Albert Roussel

Albert Roussel (1869-1937) was a French composer who came to music late. Born in Tourcoing, he first made a career as a naval officer and resigned his commission in 1894 to study music, eventually at the Schola Cantorum in Paris under Vincent d’Indy, where he remained a student until 1908. He also taught there, and his pupils included Erik Satie, Edgard Varèse and, later, Bohuslav Martinů. His early works are close to the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel; after the First World War he moved towards a leaner, rhythmically driven neoclassical style, heard in his last two symphonies and in the ballet ‘Bacchus et Ariane’.