April 5, 1869 — August 23, 1937

	Roussel's first love wasn't music. It was the sea. Prelude: Adagio A child of wealthy French industrialists — textiles, mostly — is suddenly orphaned at the tender age of seven. Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel goes to live with his grandfather, the mayor of his hometown of Tourcoing. When young Albert is eleven, his grandfather also dies. Albert then lives with his maternal aunt and her husband. An unsettled, even tragic, childhood. For the rest of his life Roussel seeks order, routine, discipline; his songs continually return to the theme of saying farewell to a loved one. And yet tragedy never cripples this man, who attains a level of maturity, generosity, humility and sanity that could serve as a model for us all. As a young adult he follows the love of the sea that had blossomed in him during childhood visits to a sea resort in Belgium. He joins the navy. Scherzo marziale A young naval officer plays a composition for his fellow officers on the ship's piano. A comrade named Calve, the brother of a famous opera singer, is mightily impressed; compliments Roussel and offers to show the composition to a music director. Calve reports that the director feels Albert should devote himself to music. Albert does, resigning his commission at the age of 25. Yet it is a trick; an unsubtle shove in the direction Albert now wants to go. Years later, Calve confesses that he never showed the music to the director. Romanza A newlywed, not young by today's standards, takes an extended tour of India and southeast Asia with his bride. Coming to music so late has delayed Albert's musical development — he finishes his studies at Vincent d'Indy's Schola Cantorum at the age of 39! Yet now he has become a professor at the Schola. His teacher's theories of cyclical organization (repeating a theme in all movements as a unifying device) affect Albert's compositions, as does Debussy's impressionism — and the oriental music he hears on his voyage.	Chronology of Roussel's life
	Vivace con furioso A former naval officer, now a composer basking in the success of his ballet Le festin de l'araignée, tries to enlist at the outbreak of WWI — but is turned down because of ill health. Nonetheless, duty calls the now-middle-aged composer, and he volunteers as an ambulance driver with the Red Cross. Later he gets a commission as a transport officer in the artillery; and all the while, his mind works on his opera Padmavati, based on an Indian legend. His always-fragile health compromised, Albert is invalided out of the army in early 1918. While convalescing, he finally returns to composing Padmavati. Andante grazioso A mature craftsman rises early and exercises first his mind, either by playing his favorite composers, Bach and Chopin, or by tackling a mathematical problem. After that, the morning belongs to composition. If it is summer, the afternoon is devoted to long walks near his beloved sea. A staunch advocate of modern music and young composers, Albert is charming and cultured, if somewhat aloof from the mainstream of French musical society and trends. His heart, one friend says, remains perpetually open to everything new. You can hear this quality in his music, even if written when he was frail and elderly.

Maestoso A sixty-year-old composer, his reputation growing with every year, ventures out of France; not to the east as had been his wont when younger, but to the west — to America, for his first and only visit. A year earlier a musical festival was held in his honor in Paris; and now Serge Koussevitzky has commissioned a symphony to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Other major composers have also written symphonies for the anniversary, including Prokofiev, Honegger, and Stravinsky. Yet in this illustrious company, only Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms merits comparison with Albert's Third Symphony. Adagio Funebre A 68 year old man is warned by his doctors to rest. Albert goes to Royan in the southwest of France, but on August 13 he is compelled to take to bed, interrupting the composition of his Trio for oboe, clarinet and bassoon. He bears valiantly the suffering from a major heart attack. Shortly before 4:00 in the afternoon of August 23, 1937, the orphan, sailor, husband, ambulance driver, artillery officer, professor, craftsman and composer dies. Only the Andante movement of the Trio is finished; a sinuous, enigmatic tombstone. Coda (in cyclical form; d'Indy would have been proud) Roussel's first love wasn't music. It was the sea. Yet he never wrote any "sea" music; no La Mer or Four Sea Interludes; no topics related to the sea at all. Not even any music that depicts the sea. A forest blizzard, yes, (First Symphony), insects (Le festin de l'araignée), fauns and other mythical creatures aplenty (First Symphony, Bacchus et Ariane, La naissance de la lyre). But nothing of the sea. And we'll never know why not. . . .

A ship of the Sixteenth Century - from "The Fall of Icarus" by Breugel. Click the picture to see more. Can you find the fallen Icarus?

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