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M.-J.-A. Déodat de Séverac: France's Southern Spice...

Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 06/29/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

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As Fernand Braudel might have said, all history is predicated on geography (i.e., space-time).

And France's colourful southern composer Déodat de Séverac (1872-1921) could serve as an illustration for the axiom.



From an ancient family tracing its ancestry back to the 9th Century, Séverac was proud of his Pyrénéan heritage; moreover, he firmly believed that French art needed to embrace its regional and provincial roots in order to avoid excessive Teutonic influence.

Séverac was fully aware of the powerful effect of German cultural tradition on northern Frenchmen, and this he sought to counter by embracing the warm Latinate-Mediterranean esthetic.



Séverac's personal style was something of a synthesis between Debussy and Albéniz: Impressionistic colours with descriptive Romanticism. He was a gifted improviser at the piano, and also like Chopin, Séverac found it painful to transcribe his flights of fancy into musical orthography.



The music he did write out for piano follows Schumann's early lead (cf. Papillons, Carnaval) in suites of brightly embroidered Southern colour. Possibly Séverac's Cerdaña may be seen as a Frenchified Iberia. Titles such as "In Languedoc," "Bathers in the Sun," and "Beneath the Oleander" are resplendent of the torrid sunshine of the Gulf of Lions.

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Déodat de Séverac: Scenes of Southern France: Cerdaña; En Languedoc

Severac: Piano Works

Severac: Piano Works

Déodat de Séverac: Cerdaña

Deodat de Severac: Works For Piano

Cerdanya & En Vacanes

Songs by Déodat de Séverac / Le Roux, Rozario, G. Johnson

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A History of Civilizations

Memory and the Mediterranean

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