Rudhyar, Dane (real name, Daniel Chennevière)

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Rudhyar, Dane (real name, Daniel Chennevière)

Rudhyar, Dane (real name, Daniel Chennevière) , French-born American composer, painter, and mystical philosopher; b. Paris, March 23, 1895; d. San Francisco, Sept. 13, 1985. He changed his name in 1917 to Rudhyar, derived from an old Sanskrit root conveying the sense of dynamic action and the color red, astrologically related to the zodiacal sign of his birth and the planet Mars. He studied philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris (baccalaureat, 1911), and took music courses at the Paris Cons. In composition he was largely self-taught; he also achieved a certain degree of proficiency as a pianist; developed a technique which he called “orchestral pianism.” In 1913 the publisher Durand commissioned him to write a short book on Debussy, with whom he briefly corresponded. At the same time, he joined the modern artistic circles in Paris. In 1916 he went to America; became a naturalized American citizen in 1926. His “dance poems” for Orch., Poèmes ironiques and Vision végétale, were performed at the Metropolitan Opera in N.Y. (April 4, 1917). In 1918 he visited Canada; in Montreal he met the pianist Alfred Laliberté, who was closely associated with Scriabin, and through him Rudhyar became acquainted with Scriabin’s theosophic ideas. In Canada he also publ. a collection of French poems, Rapsodies (Toronto, 1918). In 1920 he went to Hollywood to write scenic music for Pilgrimage Play, The Life of Christ, and also acted the part of Christ in the prologue of the silent film version of The Ten Commandments produced by Cecil B. DeMille. In Hollywood he initiated the project of “Introfilms,” depicting inner psychological states on the screen through a series of images, but it failed to receive support and was abandoned. Between 1922 and 1930 he lived in Hollywood and N.Y.; was one of the founding members of the International Composers Guild in N.Y. In 1922 his orch. tone poem Soul Fire won the $1,000 prize of the Los Angeles Phil.; in 1928 his book The Rebirth of Hindu Music was publ. in Madras, India. After 1930 Rudhyar devoted most of his time to astrology. His first book on the subject, The Astrology of Personality (1936), became a standard text in the field; it was described by Paul Clancy, the pioneer in the publication of popular astrological magazines, as “the greatest step forward in astrology since the time of Ptolemy.” A new development in Rudhyar’s creative activities took place in 1938 when he began to paint, along nonrepresentational symbolistic lines; the titles of his paintings (Mystic Tiara, Cosmic Seeds, Soul and Ego, Avatar, etc.) reflect theosophic themes. His preoccupations with astrology left him little time for music; about 1965 he undertook a radical revision of some early compositions, and wrote several new ones; was also active as a lecturer.

The natural medium for Rudhyar’s musical expression was the piano; his few symphonic works were mostly orchestrations of original piano compositions. In his writing for piano he built sonorous chordal formations supported by resonant pedal points, occasionally verging on polytonality; a kinship with Scriabin’s piano music was clearly felt, but Rudhyar’s harmonic idiom was free from Scriabin’s Wagnerian antecedents. Despite his study of oriental religions and music, Rudhyar did not attempt to make use of Eastern modalities in his own music. He lived his last years in Palo Alto, Calif., and kept active connections with the world of theoso-phy; he also orchestrated his early piano works. Before his death his wife asked him whom he expected to meet beyond the mortal frame; he replied, “Myself.”

Works

ORCH.: 3 poèmes ironiques (1914); Vision végétale (1914); The Warrior, symphonic poem for Piano and Orch. (1921; Palo Alto, Dec. 10, 1976); Sinfonietta (1927); Syntonies in 4 sections: To the Real (1920), The Surge of Fire (1921), Ouranos (1927), and The Human Way (1927); Tripthong for Piano and Orch. (1948; rev. 1977); Thresholds (1954); Dialogues for Chamber Orch. (1977; San Francisco, May 23, 1982); Cosmic Cycle (1981). CHAMBER: 3 Melodies for Flute, Cello, and Piano (1919); 3 Poems for Violin and Piano (1920); Solitude for String Quartet (1950); Piano Quintet (1950); Barcarolle for Violin and Piano (1955); Alleluia for Carillon (1976); Nostalgia for Flute, Piano, and Strings (1977); 2 string quartets (Advent, 1978; Crisis and Overcoming, 1979). piano: 3 poèmes (1913); Mosaics, tone cycle in 8 movements on the life of Christ (1918); Syntony (1919–34; rev. 1967); 9 Tetragrams (1920–67)); Pentagrams (1924–26); 3 Paeans (1925); Granites (1929); Transmutation (1976); Theurgy (1976); Autumn and 3 Cantos (1977); Epic Poem (1979); Rite of Transcendence (1981). songs: 3 chansons de Bilitis (1919); 3 poèmes tragiques (1918); 3 invocations (1939).

Writings

Claude Debussy et son oeuvre (Paris, 1913); Art as Release of Power (N.Y., 1930); The Astrology of Personality (N.Y., 1936; 2^nd ed., 1979); The Practice of Astrology (Amsterdam, 1967; N.Y., 1970); The Planetarization of Consciousness (Amsterdam, 1970; N.Y., 1972); The Astrological Houses (N.Y., 1972); Culture, Crisis and Creativity (Wheaton, Ill., 1977); The Astrology of Transformation (Wheaton, 1980); The Magic of Tone and the Art of Music (Boulder, Colo., 1982); The Rhythm of Wholeness (Wheaton, 1983).