Henri Quittard
Henri Quittard (16 May 1864 – 21 July 1919) was a French composer, musicologist and music critic. Biography A musician, composer, musicologist and music critic, Quittard was both the cousin of Emmanuel Chabrier (Quittard being the grandson of Aunt Zélie dear to Chabrier) and Roger Désormière who he chaperoned when, at the age of 15, the future conductor left Vichy to enter the Conservatoire de Paris (the maternal grandmother of Désormiere was a Quittard). He obtained his baccalauréat in the early 1880s in Clermont-Ferrand where he began studying literature at the faculty, obtaining a bachelor's degree. At the instigation of Chabrier, he went to Paris, where he lived by giving lessons and trying to become a composer, following classes with César Franck. He also studied at the Oriental Languages (then École des langues orientales vivantes) where he met Louis Laloy. On 21 May 1891, the unique theatre play by Paul Verlaine, Les Uns et les Autres, in one act and in verse, was premiered at the Théâtre des Variétés, performed by the troupe du Théâtre d'Art. The music was by Quittard, like that of Cherubin by Charles Morice, in the same program. This "symbolist" evening had to be for the benefit of Verlaine and Paul Gauguin. This stage music had the honor of the concert at the Société Nationale de Musique on 8 February 1893, and accompanied the revival of the play, by the troupe of the Odeon, on the occasion of the festivities for the inauguration of the statue of Verlaine in the Jardin du Luxembourg on 28 May 1912. The second theatrical experience of Quittard took place one year after, again with the Théâtre d'Art. On 29 March 1892 was the générale, and on the 30th were given three plays including Les Noces de Sathan, an esoteric play by Jules Bois, music by Quittard at the theatre La Bodinière. (Debussy, solicited, withdrew late). The last music by Quittard for the theater was Le Prince naïf in 1895 by the Gachons brothers. This play, or rather this "lumino-tale", by , incidental music by Quittard, with sets by image-maker André des Gachons, was performed at the Théâtre Minuscule, 31, rue Bonaparte, in the hall of the newspaper La Plume. A professor of music, he taught singing at the Lycée Carnot in the 1904 school year. A musicographer (musicologist wasn't used by then), his first article was an obituary in Le Monde illustré dated 1 July 1899 dedicated to the singer Henri Sellier. Then he gave criticisms in another magazine, . From 1899 to 1902, Quittard took care of the musical part, from volume 24, for La grande encyclopédie : inventaire raisonné des sciences, des lettres et des arts (31 volumes, 1886–1902) by , publisher, Ferdinand-Camille Dreyfus and Marcellin Berthelot. Also in 1899, he joined the team of the Schola Cantorum of Paris to the pulpit of St-Gervais-et-St-Protais, 3 years after its foundation. There, he published his great study on Henry Du Mont and gave four short articles to the Tablettes