in PMFC, xxiiia, 1989, p.36).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

H. Stäblein-Harder: Fourteenth-Century Mass Music in France, MSD, vii (1962), 69–70, 163

GILBERT REANEY

Fleury, André (Edouard Antoine Marie)

(b Neuilly-sur-Seine, 25 July 1903; d Paris, 8 June 1995). French organist and composer. His father, Gaetan Fleury, was a pupil of d’Indy and Paul Vidal. His teachers at the Paris Conservatoire, which he entered in 1915, were Henry Letocart, Gigout and Dupré. He also studied the organ privately with Marchal and Vierne, and composition with Vidal. From 1921 he was Gigout’s assistant at St Augustin, and also assisted Tournemire at Ste Clotilde. In 1930 he succeeded Jean Huré at St Augustin, and in 1943 he became organ professor at the Ecole Normale. In 1949 he was appointed organist of Dijon Cathedral and piano professor at the Dijon Conservatory. In 1971 he returned to Paris to become co-organist, with Jean Guillou, of St Eustache. His recital career, which began brilliantly, was interrupted by a serious illness caused by the privations of the German occupation. In his prime he played in London for the BBC and for the Organ Music Society to which he introduced pieces from Messiaen’s La nativité du Seigneur as early as 1937. A sturdy technique and exceptional rhythmic verve characterized his playing. Fleury’s compositions reflect a pre-Messiaen and even pre-Dupré chromaticism within unequivocally tonal bounds. His Prelude and Fugue in F minor won the Halphen and Lili Boulanger prizes in 1929, and his Prelude, Andante and Toccata was awarded first mention at the Concours des Amis de l’Orgue in 1932. Apart from his organ works he wrote Three Pieces for piano (1935), an Andante for piano trio, two volumes of simple pieces for harmonium and four songs.

WORKS

(selective list)

Organ: Allegro symphonique (1927); Prelude and Fugue, f (1928); 24 Pieces (1930–33); Prelude, Andante and Toccata (1932); Postlude (1935); Sym. no.1 (1947); Sym. no.2 (1948); Prelude and Fugue, d (1957–9); Fantaisie, c (1969); Prélude, Cantilène et Finale (1980); other short pieces for liturgical use

Pf music, chamber music, songs

BIBLIOGRAPHY

N. Dufourcq: La musique d’orgue française de Jehan Titelouze à Jehan Alain (Paris, 1941, 2/1949), 206

B. Gavoty: Silhouettes d’organistes (Nantes, 1945)

FELIX APRAHAMIAN/R