Maurice Jaubert

Maurice Jaubert (3 January 1900 – 19 June 1940) was a prolific French composer who scored some of the most important films of the early sound era in France, including Jean Vigo’s Zero for Conduct and L'Atalante, and René Clair’s Quatorze Juillet and Le Dernier Milliardaire. Serving in both world wars, he died in action during World War II at the age of 40.

Life and career
Born in Nice on 3 January 1900, he was the second son of François Jaubert, a lawyer who would become the president of the Nice bar.

Jaubert grew up in a musical household, and began playing the piano aged five. After gaining his baccalaureat from the Lycée Masséna in Nice in 1916, he enrolled at the Nice Conservatory of Music, where he studied harmony, counterpoint and piano. He was awarded the first piano prize in 1916.

Early career
Jaubert left for Paris and studied law and literature at the Sorbonne. When he returned to his native town in 1919, he was the youngest lawyer in France. His first compositions date from this period but soon after he undertook his military service and became an officer in engineering. Demobilized in 1922, Jaubert decided to give up law practice and devote all his time to music. The next year, he completed his musical education in Paris with Albert Groz, while undertaking a variety of music related jobs such as proof correction and checking Pleyela rolls.

Jaubert's compositions in the early 1920s include songs, piano pieces, chamber music, and divertissements. He wrote his first stage music in 1925 for a play by Calderón, Le Magicien prodigieux, using the Pleyela, a revolutionary player piano at the time. He was then hired by Pleyel to record rolls on the Pleyela. Indeed, Jaubert was always attracted by technical innovations that could serve his artistic aspirations. While working on this play, he met a young soprano, Marthe Bréga, who would sing most of his vocal compositions. They married in 1926, with Maurice Ravel as Jaubert's best man. They had a daughter, Françoise, in 1927. His 'poème chorégraphique' Le Jour was premiered by the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris under Pierre Monteux in 1931, while a Suite française was premiered by Vladimir Golschmann in St Louis the following year.

His music was written in a style of clarity, frankness and freedom, in which he did not seek novelty for the sake of it and in which his spontaneity is not weighed down by pedantic formulas.

His writings comprise articles and lectures, as well as a large number of letters that capture his political opinions. how he viewed his times, and his musical tastes (for example, he was a strong supporter of Kurt Weill when that composer was widely misunderstood).

Film scores
In 1929, while pursuing his work for the concert hall and the stage, Maurice Jaubert began writing and conducting for cinema. He collaborated with prominent directors such as Alberto Cavalcanti (Le Petit Chaperon Rouge), Jean Vigo (Zero for Conduct and L'Atalante), René Clair Quatorze Juillet and Le Dernier Milliardaire, Julien Duvivier (Carnet de bal and La Fin du Jour, Marcel Carné’s Drôle de drame, Hôtel du Nord, Quai des brumes (Port of Shadows), and Le Jour se lève (Daybreak) and Henri Storck’s Belgian documentaries.

He also worked briefly in the UK, scoring We Live in Two Worlds directed by Cavalcanti and produced by John Grierson.

In his films L'Histoire d'Adèle H. (1975), L'Homme qui aimait les femmes (1977) and La Chambre verte (1978), François Truffaut uses music by Jaubert.

Conductor
Although Maurice Jaubert understood and appreciated film, composing and scoring them was but one of his creative activities. As music director of Pathé-Nathan studio, he conducted the film scores of several other composers, including Arthur Honegger and Darius Milhaud. In the 1930s he gained a reputation as a conductor in France and abroad, most notably for the final season of Marguerite Bériza's opera company and the season of opéras-bouffes for the 1937 exposition (where he also led the premiere of his Jeanne d’Arc, Op. 61, a 'Symphonie concertante pour soprano et orchestre'). At the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, in 1937 he conducted the premiere of Philippine, an opérette, by Marcel Delannoy with libretto by Henri Lyon and Jean Limozin. The 'complainte de l'homme serpente' "Ah! Elle était de type femme" was recorded on Columbia by Hugues Cuénod with an orchestra conducted by Jaubert in November 1937.

Death
War, however, disrupted Jaubert's artistic path. Mobilized in September 1939, he joined an engineering company he would command as a reserve captain. His letters to his wife reflect a spirit of sacrifice tinged with deep humanism. Jaubert did not live to hear his last two compositions, written at his base camp. He was fatally wounded after having successfully blown up a bridge; he died a few hours later at the Baccarat Hospital on 19 June 1940.

Concert works

 * Impromptu (?) : for piano
 * 6 Inventions (?) : for piano
 * Suite en la (?) : for cello and piano
 * 4 Romances (1924) : for voice and piano
 * Cinq chants sahariens (1924) : for voice and small ensemble
 * Les Pêcheurs (1925) : ballet
 * Chants de la Côte (1925) «Popular Songs from Provence and Nice county» harmonized for one voice and piano
 * Contrebande (1927) : chamber opera based on a text by Georges Neveux
 * The Lie of Nina Petrovna (1929) : suite for piano taken from the cinematic score
 * Intermezzo (1929) : for piano and orchestra, taken from his cinematic score The Lie of Nina Petrovna
 * Cinq danses de l'Amazonie (1930) : for orchestra
 * Le jour (1931) : choreographic poem for symphony orchestra
 * Suite française (1932) : for orchestra
 * Quatorze Juillet (1933) : suite of danses for piano taken from his cinematic score
 * Ode à la Montagne (1933) : for orchestra
 * Deus Abraham (1934) : motet
 * Ballade (1934) : «Symphonie de Lewis» for orchestra, taken from Tessa
 * The Little Riding Hood (1935) : suite for piano, burlesque suite for 12 instruments
 * Nativité (1935) : cantate for soli, choir and orchestra
 * Cantate pour le temps pascal (1935) : for soli, choir and orchestra
 * Trio italien (1935) : for violin, viola and cello
 * Sonate a due (1936) : for violon, cello and string orchestra
 * Concert flamand (1936) : for orchestra
 * Intermèdes (1936) for string orchestra
 * Normandie (1937) : ballet for orchestra
 * Géographies (1937) : for choir and orchestra
 * Jeanne d'Arc (1937) : symphonie concertante for soli, choir and orchestra
 * Proses (1938) : pour mixed choir and orchestra
 * L'Eau vive (1938) : « 5 chants de métier from Haute-Provence» based on texts by Jean Giono
 * Caprice italien (1938) : concerto for string orchestra
 * Saisir (1939) : five melodies for soprano and small orchestra
 * Trois Psaumes pour le temps de guerre (1940) : for women choir, harp and piano

