Frank Martin

Frank Martin (1890–1974) was the most important Swiss composer of the twentieth century. Born in Geneva, the youngest of ten children of a Calvinist pastor of Huguenot descent, he was profoundly marked as a boy by hearing Bach’s St Matthew Passion, and a deep, questioning spirituality runs through much of his music. He came to his mature style relatively late and after long reflection, eventually forging a highly personal language that absorbed the chromatic intensity and even the twelve-note technique of Schoenberg into a music that nevertheless remained rooted in tonality and rich in lyrical feeling. The result is instantly recognisable: refined, subtly coloured, harmonically piquant, and often suffused with a grave, mysterious beauty. Works such as the oratorio Le Vin herbé, the Petite symphonie concertante and the Mass for double choir secured his reputation. He spent much of his later life in the Netherlands, and is remembered as a composer of rare integrity and quiet originality.