Varèse chron

Edgard Varèse - a chronology

1883 born in Paris (22 December) of an Italian father and French mother but spends most of his childhood with his mother’s relations at Le Villars near Tournus in Burgundy.

1893 moves with his parents to Turin where he studies science and mathematics on the instructions of his father who insists on his son following his own profession as an engineer.

1900 has music lessons with Giovanni Bolzoni, director of the Turin Conservatoire.

1903 escapes his father and makes for Paris, sleeping rough at first.

1904 gets a job as librarian at the Schola Cantorum where he studies composition with Albert Roussel, early music with Charles Bordes and conducting with Vincent d’Indy.

1905 studies composition in Charles Widor’s class at the Paris Conservatoire until Gabriel Fauré, director of the Conservatoire, dismisses him.

1905-6 gets to know Debussy, although he was generally happier among artists and writers than musicians, and writes his Rhapsodie romane (since destroyed)

1907 moves to Berlin where he cultivates the friendship of hero figures Ferrucio Busoni and Richard Strauss.

1908 writes his symphonic poem Bourgogne (since destroyed)

1910 Josef Stransky, conductor of the Blüthner Orchestra in Berlin, is persuaded by Strauss to conduct the first (and only) performance of Bourgogne.

1914 enlists in the French Army but is invalided out after a few months’ service.

1915 sails for New York which he is to find a much more congenial city than “constipated” Paris

1917 having had some success as a conductor in Europe, Varèse attempts to develop a conducting career in America and makes his début in New York with Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts.

1919 founds his own New Symphony Orchestra which, however, does not thrive on his radical ideas

1921 with Carlos Salzedo founds International Composers’ Guild which gives first performances of four of his own small-scale scores (Offrandes, Hyperprism, Octandre and Intégrales) and survives precariously until it founders six years later

1926 first performance of Amériques by Leopold Stokowski and Philadelphia Orchestra.

1927 first performance of Arcana by Stokowski and Philadelphia Orchestra. Becomes an American citizen

1928 begins a long stay in Paris.

1929 first French performance of Amériques

1934 completes Ecuatorial.

1933 leaves Paris and Nicolas Slonimsky conducts first performance of Ionisation, New York

1934 Nicolas Slonimsky conducts first performance of Ecuatorial, New York

1936 Density 21^.5 last work for a decade, during which time Varèse attempts to develop a teaching career and to arouse interest in electronic instruments

1947 conducts first performance of Etude pour Espace, New York

1950 teaches at Darmstadt summer course and recordings of four of his works are released

1953 receives gift of an Ampex tape recorder

1954 Déserts for wind, piano, percussion and 2-track tape completed and first performed by Hermann Scherchen in Paris

1957 returns to Europe to work on the Poème électronique at the Philips laboratories in Eindhoven for Le Corbusier’s Philips pavilion at the Brussels Exposition

1958 first performance of Poème électronique, for 3-track tape, at Brussels Exposition

1961 Nocturnal performed incomplete by Robert Craft at a concert in homage to Varèse in New York.

1965 dies (6 November), Nocturnal still unfinished.