Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi

Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, ca. 1913

Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, 1909 (Léon Bakst)

Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi (2 October 1877 – 1 February 1944) was a multilingual music writer and critic who promoted musicians such as Franz Liszt and Modest Mussorgsky.

Life

Calvocoressi was born in Marseille, France, of Greek parents. At first, he studied law at the Lycée Janson de Sailly, and then studied music at the Conservatoire de Paris with Xavier Leroux. He became friends with Maurice Ravel who later dedicated "Alborada del gracioso" from the piano suite Miroirs to Calvocoressi. As a talented polyglot, Calvocoressi began a career in 1902 as a music critic and correspondent for several English, American, German and Russian periodicals. He also translated song texts, opera librettos and books from Russian and Hungarian into French and English. His subject of his first book was Liszt, but he was a strong proponent of Mussorgsky and other Russian musicians.

Calvocoressi lectured at the École des Hautes Études Sociales from 1905 to 1914, teaching about contemporary music. At the onset of World War I, the Greek Calvocoressi found himself unable to serve the French cause. He moved to London and served as a cryptographer. He spent the rest of his life in England, was naturalized, married an English citizen, and wrote the remainder of his books in English. Calvocoressi was a member of the Apaches music society. He died in London on 1 February 1944.

Legacy

Calvocoressi's legacy as a music critic and translator was his advocacy of Russian music. He wrote three books on Modest Mussorgsky and (with his friend Gerald Abraham) Masters of Russian Music (1936). He was the French advisor for Sergei Diaghilev as Diaghilev was introducing Russian arts to the French. After his death Abraham completed and brought to publication both Calvocoressi's Mussorgsky (Master Musicians series, 1946) and his larger study Modest Mussorgsky: His Life and Works (1956).

Books

• Liszt (Paris, 1905)
• Mussorgsky (Paris, 1908)
• Glinka (Paris, 1911)
• Schumann (Paris, 1912)
• Charles Koechlin (Paris, 1923)
• The Principles and Methods of Musical Criticism (London, 1923)
• Musical Taste and How to Form It (London, 1925)
• Musicians Gallery: Music and Ballet in Paris and London (London, 1933)
• Masters of Russian Music, with G. Abraham (London and New York, 1936)
• Debussy (London, 1944)
• A Survey of Russian Music (Harmondsworth, 1944)
• Mussorgsky (London, 1946), a new extensive biography of Mussorgsky posthumously published.
• Mussorgsky: His Life and Works (London, 1956)

External links

• The Michel-Dmitri Calvocoressi Manuscripts - Special Collections in Performing Arts at the University of Maryland