Legendary trumpet player Maurice André died on February 25. For decades he wowed audiences with both amazing technical skill and absolutely beautiful tone. He attributed both his skill and stamina on the trumpet to moving 17 tons of coal a day working in coal mines at age 14. He was especially known for his performances of Baroque music, which played a big part in increasing the period’s popularity in the 1960s.
Born on May 21, 1933 in Alès, France, Maurice André received his first cornet at age 12. His father, a coal miner and amateur trumpet player, quickly recognized the boy’s potential and sent him to study with Léon Barthélémy, a former student at the Paris Conservatoire. At age 18, André joined a military band in Paris to gain free admission to the Paris Conservatory and study under Raymond Sabarich.
André recalled in an interview, “I didn’t deliver the goods as he wished. After three months he threw abuse at me and chucked me out of the class. Before his death Sabarich always said, ‘It’s when Maurice André woke up.’ How a good scolding does one good occasionally!” André returned after much practice and played all 14 etudes from the back of the Arban book perfectly. He won the cornet prize his first year and the trumpet prize his second year.
He played with the Lamoureux Orchestra (1953-60), the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra (1953-62), and the Opéra-Comique (1962-67). At age 30 André was invited to sit on the jury of the 1963 Munich Trumpet Competition; he decided instead to enter the competition, as he was just within the age limit. He won first prize, which launched his career as a soloist. It was at this time that he met and married his wife, Liliane, who became his manager and companion on his tours.
When André started as a soloist there was little music for trumpet, which was not considered a solo instrument comparable to the violin or oboe. To add to the repertoire, André transcribed solo works for other instruments and started using the piccolo trumpet. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, he averaged 180 concerts per year, and by 1978 he had also made more than 200 recordings.
André succeeded his teacher as a professor of trumpet at the Paris Conservatory in 1967, where he taught until 1978. He continued to tour after that, first with his brother Raymond, also a trumpeter, and later with his children Nicolas, a trumpeter, and Béatrice, an oboist. He also continued recording, eventually ending up with more than 300. His 2008 farewell concert took place in St. Nazaire Cathedral, Béziers, in southern France. In the 1990s, André had moved to a hilltop villa in the Basque country, where he developed his talents as a woodcarver and painter but continued to practice the trumpet daily.
If Only They Could Sing
Some years ago flutist Michel Debost and a friend attended the Paris Conservatory. Along with daily instrument classes, the study of harmony and theory, and occasional dollops of music history, the two were subjected to the solfège classes of Madame Dieudonné, a tiny, elderly woman who applied herself to the teaching of solfège with missionary zeal. A charming woman to those who could navigate the required intervals, Dieudonné regularly dispensed wrath and vitriol to those who could not.
As frequent recipients of her sarcasm, Debost and friend weathered her class as best they could. Often she counseled them to seek employment in some allied art; bricklaying would do just fine. “Madame, if you asked me to play these solfège exercises in any key on my instrument, I could easily do it,” Debost’s friend once told the diminutive Dieudonné during one of her vituperations.
Such appeals did little good; to Dieudonné learning solfège was part of the natural order of things. Neverthe-less, the two muddled through several semesters of the class and eventually passed a final exam, proving they could solfège with the best of them.
Years later the two survivors of her solfège class were appointed to the faculty of their alma mater, where Dieudonné, who had not softened in the intervening years, still instructed the faithful. Upon their first meeting with their old teacher, the one-time prisoners of the fixed-Do system reminded Dieudonné of their years in her musical purgatory and noted that, despite her pessimism and suggested career choices, they succeeded in their chosen field. Dieudonné was astounded that two so inept at sightsinging could have careers in music, and scurried away to inflict solfège on the current inmates.
Debost became principal flutist of l’Orchestre de Paris and presently teaches at Oberlin. His friend and fellow escapee from Dieudonné’s class was Maurice André.
– Told by Michel Debost, July 1991
