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Concept
Paul Paray
Summary
Paul Marie-Adolphe Charles Paray (pɔl paʁɛ) (24 May 1886 – 10 October 1979) was a French conductor, organist and composer. He was the resident conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 1952 until 1963.
Paul Paray was born in Le Tréport, Normandy, on 10 October 1886. His father, Auguste, a sculptor, organist at St. Jacques church, and leader of an amateur musical society, put young Paray in the society's orchestra as a drummer. Later, Paray went to Rouen to study music with the abbots Bourgeois and Bourdon, and organ with Haelling, which prepared him to enter the Paris Conservatoire.
In 1911, Paray won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata Yanitza. Deprived of paper while a prisoner of war during World War I, Paray composed his string quartet in E minor, and the piano suite D'une âme..., both in his head, only writing them down from memory after the war. Once the war was over, Paray was invited to conduct the orchestra of the Casino de Cauterets in the Pyrenees, which included players from the Lamoureux Orchestra. Casino de Cauterets was a springboard for him to conduct orchestras in Paris.
Paray would later serve as music director of the Monte Carlo Orchestra. In 1922, Paray composed music for the Ida Rubinstein ballet Artémis troublée. That year he and the Spanish violinist Manuel Quiroga premiered his Violin Sonata. In 1931, he wrote the Mass for the 500th Anniversary of the Death of Joan of Arc, which was premiered at the cathedral in Rouen to commemorate the quincentenary of Joan of Arc's martyr death. Paray became president of the Concerts Colonne, and in 1935, he wrote his Symphony No. 1 in C major, which premiered there. Paray made his American debut with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra in 1939. He composed his Symphony No. 2 in A major in 1941.
In 1952, Paray was appointed music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, going on to conduct them in numerous recordings for the Mercury Records' "Living Presence" series. Paray left Detroit in 1963.
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