Filmography

 * 1926: Nana by Jean Renoir
 * 1929: Die wunderbare Lüge der Nina Petrowna (The Lie of Nina Petrovna) by Hanns Schwarz
 * 1930: Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood) by Alberto Cavalcanti
 * 1931: La Vie d'un fleuve, la Seine (The life of a river, the Seine) short feature documentary by Jean Lods
 * 1931: Au pays du scalp (documentary) by Robert de Wavrin
 * 1932: L'affaire est dans le sac (It's in the Bag) by Pierre Prévert
 * 1933: L'Homme mystérieux (The mysterious man) short feature by Maurice Tourneur
 * 1933: Quatorze Juillet (Bastille Day) by René Clair
 * 1933: Zéro de conduite (Zero for Conduct) by Jean Vigo
 * 1933: Mirages de Paris by Fedor Ozep
 * 1934: L'Île de Pâques (Easter Island) documentary by John Fernhout and Henri Storck
 * 1934: L'Atalante by Jean Vigo
 * 1934: Le dernier milliardaire (The Last Billionaire) by René Clair
 * 1935: Justin de Marseille (Justin from Marseille) by Maurice Tourneur (orchestra conducting)
 * 1936: Mayerling by Anatole Litvak
 * 1936: Barbe-Bleue (Bluebeard, animated short feature) by Jean Painlevé
 * 1936: La Vie parisienne (Life in Paris) by Robert Siodmak
 * 1937: We Live in Two Worlds short feature documentary by Alberto Cavalcanti
 * 1937: Un carnet de bal (A dance card) by Julien Duvivier
 * 1937: Drôle de drame (Strange drama) by Marcel Carné
 * 1938: Les Filles du Rhône (The Girls of the Rhône) by Jean-Paul Paulin
 * 1938: Le Quai des brumes (Port of Shadows) by Marcel Carné
 * 1938: Altitude 3.200 (At an altitude of 3,200 metres) by Jean Benoît-Lévy and Marie Epstein
 * 1938: Hôtel du Nord by Marcel Carné
 * 1939: Violons d'Ingres (Hobbies) short feature by Jacques B. Brunius
 * 1939: L'esclave blanche (The White Slave) by Marc Sorkin and Georg Wilhelm Pabst
 * 1939: La Fin du jour (At the close of the day) by Julien Duvivier
 * 1939: Le jour se lève (The break of day) by Marcel Carné

Maurice Jaubert played a small role as an orchestra conductor in La Nuit de décembre by Kurt Bernhardt, produced in 1939.

Discography
Except for soundtracks on films, this mainly consists of posthumously recorded music.
 * Ballade - Orchestre Symphonique conducted by Jaubert (recorded 2 November 1934)
 * In 1943 three movements from his Intermède pour orchestre à cordes, Op. 55 (Ouverture, Forlane, Musique de nuit) were recorded by the Orchestre Marius-François Gaillard
 * Georges Delerue conducts the film music of Maurice Jaubert : Le Jour se lève, L'Atalante, Le petit chaperon rouge, Un carnet de bal, Le Quai des brumes, Madrid Symphony Orchestra, Disques Cinémusique DCM 110 (recorded live in 1986, P 2003). Online presentation.
 * Maurice Jaubert - L'Atalante, Quai des brumes et autres musiques de films : also includes excerpts from Zéro de conduite, 14 juillet and L'île de Pâques. Orchestras conducted by Patrice Mestral and Serge Baudo. Milan CD CH 274.
 * Suite Française, Intermèdes and other Orchestral Works by l'Orchestre de chambre de Nice conducted by Jacques-Francis Manzone. Also includes piano pieces performed by Yoko Sawai, Disques Cinémusique Classique, recorded in 1989 and 2009, P 2009). Online presentation.
 * 25 ans de musique de cinéma français, orchestra conducted by Serge Baudo : Excerpts from film music scores, movie songs and piano pieces performed by par Yoko Sawai, Disques Cinémusique DCM 122, (recorded in 1956 and 2009, P 2009). One third of the program is devoted to Maurice Jaubert. Online presentation.
 * Concert Maurice Jaubert (2 CD) : Ballade, Trois psaumes pour le temps de guerre, Jeanne d'Arc, Géographies, Cantate pour le temps pascal. Choeur et orchestre national de la RTF conducted by Jean Martinon. Jacqueline Brumaire, soprano. Restored and edited version of a 1952 live recording, Disques Cinémusique Classique (P 2017). Presentation online.
 * A few of his songs have been recorded, by Paul Derenne, and Felicity Lott.