SKU: UT.MAG-221

ISBN 9790215318625. 9 x 12 inches.

Martin-Pierre Dalvimare, born in 1770, in Dreux (Eure-et-Loir), from a distinguished family, learnt music as an entertainment art, and was obliged to make it a resource for his existence, after the troubles of the Revolution in 1789. He had acquired a remarkable talent for the harp; when he arrived in Paris he made a very good impression. Then, man of the world, knowledgeable in many fields, which is rare for a musician, he was welcome everywhere, and very soon came in friendly terms with some of the most renowned artists and men of letters of his times. The marriage certificate of the poet Legouve (15 pluviose of the year XI, or February 1803, 12th municipality of Paris), shows that Dalvimare was one of his best men and that at the time he was thirty-two years old. He became harpist of the Opera in the year VIII (1800), and was definitively confirmed in the month of fructidor of the year IX. At the time of the institution of the emperor Napoleon's private music, M. Dalvimare was appointed as his harpist. In September 1807 he obtained the title of harp master of the empress Josephine. A lucky change of his fortune allowed this artist to renounce to practise his talent for living, he resigned from all of his positions on March, 12th, 1812, and he retired in Dreux, where he still was living in 1837. For a peculiar weakness, he does not like to speak about his artist career, which had been entirely honourable, and he would like to forget his success too. His first composition was a symphonie concertant for harp and horn, which he composed with Frederic Duvernoy, and published in the year VII (1798); notwithstanding, he counted as his first opus a collection of romances with accompaniment of piano or harp, which he later published with Pleyel.

In 1809 Dalvimare composed, for the theatre Feydeau, a one-act opera-comique called The Marriage for Imprudence. The music was weak; the work did not succeed, and people used to say that the greatest imprudence had been the one of the authors who had it performed. Nevertheless, the score of this opera was published in Paris by erard. (Francois-Joseph Fetis).

SKU: HL.49044302

ISBN 9790001197922. 9.0x12.0x0.136 inches.

Im Fruhjahr 2012 schrieb ich fur das Duo Imaginaire ein knapp viertelstundiges Werk fur die ganz ungewohnliche, aber umso reizvollere Duobesetzung von Klarinette und Harfe. Der romantisch-ironische Titel einer melancholischen Serenade gibt den semantischen Inhalt des Stuckes recht genau wieder. Musikalisch formal handelt es sich um ein grossformatiges rondoartiges Gebilde, in dem sich zahlreiche melodische und virtuose Episoden um ein schwebend-synkopisches Thema gruppieren, das sich zwar verandert, aber als roter Faden trotzdem deutlich wiederzuerkennen ist. Das Stuck besitzt einen tonalen Rahmen, der auf siebentonigen Skalen basiert, die die Gegebenheiten der Harfe als diatonisches Instrument nutzen, ohne ein einziges Mal als echte Dur- oder Mollskalen in Erscheinung zu treten. Der serenadenhafte Charakter des Stuckes wird unterstrichen durch die Charakterisierung der Klarinette als lineares Gesangsinstrument und die Harfe als akkordisch gefuhrtes Zupfinstrument. Selbstverstandlich verlassen beide Instrumente immer wieder den ihnen angestammten Bereich (die Harfe beginnt zu singen, wahrend sich die Klarinette in uppigen Figurationen ergeht), wodurch ein kammermusikalisch dichtes und klanglich reizvolles Gewebe entsteht.- Stefan Heucke.