Claude Vivier - (Eastman Studies in Music) by Bob Gilmore (Hardcover)

About the Book

In 1983, French-Canadian composer Claude Vivier was murdered in Paris at the age of thirty-four. Based on unrestricted access to Vivier's personal archives, this book is the first to tell his story.

Book Synopsis

In 1983, French-Canadian composer Claude Vivier was murdered in Paris at the age of thirty-four. Based on unrestricted access to Vivier's personal archives, this book is the first to tell his story.

Claude Vivier's haunting and expressive music has captivated audiences around the world. But the French-Canadian composer is remembered also because of the dramatic circumstances of his death: he was found murdered in his Paris apartment at the age of thirty-four. Given unrestricted access to Vivier's archives and interviews with Vivier's family, teachers, friends, and colleagues, musicologist and biographer Bob Gilmore tells here the full story of Vivier's fascinating life, from his abandonment as a child in a Montreal orphanage to his posthumous acclaim as one of the leading composers of his generation.
Expelled from a religious school at seventeen for "lack of maturity," Vivier gave up his ambition to join the priesthood to study composition. Between 1976 and 1983 Vivier wrote the works on which his reputation rests, including Lonely Child, Bouchara, and the operas Kopernikus and Marco Polo. He was also an outspoken presence in the Montreal arts world and gay scene. Vivier left Quebec for Paris in 1982 to work on a new opera, the composition of which was interrupted by his murder. On his desk wasthe manuscript of his last work, uncannily entitled "Do You Believe in the Immortality of the Soul." Vivier's is a tragic but life-affirming story, intimately connected to his passionate music.

Bob Gilmore was a notedmusicologist and performer who taught at Brunel University in London. He wrote or edited five previous books, including Harry Partch: A Biography.

Review Quotes

A labour of love on [Gilmore's] part, more than ten years in the writing, and making much use of interviews with friends and colleagues. Clear and very readable.-- "BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE"

An informative and moving account of the composer, his works, and their context. A strong sense of place infuses the narrative. Discussion of Vivier's music [is] enlightening.-- "CHOICE"

Direct and to the point, but enriched with wonderfully descriptive passages, seamlessly paraphrasing, quoting and analysing a wealth of sources. An accessible and virtuosic work.-- "TEMPO"

Gilmore moves gracefully between the gay scene in Paris or Montreal and the scores on the composer's desk (as Vivier himself did) to create a deeply engaged and engaging portrait. TLS Books of the Year.-- "TLS"

Meticulously researched and beautifully written. It reads...[like] a favorite novel that one simply cannot put down. Its most significant strengths are the biographical, contextual, and musical details of Vivier's life that emerge through Gilmore's critical analysis of the many interviews he conducted. By recording such firsthand accounts of Vivier's life...this biography will likely remain unmatched in Vivier scholarship because there simply is no other documentation.-- "JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY"

Most Famous Canadian Composer is not a hotly contested title. Now the multilateral champ -- francophone, anglophone, living or dead -- is surely Claude Vivier. . . . As assured as [Gilmore's musical] analysis is, it is of course the life that keeps the pages turning.-- "MONTREAL GAZETTE"

The Quebec composer Claude Vivier made some of the most haunting and personal musical statements of any composer of the later twentieth century. An astounding late work by one of the most sensitive commentators on the music of the second half of the twentieth century.-- "MUSIC & LETTERS"

Claude Vivier lived a life we had thought extinct: that of the doomed creative genius, casting off masterpieces from an unstoppable ride into the abyss. Bob Gilmore brings immediacy, sensitivity, and care to telling the story of Vivier's life, while also guiding us through and into some of the most breathtaking music of the late twentieth century. This is a necessary book, and an exciting one. ----Paul Griffiths, author of The Sea on Fire: Jean Barraqué