Alexis de Castillon
Marie -Alexis Castillon de Saint- Victor ( born December 13, 1838 in Chartres, † March 5, 1873 in Paris) was a French composer.
Life and work
Alexis de Castillon enjoyed an extensive musical training, so among other things piano lessons with the composer and pianist Charles de Delioux Savignac (1830-1880), who was then also Alberic Magnard taught. So Alexis de Castillon soon played the organ in the local chapel. The family tradition demanded by him in 1856, education in the Military Academy of Saint- Cyr. He was a second lieutenant in the 10th regiment of Cuirassiers and Lanzierer of royal rank. He also visited the Cercle de l' Union artistique, which had been founded by Prince Poniatowski in May 1860. 1861, after training at the Academy, Alexis de Castillon resumed teaching, this time at Victor Massé ( 1822-1884 ). On the advice of his friend Henri Duparc (1848-1933), he moved in 1869 to César Franck. He destroyed all his works and began under Franck line with the composition of a piano quintet, his new Opus 1
In 1870 he had a year in the German - French war, he also fought in the battle of Le Mans. Sick and weak he was finally returned in 1871 to compose.
Joël -Marie Fauquet represented the formalist tendency of compositions that is, distinguished by originality, especially in the Violin Sonata Op 6 and the Piano Quartet, Op 7 could be identified. The piano works, such as Cinq Pièces dans le style ancien op 9, have partly on an archaic design. In February 1871 Romain Bussine, Camille Saint- Saëns and Henri Duparc founded the Société Nationale de Musique. Alexis de Castillon was the first secretary. The world premiere of his Camille Saint- Saëns Piano Concerto dedicated at the Pasdeloup concerts in 1872 was scornfully ridiculed by the audience.
In the fall of 1873 Alexis de Castillon ill again and never recovered. He died on March 5 in his Paris apartment on the Rue Bayard. At his funeral in Saint -Pierre -de- Chaillot played Camille Saint- Saëns improvisations on the second theme from Castillons Piano Concerto.